Cyreenik Says
Between the mainframe revolution of the 1950's and the personal computer revolution of the 1980's came the minicomputer revolution of the 1960's. This one has been nearly forgotten in these times, but minicomputers were the ones that penetrated mid- and small businesses. This was the era when DEC was the number two computer company behind IBM.
One of their surprise uses was making conglomerates a viable business structure -- the conglomerate managers would buy all kinds of companies and reap big profits by bringing in minicomputers and the expertise to operate them. As this expertise became widespread their advantage ended and so did the era.
Robotics pricing is now declining to the point where medium and small businesses can afford them. It will be interesting to see what social/business structures emerge to take advantage of this new possibility. Neoconglomerates anyone?
When the Internet boomed in the mid-nineties, it was not the only networking choice available to become the heart of this boom. There were many other architectures available such as those used to connect ATM's to banks, those used by agencies such as NASA to interconnect their systems, and even some personal user-oriented networks such as AOL and Compuserve.
So why did the Internet become the standard? Easy: it was the most accessible. The others were proprietary and their owners didn't have the vision to see that accessibility would be valued much more highly than security.
Accessibility over security is a common choice in emerging cyber systems, but after it is made, then comes the bite: That easy accessibility also makes malware much easier to develop. Now mobile and cloud computing are going through this same choice, and I doubt the answer will change. Expect the cybersecurity crisis to keep thriving.
Several business forecasts I've been reading have talked about 2014 being the year that will unleash pent-up housing demand. The logic being that young men and women haven't been leaving their parent's nests as fast as they did in the boom years. There may be some pent-up demand, but there may also be a change in lifestyle happening that is diminishing demand. If it's a change in lifestyle the demand may not materialize in the quantities anticipated.
The American Dream that fires the house buying desire most heatedly is family raising -- other Millennial lifestyles can be satisfied with much more variety in housing conditions -- gentrification is one example of an alternative. With this in mind, I'm thinking that the housing demand for suburban single family dwellings is likely to remain muted for many more years. When the pent-up demand does show up, it will be powered by a wave of immigrants looking for traditional housing so they can live a traditional American lifestyle.
This thought was inspired by an interesting but lengthy 21 Dec 13 Economist article, A tale of two rushes: There’s gold in them there wells, which compares the North Dakota fracking rush of the 2010's to the California gold rush of the 1850's. Both are environments with a lot of hardship and frustration, but both are places where a person can create a lifestyle where they can feel worthy of what they are up to.
As I read this, it occurred to me that this one of the primary goals of the prison culture. Yes, people serve time in jail, but the deep hope is that... somehow... following the experience they will become enfranchised members of their community -- they will have "done their time" and they will have an enfranchised place in their community again. Sadly, the current prison environments in the US have not proved very good at achieving this goal.
But... as I read this article I realized that a boom town environment was! Ah-Hah!
So, I propose we look for a way to transform the prison environment into something much closer to the boom town environment. This, by the way, has been done in the past: England sending prisoners to Australia is an example of this idea being implemented in the past.
Time to figure out how to do it again.
This thought was inspired by the 30 Dec 13 Pew Research report, Public’s Views on Human Evolution. From the report: "According to a new Pew Research Center analysis, six-in-ten Americans (60%) say that “humans and other living things have evolved over time,” while a third (33%) reject the idea of evolution, saying that “humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time.” The share of the general public that says that humans have evolved over time is about the same as it was in 2009, when Pew Research last asked the question." The total percentages haven't changed much, but from further in the article who is doing the believing has shifted, with Republicans becoming more creationist.
My view: This question is, at its heart a question of, "Should I have faith in faith, or faith in observed reality?" and a large percentage of Americans have decided that supporting blind faith gives them a better life than supporting careful observations of reality -- science.
Why is this?
Saying, "I believe!", and meaning it, is from-the-heart thinking. It is warm and fuzzy thinking, and as long as harsh reality doesn't intrude and make the faith seriously expensive to sustain... why not? Evolution is a pretty abstract concept, so rejecting it is not nearly as expensive as rejecting, say, the concept of speed limits when you are driving.
(Evolution became high profile starting in the 1860's as a litmus test for whether or not a person believed in the Christian God. Surprisingly it continues to be one to this day. What is different now is there is a million times more observational evidence supporting evolution than there was in Darwin's time.)
In times of prosperity, such as we live in today, why not have faith in God? It is rare that picking the wrong side in the God versus Natural Selection controversy is going to cost the average American anything more than some harsh looks. For this reason it remains a good litmus test.
If you like your faith like you like your men... strong... go with Creation!
If you enjoy deeply understanding this fascinating world we live in, go with evolution.
-- The End --