William Gibson, sci fi and fiction author, is quoted as saying "The future is here, it's just not evenly distributed yet."

This relates closely with the idea of the digital divide, I believe, something I see the fruits of every day.

Just thought I'd ask y'all what you think.

"The future is here, it's just not evenly distributed yet." -- William Gibson

Unless one manages to stay at the technological forefront in every field of endeavour (impossible), then Gibson's statement is always true in some way. There is always some area where the technologies you will use in the future are already being used.

However, by adding that "yet" word to the end, Gibson becomes uncharacteristically optimistic. He implies that there will be some time in the future when the future will be evenly distributed. The history of technological advancement and its adoption suggests otherwise. Even when the advancement is a revolution in the speed of communications and the dissemination of technology itself, we still see vastly uneven distributions of adoption. Embracing new technology involves change and change has its own cost. Some can't pay.

When talking about the digital divide, I'd reframe the statement (in my cynical fashion):
"The past is still with us. Remedies won't be distributed evenly unless we can make a buck from it."

Excellent observation! You're right, of course - the most current technologies will NEVER be evenly distributed, and the divide will most likely get more vast as we are moving more quickly into change.

I work in a neighborhood that has a very high rate of welfare and a very low rate of literacy. We opened our new library in Feb. of this year (04). In January, as we were moving in, SBC had to come get our T1 lines installed and working. To do that took a great deal of "going to the supervisor's supervisor" because, as it turned out, the wiring on the poles in our neighborhood hadn't been updated since 1926. SBC wouldn't have been able to make it pay off if they'd changed it earlier. The only reason they finally relented and updated is that their corporation had given us a large grant to provide some of the very computers we needed their wiring to facilitate. We actually had to contact our friends there (the nice man who brought the huge check) before we could get them to make things happen! Sad but true.

Quote "...the wiring on the poles in our neighborhood hadn't been updated since 1926..."

I don't know how BT do it in the UK but my broadband connection works through my old telephone line which is probably nearly as old as the house (1928). Certainly it's a lead-sheathed cable with paper-insulated copper conductors and it connects me most reliably at 576,000 bps.

I also have a new fibre-optic cable for TV and I have another computer connected via that - but it doesn't seem to work significantly better and it seems less reliable.

I feel blessed because I am sufficiently superannuated to remember when the state of the art of interpersonal worldwide communication was not by voice but by Morse Code. Having no transmitter I lisented to the others. The main content of many of the conversations I overheard was technical information about the height and length of antennas, power of transmitter, et cetera.

Déja vu all over again.

.... or déja ecouté.

quote:

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Originally posted by jerry thomas:
sufficiently superannuated

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Talk about putting a good spin on things!

I'm still laughing!