[WikiEN-l] The Internet? Bah!

[stevertigo]

Nathan <nawrich at gmail.com> wrote:
> Now that it is what it is, any idiot can look back and say it was
> obvious what would happen. Far more people got it wrong 15-20 years
> ago, and I guess its good for a chuckle (especially since this
> particular writer was so condescending) - but hindsight is as perfect
> as foresight is rare.

Its not about having some kind of crystal ball, though. It's about
giving credence to people who understand the components and can, in
their mind at least, put them together long before they can be put
together in material form. It would help any confusion of course if
visionaries could explain their visions with more conviction and
convincing detail. But in that case though, the writer was just
completely and perfectly wrong about everything.

And that's in part due to (as you say) that conventional tendency. The
point here is that it's a tendency based in not giving credence to the
most competent visions, not just in natural incapacity. Even the
objections which haven't yet been totally disproven ('no
hypergovernment') will of course have to fall also, just to satisfy
statistical idealism.

And are laypeople today really going to start arguing with a David
Deutch or a Peter Shor? I think Stoll must have hit mid-age and that
set his thoughts back to 1983, in which state of mind he penned a
treasure trove's worth of postdated humor. Nobody could actually get
all the answers wrong - that is, nobody, but a guy who really knew all
the answers.

-Stevertigo
"And carried on without a comma...