As people age, they experience the difference between: - the future-that-is, and - the future-that-could-have-been, or the future they imagined based on thei

As people age, they experience the difference between: - the future-that-is, and - the future-that-could-have-been, or the future they imagined based on their collective experience as a younger person. Computers completely shifted the potential of the future past the realm of imagination. I was born in the late 80s, and watched the trajectory of technology with anticipation. My father, a programmer, was heavily into technology - and he could not imagine what I imagined. He couldn't imagine basic things in the 90s, like widely available terabyte hard drives in the future, or what they would be used for. I knew they were coming, because quality video files were just too large. When PDAs came out, I patiently waited years for a version with mobile internet (smartphones). These are the things I thought were "obvious" progressions, and they happened. But I also imagined that technology would work as a system. It doesn't. Everything is fractured and isolated.