Change

If you had told me, ten years ago, that I would now be sitting in my home office printing documents wirelessly from my notebook computer, while using a mobile phone to control music playing in my living room that is stored on a computer in yet another room, all communicating on a wireless network – I wouldn’t have believed it.

Even five years ago I would have said, maybe, but how reliable will it be?

Of course, if you had painted the same picture twenty-five years ago, I would have said, sure, it’s possible. I mean, didn’t we all believe back in 1986 that by 2011 we’d have Dick Tracy video watches and travel in hovercraft?

OK, so we only got half of that dream!

There’s probably a lesson in this. We tend to believe stories about radical change occurring at some point in the distant future far more readily than we believe stories about trends coalescing to produce revolutionary change in the short term.

Out tendency to underestimate how quickly things can change, from technology to social movements is kind of sad – and, rather dangerous.