I think you're missing the point, but also I admit I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say. So please forgive me if I get it wrong. The point is not th

I think you're missing the point, but also I admit I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say. So please forgive me if I get it wrong. The point is not that the future will be like the past, or that things which exist now simply should not. It's that in Taleb's future, technologists will have recognized that technology should eliminate bullshit (think about the toilet and sewers, some of the best technology that could ever exist!) and make it easier to live a life full of the basic good parts of being human: companionship/sex, food, discovery and knowledge. So the smartphone is not incongruous with his vision of the future at all. It enables you to seek all of those things, and adds relatively little in terms of shitty things (I mean, you have to pay for it and keep it charged, but beyond that it doesn't add a lot hardship.) When he talks about the lack of literacy in technology circles, I believe he's thinking of literature as a tool for looking at human motivations. So, his theory is that if technologists were to read literature (or were of a mindset to be already interested in literature), they would recognize these motivations, and it would provide a path for changing their focus from stupid social widgets to something that will actually create the future.