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.”
“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.
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.