Did he really write that? [Or say it.] <The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in "Metcalfe's law" – which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants – becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet's impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine. – Paul Krugman, 1998 >
He was obviously unaware that Queen Victoria on being told about a cable to India whereby she could speak to the Maharajah or somebody asked "But what would I say to them?" She did not know Metcalfe's Law or much about the Cyberspace age, but she was up there with Paul Krugman in failing to understand the significance. Another 100 years after her death, one would think that somebody who should be up with things of economic importance would be able to understand the advantages, or perhaps just a few of them, if not the metaphysical and teleological implications.
Paul was unaware that even then, the fax machine was in big trouble and was to be gobbled by Cyberspace as a minor thing of such insignificance in the broad scheme of things that if you asked 100 people what are the top 10 things that the internet has done, superseding the fax machine would not make the list.
Perhaps Paul has not heard of a transducer and does not realize that transducers are available for all functions whether it's measuring temperature, wind, rain, waves, radar monitoring, lumens, rads, metres, gas emissions, infrared emissions from people, and the sun, and gamma rays, vibrations, metals present, and semi metals, chemicals present, DNA present, fingerprints present, irises present, voices present, facial recognition of whole crowds, money movement, words written, or spoken, images sent, or music sent, ... hey, wait a minute. If we could put all that together, we could put whole cities in "Lockdown" and be in total control of everyone and everything. Hey, that was funny, right after I wrote that, "What do you mean "we" Mq?" appeared on my screen for a couple of seconds. Weird. Computers do tend to do things by themselves these days and Siri can offer sage advice. GPS units can tell a person exactly what to do and pretty soon the vehicle driver won't need to be told because the Google autocar will simply take them where they should be going.
Krugman and Queen Victoria were obviously unaware that the telegraph and Cyberspace are the biggest thing not just since the industrial revolution [which was still revving up when Queen V spoke - or didn't speak], but since all of the industrial revolution combined, and since the invention of the wheelbarrow, and the invention of the wheel and the iron age, and fire and the bronze age, and stone-throwing in the stone age and all of the inventions of humans since they were chimps but also since the invention of mammals, and reptiles. We have to go back past the invention of feet, fins, fur, fangs, fingers, neurons and way back past the invention of sex [the purpose of which was not to fund cash flow in Cyberspace for pornography though that has accelerated the development of Cyberspace because of the vast data demand], and mitochondria. Everything combined since the invention of DNA is not as important as Cyberspace. The invention of DNA was pretty good, but even that was just wet chemistry with a grindingly slow evolutionary development rate. It took a billion years to invent Obama, Ted Kaczynski and Osama. But it did come up with Albert Einstein and Irwin Jacobs, Steve Jobs and genetic engineering. Fortunately, and I'm ever appreciative.
After another 100 years, Paul will understand that Cyberspace is a LOT more important than the fax machine. Actually, he won't, but if his wet chemistry and telomeres were not doomed to be recycled, he might do.
Gold bugs will learn that too = that the invention of Cyberspace supersedes things, such as, for example, gold which has at least out-lasted the fax machine though I still have more fax machines than gold and plan on buying more Cyberspace devices than gold.
Nearly everyone today is like Queen Victoria then when they consider the implications of Cyberspace = "What the Hell are you talking about? I have nothing to say." Some even think that Gold beats Google.
Gold, God, Google ... place your bets and find which is most economically important. The Boston Bombers go with God. The Atavistic Aztecs go with Gold. The Cyberspacoids go with Google. Pick your winners.
The market capitalisation of Cyberspace companies now exceeds the market capitalisation of Gold and God combined and is rapidly gaining ground. Even Big Brother is getting nervous that he is going to be superseded. "1984" is so last century. Hey, weird. "Okay, that's enough" just popped up on my scree...
Mqurice |
