On Fri, 2005-07-08 at 10:10 -0400, Cordell, Arthur: ECOM wrote: > The infrastructure of modern society (electrical grids, rail lines, > highways, the internet, etc., etc.,) was all designed and put in place > before the reality of terrorism. > > As we replace infrastructure, design criterial will have to take into > account the reality of the "new" war. > It's just struck me how prescient I was in 75!! In public debates over nuclear power with the likes of the UKAEA, I was arguing the Robert Junck "Nuclear State" line, along with a communitarian-environmentalist line about decentralisation of energy supplies being a way to reduce vulnerabilities, increase local economic activities and employment, and generally bring about a preferred proto-heaven on earth (comparatively speaking). One of my points was a growing threat from terrorism as a high probability within the next generation or two as resource wars started being fought directly or by proxy (with the outcome for nuke material and plants being particularly nasty if "got at", hence the nuclear security state prognosis). I was also considered a looney for pointing out at the time that computers were a communications device, not a computation device, and that this and not robotics was the threat of the "micro" by disrupting organisational traditions and causing relocations and the simultaneous dispersal and concentration of control into fewer and fewer hands. Pop went any chance of research grants and an academic career despite a promising start...
Now ... that was 30 years ago. Seems I was spot on. A full generation and a bit, eh? Even right about where the cockpit was going to be ... not that THAT took too much prescience 30 year back, though. _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
