Why the internet will fail (from 1995)
Lincoln Cannon
5 March 2010 (updated 29 October 2016)
“No online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works.” - Clifford Stoll, Newsweek, Feb 27, 1995
Computing continues to change the way we work and play, expanding our capacities in ways previous generations could hardly imagine. Not a few have been excessively skeptical of the possibilities, displacing considered questioning with indiscriminate dismissal. Not a few continue to indulge in that excess. Faith need not be blind, passive or unreasoning. Practical faith is not merely a cognitive position. It is a creative will, seeking a way to empower its desires. Maybe we can engineer solutions to climate change, over-population, aging and even death. “No way”? Way.
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