For a guy who spent the better part of his career in high technology, you might be scratching your head at the name of my blog. So let me explain it to you.
When I first started my career in tech, back in 1993, it was a golden time. The world looked so promising. Technology could solve so many problems. It could be the great equalizer. When the World Wide Web hit that year, we talked a great deal about the “democratization of information.”
How’s that working out do you suppose? Yes, that’s a rhetorical question.
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. In the world of technology, that reaction is usually in the form of what is known as an unintended consequence.
We build stuff. We put it into the market place. We have great hopes for the goodness it will bring mankind. Only problem is, we have no idea what the side effects are until we put it out there. Genetically modified foods (GMO), nuclear power, Facebook. They all sounded like good ideas at the time. Nobody expected for a moment anything bad to happen.
But, invariably and inevitably, it does.
That’s what this blog is about: Taking a critical look at the unintended consequences of our world of technology. So why the Iron Age Epilog? Well, we have been at this game a lot longer than just the past 25 or so years.
The word “smog” was coined in 1905 to describe the combination of fog and coal-generated pollution in the dampness of old London. Smog didn’t exist before then.
Well, actually it might have. In fact, it is theorized that humans first developed lung cancer shortly after taking their newfound skills of producing fire indoors, into a cave.
So we have been at this game a long time. Iron Age Epilog is just a way to describe that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Also, Iron Age Epilog happens to be an anagram for my first and last name. So welcome to my new blog. I hope you find it enlightening, insightful, thought provoking or at least entertaining.
IRON-AGE EPILOG 