It's your future prediction- when do you think people won't have computers?
100 years ago folks had wax cylinder phonographs.
Now you might say "Jake but you still have one"
but that would be missing my point entirely. They exist now as oddities.
so I put it 100 years at the longest.
If obsolescence follows a exponential pattern 15 years. If you define computer as tool that helps you do math then we have had them for
as long as we have had fingers and the conversation becomes absurd.
I think you'd do better to equate computers with systems of writing. I'm biased, and I see where you're coming from, but computers are a fundamental shift in how humans understand and interact with the world around them. So if you mean "phonographs" as any kind of recorded sound, then I think you're makin an apt comparison. If you mean the actual object itself, I think you're wrong. But I would also count smartphones, most microwaves, tablets- anything with a processor, basically. Maybe you mean desktops?
Agreed. I think computers are here for the long haul. The really, obscenely long haul.
I don't see why. History is not as directional as it appears there are corrections to upward trends. Also the new tech is fragile and dependent on specialization that may not always be there.
Reply not sufficient I fear you are un-convinced.
Civilizations fail usually not in a Mad Max way but in a decay of the roman empire way. But all of them fail. I am not convinced that western techno culture is magic and immune to regression.
Cultures and tools are different things. The roman empire declined- roman style of government did not. Grecian culture declined, philosophy did not. Wester culture will decline, the computer will not. There has never been an abandonment of a tool as widespread as the computer now is.
government stagnated.
The transition from the republic into the empire was certainly a decline in style of government.
Philosophy declined it decayed into scholasticism.
That is why there was a renaissance. how often do you use a napper or a fire drill?
What about greek fire?
concrete was forgotten until 1756 but was used by the Romans. Technology does not only move in one direction the ratchet is imperfect and prone to slipping.
I don't, really. I think the computer is a fundamentally new part of humanity, like agriculture was, or writing. It is exceptionally versatile and exceptionally useful. One of the best things you could do in a world that's forgotten about computers is figure one out and make it. Because that shit is powerful. But honestly, I do not care that much. Maybe it goes away. Maybe it doesn't. I'm sure you're very smart about this kind of stuff, but I think your prediction is melodramatic at best.