: Vladimir Litvak litvak at vms.huji.ac.il
Hi Vladimir
My name is Bob. I was around 30 years ago and this was imagined then, but
I get your point. A thousand years ago some people wanted magic charriots
that could cover great distances at great speed and flying carpets that
could take us to the coluds where we could fly like the birds and a magic
potient to cure or prevent smallpox so everyone could have complexions
like a milk maid. These things have all come to pass and and some thought
it would be bad but I think things are pretty good. Issac Asimov had a
story called the elevator effect. Before 1850 or so if you asked a
science fiction writer to imagine the turn of the century (1900) city of
New York he would have predicted the city with multi story buildings
with all the rich people occupying all the lower floors and all the
poor people having to live on the upper floors and having to climb all
those stairs. Then, boom, along comes the elevator and turns everything
upside down.
Nothing is static. Technology causes many problems to be sure but it also
can be used to straighten things out.
Life on the planet is more complex but better today (IMHO). It seems
that as soon as you think you have things pretty well figured out, along
comes someone with something new that might force you to have to change your
plans. From an evolutionary standpoint it seems we need a delayed
puberity now and more time to learn how we can fit in our surroundings.
(we didn't need this a 1000 years ago). Then an extended adulthood to take
care of the next generation.
Intersting topic.
R. Luly
