Re: In 1995, this astronomer predicted the Internet's greatest failure

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

> Subject:    Re: [IP] In 1995, this astronomer predicted the Internet's greatest failure
> Date:    Sun, 23 Jul 2017 18:41:43 +0200
> From:    Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond <ocl () gih com>
> To:    dave () farber net, dewayne () warpspeed com
>
> (for IP, if you wish)
>
> Dear Dave,
>
> no, no, no, no, no, no! No, not that again!
>
> Doom and gloom sells. Cassandras have prophesied accounts of war and doom, and people have been keen to echo their 
> most terrible experiences to reinforce their own morose forecasts about the future of the world - and that it used to 
> be so much better before. Well, I am sorry, but I maintain quite the opposite: that things are a lot better today 
> than they ever were.
> Let's take Cliff Stoll's predictions. Now before I start, I must say that I have the uttermost respect for him, 
> whilst having never met him in person, but having devoured his excellent book the Cuckoo's Egg back in 1989. Cliff 
> shared an early version of his "predictions" on the USENET newsgroup comp.dcom.telecom - aka Telecom Digest 
> (apparently the Internet's oldest mailing list) in a post entitled "Thrills of Long Distance", on 27 July 1992 - (The 
> posting can be found on: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/comp.dcom.telecom/V4Dja8lt27Y/huUlemiwhq0J ) nearly 25 
> years ago - and I suspect took it several years to amplify them into a longer, more polished publication. 
> Back then, I was an inexperienced PhD student with obviously too much time and optimism on my hands and a rosy view 
> of the future. My response to Cliff's points, ( archived on: 
> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/comp.dcom.telecom/IOkWaiFZ0uI/PVPmVQ83_YMJ ) might have been impertinent, and 
> looking back now, having passed 40 years old many years ago, outrageously age-discriminatory, *but* I still maintain 
> that we should not be longing for the "good old days". USENET might have withered away for all sorts of reasons, but 
> the Internet itself has brought more good things to the world that any other technology I can think of - except, 
> perhaps, the Wheel and Fire. Admittedly the cacophony of voices, fake news, information wars and hate propaganda have 
> bruised and stretched the limits of our cosy but fragile democracies, but I still shed a tear of joy when I 
> physically meet people from very       deprived communities in Soweto, Dakar, Nakuru, Mumbai, Cairo, Cusco, X'ian, 
> Ourika and so many other places, people from indigenous communities and people who are physically disabled, who tell 
> me what the Internet has done for them, how it has improved their life, how it has enabled them to make a living, to 
> put food on the family's table every evening. These are people who tell me they cannot find words strong enough to 
> thank the people who have       invented the Internet, because it has completely changed their life for the better. 
> And yes, in their world, things were not better in the "good old days".
>
> Focussing on crying about the Internet of Hate and the angst that this is procuring us, including the stress of 
> information overload, might well be a western world social disease as we reminisce about how much more harmonious our 
> world used to be without the Internet. For the majority of the world out there, from what I hear and see, today 
> appears to be way better than yesterday and the Internet often has something to do with this improvement.
>
> Cliff's Stoll's piece in 1995 has been regularly dug out as it was ridiculed by some people. Whilst I had an opposite 
> view to his predictions I do admit that he was partially correct on some - and that's the great thing about the 
> Internet: the diversity of views. Some call it a cacophony.
>
> Kindest regards,
>
> Olivier
>
> -- 
> Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond, PhD
> http://www.gih.com/ocl.html
>
> > In 1995, this astronomer predicted the Internet’s greatest failure
> > And, of course, we trolled him for it for decades.
> > By Rob Howard
> > Jul 18 2017
> > <https://medium.com/the-mission/in-1995-this-astronomer-predicted-the-internets-greatest-failure-68a1c3927e46>
>
>
> Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: <http://dewaynenet.wordpress.com/feed/>


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