🚀 go-pugleaf

In <1996Jan21.154018.112417@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>
hoopes@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (John Hoopes) writes: 
>
>>>> As an archaeologist who regularly deals with human cultural 
>>>> phenomena over broad spans of time (500 years is not a daunting 
>>>> chunk), I am far more optimistic about our ability to formulate a 
>>>> pretty good idea of what things will be like a thousand years in
the
>>>> future.  
>> 
>> I doubt that any 19th century
>> archaeologist excavating 14-th
>> century ruins - or even his own 19th century's
>> garbage heaps - could have predicted, say, this
>> Internet...
>> 
>I beg to differ.  The Internet is a logical outcome of the invention
of the printing
>press, which was a revolutionary discovery in its own time.

Of course it was; but the "logical outcome"
part is palpably untrue: the Interenet
is made possible by electronic computers,
and many other technological breakthroughs,
which are based on completely different 
technological and scientific ideas than the 
movable print. The press could exist, and these
other things could be impossible; there's no
logical connection. 

And then there's the plain fact: no one back then
(archaeologist or not) *did* predict it...

>  Besides, if you had read
>and understood my posts, you would realize that I believe the Internet
is of marginal
>importance for the majority (and growing) world population--many of
whom have yet to
>realize the benefits of the printing press!

This just shows how one can fail to see
a revolutionary development even *after* it happens.
The Internet is a wholly new type of human
community - a cultural and social revoFrom: jwas@ix.netcom.com(jw )
Newsgroups: talk.environment,sci.environment,biz.marketplace.international.discussion,alt.politics.economics,alt.future.millennium,alt.building.environment
Subject: Re: WHAT WILL LIFE LOOK LIKE IN 3000 AD?
References: <NEWTNews.24704.821471909.wissprod@pi-user.pi.net> <4dkqqg$1hj@ixnews8.ix.netcom.com> <1996Jan21.154018.112417@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>

In <1996Jan21.154018.112417@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>
hoopes@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (John Hoopes) writes: 
>
>>>> As an archaeologist who regularly deals with human cultural 
>>>> phenomena over broad spans of time (500 years is not a daunting 
>>>> chunk), I am far more optimistic about our ability to formulate a 
>>>> pretty good idea of what things will be like a thousand years in
the
>>>> future.  
>> 
>> I doubt that any 19th century
>> archaeologist excavating 14-th
>> century ruins - or even his own 19th century's
>> garbage heaps - could have predicted, say, this
>> Internet...
>> 
>I beg to differ.  The Internet is a logical outcome of the invention
of the printing
>press, which was a revolutionary discovery in its own time.

Of course it was; but the "logical outcome"
part is palpably untrue: the Interenet
is made possible by electronic computers,
and many othlution
in the making, comparable both to the invention of
writing and to urbanization.

Most people do not personally use it yet? True, but
(1) most people in ancient Egypt or Mesopotamia
were illiterate; and yet writing was one of the 
defining fea the plain fact: no one back then
(archaeologist or not) *did* predict it...

>  Besides, if you had read
>and understood my posts, you would realize that I believe the Internet
is of marginal
>importance for the majority (and growing) world population--many of
whom have yet to
>realize the benefits of the printing press!

This just shows how one can fail to see
a revolutionary development even *after* it happens.
The Internet is a wholly new type of human
community - a cultural and social revothroughs, and not merely
on cultural trends. 

Then, *if* one did
somehow predict the breakthrough, the problem
of predicting its cultural impact would arise,
and here, indeed, historical vision would help
a lot.
However, even that would hardly be sufficient to 
predict the synergistic effect of *many* breakthroughs:
a historical analogy for the *combination*
would probably be unavailable.

>> Of course, changes of this magnitude
>> occurred before, they just took
>> longer. Could a preliterate 
>> have predicted writing? 
>> He'd have to invent it first!
>> 
>Methods of remembering  and communicating information have been around
as long as humans
>have been.  

Sure; and even dogs leave olfactory mail for each other
at every post. The problem with such analogies is that
they are only drawn backwards, and then they 
amount to special pleading: the features of the
past are selected and grouped according to the
already known present.

>They have just increased in volume and efficiency.

And in content, and psychological meaning, and in social
function, and in everything else of importance.

Whatever new thing happens, one can always find
some rudiments of it before. Before it happened,
one wouldn't see these rudiments from *this*
point of view. 

>What you view as an "explosion" of technology still has a trickle-down
effect as far as
>the total world population is concerned.  Those without access to this
technology are
>multiplying far faster than the ability to deliver it.  Think of how
many people in
>Africa, India, and China are still living with an Iron Age technology.

This is quite untrue.
Only a small minority of the planet's people, for example,
never come within earshot of radio, and have nothing made
of plastic around them; and these are just two examples
out of thousands. The majority of the world's citizens
are urban (or suburban) dwellers already, exposed
to all kinds of modern artifacts.
And even most rural dwellers wouldn't
be alive if they did not use modern fertilizers
and modern crop breeds and modern tools. 
 
>  How long will it
>be before the real  benefits of the Space Age or the Information Age
reach them?  Yes,
>they get the weapons, poisons, toys, and even music, but we need to
consider achieving
>literacy before we get as far as computer literacy.

I don't know why "before" - they help each other
in either direction; but in any case
both literacies have been expanding very rapidly,
and predominantly in the order you prefer.
Most of the world is somewhat literate already, 
and now it is getting wired, and thereby knit 
together in a completely new way. 

This process will probably run its course to completion;
there will be a global electronic village, with
relatively few people left outside.
However, this is a short-term prediction: a few decades
only - and what unexpected innovations
will be at work then?