The 25-year Bet About Technology Reflection

    Kevin Kelly is a well-known writer and founding executive editing editor for Wired magazine. He is also a former editor/publisher for the Whole Earth Review. One key thing he preaches everywhere he can is how he tries to remain positive or optimistic despite the news and media. In his article "The Case for Optimism, " he says there are two main reasons why you should remain optimistic: "One is the general case for optimism at any time. The second reason is a handful of forces at work in the world that make specific cases for optimism at this particular time, in 2021." He is a man that is constantly looking forward to the future and what it holds.

    Unlike fellow writer Mr. Kelly, Kirkpatrick Sale was a massive anti-technology author who wrote books promoting the luddism way of thinking. He despises the idea that technology has become such a significant part of our society, leading to the butting of heads between these writers.

    The main disagreement between these two was how the world would look in the future. The ever-optimistic Mr. Kelly believed that the world would reach heights never before thought of, while Mr. Sale believed that society as a whole would collapse. The few remaining individuals would create a tribal, cluster-like community.

    With this in mind, the two made a bet, with the criteria for the winner being "three factors: an economic disaster that would render the dollar worthless, causing a depression worse than the one in 1930; a rebellion of the poor against the monied; and a significant number of environmental catastrophes." If these three criteria were met, it would mean Mr. Kelly had been too optimistic about our future, and Mr. Sale would win.

    To briefly touch on each of the three factors and how they have progressed in 25 years. The dollar is still as helpful and valuable as ever, so Mr. Kelly won this argument. Climate change and global disasters are an issue now more than ever before, so the edge goes to Mr. Sale. And while the wealthy and poor aren't at a proper war, we certainly seem on the verge of it, which the judge ruled this factor as a tie. In the end, the judge ruled that Mr. Kelly won the argument in part due to the extremities taken by Mr. Sale in his initial factor decision.

    I think Mr. Kelly was indeed the winner of this bet but only by a small fraction. Society didn't collapse, and we are still going about our day, but it seems as if Mr. Sale's predictions were just early rather than not true.

    If I had to make this bet, I feel like I would add how the Amish and other societies without technology have progressed in relative comparison to normal society to the factors. This one is a bit more difficult to debate, but it gives us a realistic view of how we as a society would move forward if we adopted more and more of Mr. Sale's ideas. I think I would set the criteria of Global disasters, political warfare, and social media tension as three primary factors for the next 25 years. It seems those are the most commonly debated and heated discussions today.

    In the next 25 years, I see us getting started with self-driving cars and even glasses-phones. Making it to where we have to use our hands less may not be the best thing, but I could see us trending in that fashion.