From: Ricardo Barreira (rbarreira@gmail.com)
Date: Sat Apr 22 2006 - 13:04:55 MDT
I read the pdfs on that link, and found some parts quite funny:
"Live in the woods for a week and see if it's your laptop you miss most."
Basically this quote means "a laptop is not necessary to survive",
which says nothing about its usefulness for humans, which commonly
have higher objectives than surviving.
"The Internet is the plastic of the twenty-first century. Its
important applications aren't new and the new ones aren't important."
So, sending large content quickly and easily around the world isn't
new and important?
"Technology change is disrupting, but it has been for centuries. Change is
unchanging. Relax–the carousel isn't spinning faster."
Yeah right, as if people couldn't feel the increasingly faster changes
that technology imposes nowadays compared to a few centuries ago.
"Sure, today's technology is a big deal. But so was yesterday's. We
stand on the shoulders of giants."
Thank you, Captain Obvious! Do most people really need to hear this? I
don't think people are so stupid as to believe that technologies are
made in a vacuum, disregarding the past...
"The Internet hasn't revolutionized a thing—it just lets you do what
you already could do, but with a little more speed or convenience."
My opinion is that, even if the second part of this sentence is true
(disregarding the "a little more speed" part, which is obviously
false), the first one isn't - human nature dictates that speed and
convenience are capable of affecting qualitative aspects, not only
quantitative ones. People do things they didn't do in the past because
they have access to information and the capability of doing
smaller/prerequisite things faster.
He also makes a lot of true points, but those are mostly in the "don't
waste so much money on upgrades and new stuff if you don't really need
to change", not in the technology trend areas.
Ricardo Barreira
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