Does until it doesn’t and doesn’t until it does

The result of high levels of hype about new technologies is that people start to think that: The world has just been changed forever (which sometimes, but rarely, is true to some extent). The new technology that is being hyped will continue to change the world in powerful and unimaginable ways. The new technology is a once in a lifetime, or even once in a millennium, singular event. [[I think it is no coincidence that these three thoughts are similar to those that found new religions or cults. But my argument below is independent of that correlation.]] The topic of this post is the following koan applied to new technologies. It is two very general truths that people who think they are powerful ignore at their own peril. As with all koans the principal goal here is to remind people to be humble. Things work until they don’t. Things don’t work until they do. Things work until they don’t. For the first sentence of the koan, let’s think back to a technology which had profound influence on…

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