[geeks] Wishful thinking... Discussion primer

[Jonathan Patschke]

On Thu, 26 May 2016, Edward Mitchell wrote:

>>  How much technological change could you bring about by taking a
>>  shipping container full of 2016-era computers (and full copy of
>>  wikipedia) to 1975?
>
> Interesting.  I wonder if you might slow things down by offering to
> negate 40 years of progress and effort.  In other words, people were
> working on set {A} of problems, ideas, theories, etc. on $day-1.  On
> $day+1, they have the option of not undertaking any of that work or
> research.  Yes, they would have the results of that work available, but
> they would not have experienced and passed on the creative aspects which
> produced the outcome in 2016.

We have several ways of seeing that in the present day.

It's graduation season.  Go find someone fresh out of college and pick
their brain.  They literally cannot remember a time before Windows 95 and
the world-wide web.  "8-bit" is either a generation of video games or a
type of music that nerds listen to.

They've likely never used a computer before the DMCA was enacted;
reverse-engineering isn't something that hobbyists do--it's something
criminals do.

Take a look at the areas of the world that have just gotten Internet
access and ready access to computers.  If Microsoft got there first, a "C
drive" is as fundamental to computers as a NAND gate; Windows got to frame
the whole ecosystem.

But, in these cases, they have the ability to look back at what history
we've preserve to examine paths not-taken and branched pruned.  Any number
of "modern" innovations have come from looking at ways of doing things
that were less practical decades ago.  Short-circuiting that means not
having that experience to mine for future developments.

> That depends.  Would the Soviets get to play?  That sort of technology
> could really alter the Cold War, possibly with disastrous consequences,
> i.e. "But the super-fast magic computer keeps spitting out the same
> answer - we CAN win.  Launch!!"

Indeed.  Competition keeps species, corporations, and nations honest and
in check.

-- 
Jonathan Patschke
Austin, TX
USA