Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mit-eddie!ll-xn!oberon!bbn!inmet!ishmael!inmet!authorplaceholder
From: justin@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Doom and Gloom, Reply to Andrew
Message-ID: <122600002@inmet>
Date: 15 Feb 88 19:58:00 GMT
References: <1222@polyslo.UUCP>
Lines: 44
Nf-ID: #R:polyslo.UUCP:-122200:inmet:122600002:000:2636
Nf-From: inmet.UUCP!justin    Feb 15 14:58:00 1988


John --

   To date, I have ignored this whole argument as (probably) pointless.
Since you seem determined to keep it going, however, I've got to point out
that you are being *very* blithe with a very complex issue. Among other things,
you say that it is very unlikely that 1 in three US households would *want*
a computer in the near future. I think that this is quite careless; you are
entirely ignoring the tendency for new applications to make use of a) the power
of the existing machines, and b) the possible market.

   For example, I can think of two applications which are in the initial
stages of catching on, which could completely invalidate this assumption.
First, there is videotex. So far, no one has managed to get a good videotex
service into the mass market. There are a lot of people concentrating on
this issue, though, and it would open up new worlds of utility for the
machines. Second, a number of people are beginning to notice the potential
that new technologies like hypertext have for education. A good, solid
education package or ten could create an enormous incentive for parents
to buy computers.

   Neither of these are going to happen tomorrow. Videotex requires cheaper
computers than are the norm right now, and CAE requires more powerful
ones. However, I would be surprised if they weren't *both* important 
factors in the industry in five years.

   Then again, Eric Drexler could figure out how to end world hunger,
make peace, and make humanity immortal next Monday. The point is, it is
almost *impossible* to guess what will happen in the future of techonology,
and I find it rather irritating when someone comes forward, presenting
a pretty casual analysis of that future, and presents it as fact.
Doing an objective, likely-to-be-accurate analysis of this issue is a
project on the scale of a PhD dissertation (or, more likely, several
such dissertations). I'm not saying that you are definitely wrong; I
would simply like to request that you stop asserting that it *will* be
this way, and admit that this is *one* *possible* *outcome*.

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