Arthur wrote:
> http://www.crummy.com/writing/hosted/The%20Year%202000.html
>
>The list of forecasts. ....
Read the book sometime in the 70s.
Looking at the list, he was the least prescient in the domain of
biology. Biology -- in the broadest sense -- is really hard and, as
Keith points out, we don't know as much now as we thought we did 20
years ago, the vast amount of new stuff learned in the period
notwithstanding. Just as an example, some disease conditions that
have long been regarded as autoimmune or idiopathic [1] appear now to
be caused, directly or indirectly, by mycoplasmas, a category of
microorganism that's been known for a long time but which has largely
slipped under the pathogenesis and diagnostic radar.
More culpably, the author writes,
85.Maintenance-free, longlife electronic and other equipment
92.Common use of (longlived?) individual power source for lights,
appliances, and machines
"Longlife"? C'mon guy, you know that as soon as we saturate the
market, we have to step off the top of sales sigmoid onto the rise of
the next one, for the next generation/model that totally obsoletes
and floccinaucinihilipilifies the previous model. "The Wonderful
One-Hoss Shay" wasn't made by a capitalist, y'know?
- Mike
[1] Idiopathic: "A high-flown term to conceal ignorance"
-- Isaac Asimov
--
Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~.
/V\
[email protected] /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^
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