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[poliphilo]

I poke a stylus at a screen- just the one prod- and I've bought a book. More than that- the book is already in my hands. The whole transaction took less than a minute.

And I didn't have to sell my soul to perform this magic- or burn aromatic gums or even say, "abracadabra".

Tell me, then, why I shouldn't believe in spirits- or other invisible and elusive things- when what I've just done- this magical action- conjuring a thing out of thin air- would have seemed utterly fabulous and inexplicable to the world I was born into- a mere 65 years ago.

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, we're living in an era of accelerated change.

Remember when computers were huge metal things with flashing lights that took up a whole room?

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

I grew up in the 1980's... We had a computer room at our school, where we could take classes in typewriting and the like. The machines were large, for sure (and bright orange for some strange reason), but they did fit on a desk. And in the late 80's I was teaching myself simple programming - if you can even call it that today - on a Commodore 64 at home, and saving the programmes on cassette tapes.