GENOMICON

I find this absolutely fascinating to watch for some reason.

Arthur C Clarke’s laws of Prediction state:

1) When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

2) The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

3) Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

There is so much technology today that is to most people just that – magic. Even something as rudimentary as a vacuum tube. It’s just a “thing” that “does something”. It’s something that always bothered me… that I didn’t know how to make Coke cans. If I was transported back in time to the 14th Century, Coke cans would be just as magic to me as the dragons and wizards and so on that were alive back then. I know (at least I think I know) that aluminium is something to do with bauxite and you extract it with electricity. That’s it. How to get it that thin, how to seal it, how to rivet the ring-pull, how to get the paint to stick… the entire thing is… well, magic.

Our entire civilisation is based upon the skills and knowledge of very few people… technocrats. The rest of us are waffling fluffers.

Still, at least you know how to make a vacuum tube now.