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He got a lot of things right but, like everyone else, they didn't predict the internet and its consequences.

Does anyone know of a proper prediction of the internet? And I don't mean predicting handheld devices or wireless networking. Predicting the decentralized communication part that makes distance irellevant and upgrades point to point communication to group.

And its consequence that it's very easy now to find a group that shares your biases :)




> like everyone else, they didn't predict the internet

Nor the computer, personal or otherwise; nor robotics. It's funny to see how he could predict, sometimes with surprising accuracy, the trajectory of development of technologies that were already in place, but could not fathom what had not yet been discovered and thus had not yet entered the public discourse.


Not exactly a prediction, but The Victorian Internet is a good read: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/victorian-internet-97816355739...

That revolution was more about the speed that information travels than who has access to it.


Yep -- check out Marshall McLuhan & the Global Village, which he put out in the 60s. Very prescient.


Hmm I read him long ago, but I vaguely recollect he didn't catch the decentralization much? If he did I must reread.

Edit. Oh oops. Read the summary for Gutenberg Galaxy on wikipedia. Turns out i MUST reread.


1950's America had online shopping.[0]. This may be the closest thing to today's websites.

[0]https://www.messynessychic.com/2016/01/14/online-shopping-in...


Not necessarily what you're looking for, but I always found The Shockwave Rider to be impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shockwave_Rider

1975 though, so quite recent.


If we're talking Brunner, Stand on Zanzibar is even more prescient socially. Not 100 years ago though.


In that sense, I really wonder what will be there in 50 or 100 years, and that we are now completely unable to predict.




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