I remember the show. I remember an episode which showed extinguishing fire from a helicopter. Technology was magical, but also there was a belief that technolo

I remember the show. I remember an episode which showed extinguishing fire from a helicopter. Technology was magical, but also there was a belief that technologists would be calling the shots. Early computer users were all nerds. Operating systems, games, utility programs required you to be pretty technical. Turn-based strategy was a major genre. Today even RTS is seen as a niche. I remember an early SF book with title along the lines "Tower of light" which called the big boss The Programmer. There were also books like "Rendez-Vous with Rama". Today, the goal is to make computer games and computers in general as accessible as possible. Tablets and touch screens are ALL about accessibility. I propose an alternate explanation: reality has shown that programmers, inventors, scientists are often just pawns. The decision makers are elsewhere. There's much resentment towards "sales&marketing" departments in companies. We techies often just do what we're told, we realize someone else's vision. NASA's budget gets cut. Email spam is outrageous, spambots run rampant. SOMEONE writes these spam senders, captcha solvers, spambots! Cynical programmers. And nothing is more enduring in programming than a "temporary solution". The respect towards scientists and science has been dropping for a while. Some of it is because of problems with reproduction and peer reviews, but largely people just don't believe in scientific method. By contrast, psychology degrees and charisma are extremely valued. You don't need a good product if you can manipulate the feelings of clients (now called "consumers") or strike a deal that every new PC comes with your operating system and you get paid for it. People just assume they got it "for free with the computer". Fact-based arguments are usually less convincing that arguments from personal experience. In some areas, like History, "publish or perish" no longer holds. You can perish anyway. Nowadays you need to do a lot more than that. ------ Personally I'm very impressed by discoveries in topics like role of gut bacteria or fungi. Neural networks can do very nice stuff.