Just so we are clear, I am pro-cheese. I use these little observational techniques like what if it was like this and then - voom - nothing but emails from cheesemakers. But do they hold Cheese 2020 think tank get togethers, too?
The internet will be a thriving, low-cost network of billions of devices by 2020, says a major survey of leading technology thinkers... More than half of respondents had a positive vision of the net's future but 46% had serious reservations. Almost 60% said that a counter culture of Luddites would emerge, some resorting to violence.That is odd. Seeing as the persent lot of luddites who would terrorize us back into the medieval rely largely upon the internet to discuss this way and that way to remove rights though violence, why would they attack the internet? Where can this foolisness being coming from?
"Today's eco-terrorists are the harbingers of this likely trend," wrote Ed Lyell, an expert on the internet and education. "Every age has a small percentage that cling to an overrated past of low technology, low energy, lifestyle."Oh. My. God. Cory figured out a new one. And soon Dave Winer will take credit for it. [Ed.: rimshot! Yawn.] Of course there will be more. How else to get on conference speaker lists? There really should be a 20% of a year's income deposit for these sorts of statements. If only because they should be pulled out and made accountable. And you should have to make six- and eighteen-month predictions along with the long term ones so we can judge the actual skills of the foreshadowing futurist. And for the creation and neato-sourcing of an idea like "the Unabomber of the Internet" so that 27 jerks can now start day dreaming about it."Of course there will be more Unabombers," wrote Cory Doctorow of blog BoingBoing. Some commentators felt that the violence would either be tied to the effects of technology, rather than the technology itself, or possibly civil action around issues such as privacy.
Comments
Hans - September 25, 2006 8:55 AM
On whom will the luddites do their violence? Or to put it another way, what possible targets could anti-internet luddite terrorists attack that would advance their goals?
Alan - September 25, 2006 9:00 AM
They would have to strike at the heart of anti-ludditism. What the anti-luddites fail to understand is that traditional ways of doing that which just happen to fail to put money into the pockets of futurists are not bad ways of doing things. It is a failure to accept the necessary redistribution of wealth that the anti-luddites hate and need to attack. I am far more concerned with the anti-luddite.
Hans - September 25, 2006 10:41 AM
A strike at the very Heart of Anti-Ludditism!!! Shocking!!!
Gordo - September 25, 2006 1:27 PM
I don't know what's funnier, Alan: the thought of some sort of Luddite army attacking the inernet or your obvious and visceral hatred for anything even remotely connected to Cory Doctorow.
Alan - September 25, 2006 1:42 PM
I have absolutely no hatred at all. That is rudeness itself and a complete faslehood and if I did not know you better I would delete the comment. I am convinced he and I would make the best of pals and enjoy each others company. I do, however, reserve the right to make comment on the ideas of all manner of people. Even my pals. If not, we end up agreeing with the category of an idea's source and not the idea itself. <p>That being said, Cory's ideas about the future - like those of <i>any</i> futurist - are ripe for as much ridicule as the output of any astrologer syndicated in a weekly newspaper except that they are less often cross-checked for their usefulness. His sometimes erroneous pronouncement on the present state of copyright law are more rigourously analyzed, even by myself when they pop up into my field of vision.<p>But do not be fooled. Discourse about ideas is vital and Cory does that job well - or at least starts things off. The real harm arises when guruism arises. And, if I were being as rude as you, I would suspect you have fallen into the pit of guru and can't see a way out. If you are unaware of the meaning of pit of guru, I suggest you read here.
Gordo - September 25, 2006 4:16 PM
No disrespect intended, Alan. But, you have appeared to a bit trigger happy with the mockery wrt the Boingish world. Even you have to admit that. You're also intelligent enough to know that Cory's just playing a role here. He just supplied the quote that the scribe needed before deadline. If he hadn't said it, someone else would have.
The joke is that he's absolutely right. There will be more Ho Chih Minh's, Somozas, Osamas and Saddams as long as a certain empire continues to install leaders and support rebels in coutries and cultures about which they know too little.
Gordo - September 25, 2006 4:18 PM
Whoops. That second paragraph should start: "There will <b>also</b> be more Ho Chih Minh's ..."
Alan - September 25, 2006 4:22 PM
Nope. Dead wrong, Gordo. You seem to have accepted a party line somewhere.
Chris Taylor - September 25, 2006 5:32 PM
I'm okay with mocking Cory or any other tech guru. Everyone who writes about technology for a living is wrong and always will be. Twenty odd years of all that pop-junk Gibson and Coupland garbage and we're still no closer to a fully immersive 3D internet and our transhuman future than we were then.
Alan - September 25, 2006 6:28 PM
We should only have one question: where's my jet pack?
Gordo - September 25, 2006 10:49 PM
I still want my flying car, but I'm confused as to what party line I may have inadvertently swallowed. Please clarify?
Alan - September 25, 2006 11:20 PM
You may have been guru-ed when you were not paying attention.
Gordo - September 26, 2006 10:47 AM
I give up. Alan, you are the guru of inscrutable-ness.
Alan - September 26, 2006 11:20 AM
Don't give up! My defensive wall is one of my greatest charms.