Sunday, October 05, 2003

First you had Bill Joy claiming that the sky is falling, Kurzweil and Joy on the 21st century. Now Bruce Sterling with Ten Technologies That Deserve to Die"?

Yes, technology, and humans by their very nature themselves and their technology, are a fractious and two-edged lot. In Bruce's case better things need to replace the old tech. Plain and simple. It's all a matter of time. There's a meta-rule out there that says we do not fully adopt a new technology unless it is 10 times better than the old. For short term change, I agree with this. Anything else is just improvement on the current tech. Though constant improvement over time will make something very different.

A good example is house building technologies. The houses built today are vastly different from those built in the 50's (safer, energy efficent, etc). Those changes are mainly from small leaps instead of drastic ones.

Overall, not sure if I agree with Bruce's evaulation. Yes, things will change, but there are always chicken littles claiming that the sky is falling. This ties in with an earlier blog post, "individuality and how technology affects us".

TOPICS: tech, society

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