I’m reminded by Dave Pollard’s latest post that this timeline (and the book it comes from), got a lot of airtime post-9/11, since it seemed to have predicted a 9/11-type intiated catastrophe by 2005, back in 1997.
Useful resource. It links the Geoffrey Moore Crossing The Chasm “early adopters”, etc view of technology uptakes and the Kondratiev 80 year (three human generations, in my view – one to learn, one to exploit, one to forget why and lose the plot) industrial cycles or shifts in prevailing “Techno-Economic Paradigm” (Freeman, Dosi et al.) – with the prevailing political and social situation at the times. Wholly US focussed – but useful none-the-less.
Dave’s been in a bit of a depressing “the end of the world is nigh, and there’s nothing we can do about it” mode recently – a release to make the best of the time left he says – a real driver for many astro-physicists and the like to get us surviving humans off the planet too, apparently. This question of the reality or illusion of human free-will, is thoroughly in focus. Consciousness and free will may be metaphorical, but they’re real enough. Read David Deutsch (you too Sue) for a more optimistic antidote.