Journal

Optimism vs scepticism

Russell Davies has done a fine job collating the wisdom of Clay Shirky over the course of his many media appearances promoting Cognitive Surplus.

This quote is the one that jumped out at me at the time, and I’m glad to see it struck Russell too:

‘The final thing I’d say about optimism is this. If we took the loopiest, most moonbeam-addled Californian utopian internet bullshit, and held it up against the most cynical, realpolitik-inflected scepticism, the Californian bullshit would still be a better predictor of the future. Which is to say that, if in 1994 you’d wanted to understand what our lives would be like right now, you’d still be better off reading a single copy of Wired magazine published in that year than all of the sceptical literature published ever since.’

Clay Shirky: ‘Paywall will underperform – the numbers don’t add up’

It’s one of the things I love about the stage of technological evolution that we are still in – the ability to exceed the imagination of our 1994 selves.

In 1994, I didn’t have a mobile phone.

My music was still physical, and I’d not long started buying CDs rather than vinyl and cassette.

I didn’t have a digital camera.

I was something of a rarity in that I had an email address and had already used – and published on – the web.

I now, of course, have all of these things and more in a device that fits in the pocket of my jeans.

We were right to be optimistic. Right to allow our imaginations to be captured in the way they were.

We’ve come a long way.