Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Tech Futures - John Smart

I listened to a podcast today from IT conversations.
It was John Smart from the 2005 Accelerating Change conference, How to be a Tech Futurist.
He painted a very optimistic future where the exponential growth of some micro-small areas of technology (computing, nanotech, nano-tube-ribbon etc), is likely to pull us out of the problems we find ourselves in now (Climate change, Energy overuse and so on).

It is a heady vision that I would like to believe, A software developer always has an eye for the next great thing, bigger, better more complicated way of putting technology together ;).

I usually tend towards the cynical, morose, negative end of the spectrum after listening to a lot of material on Global Warming, Kyoto protocol, Renewable Energy, Oil Peaking, World Without Oil etc.

It is quite a change to get a dose of positivism, I like the change in focus but I think more psychic and pocketbook pain needs to be felt globally to get us moving on renewable/sustainable energy. I look to the oil shocks of the seventies which I only dimly remember, and the lack of actual improvement due to the pain felt back then and I dispair.

A negative world view can motivate us to more action. So I say as I sit on the fence looking at energy improvements that are possible in my home while not taking action.
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