On Sun, May 13, 2001 at 07:41:28PM -0700, Lee Corbin wrote:
> Spike wrote:
>
> >Tech prognostication is optimistic always in the short
> >term, laughably pessimistic always in the long term.
>
> I think that Spike has nailed it :-)
>
> Perhaps the reason is the following. Laughable optimism
> characterizes the possible developments that are easy to
> see coming. So it was laughably optimistic, for example,
> to believe that flying cars were immanent.
>
> But in the long term, developments that couldn't have been
> foreseen are the ones that dominate. And that's why the
> long term prognostications are laughably pessimistic.
Of course, then we better reevaluate what we think. After all, we
transhumanists seem to be optimistic about both near and far
developments. Hence we better be more cautious about the near future and
the speed various transforming technologies appear, while our wild far
future extrapolations might be too *mild*.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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