Atheists & Agnostics

... in the transience of industrial civilization. I take this graph very seriously:



This too shall pass.

And to answer your quote:

"Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau. I do not feel there will be soon if ever a 50 or 60 point break from present levels, such as (bears) have predicted. I expect to see the stock market a good deal higher within a few months."
- Irving Fisher, Ph.D. in economics, Oct. 17, 1929

After an event, it is always easy to find someone who was spectacularly wrong to quote. Having found such a quote does not justify taking either side of an argument before the fact. Nor does a long record of either successful or failed predictions guarantee future accuracy. One New York Times financial columnist (Alexander Noyes) predicted the coming crash in nearly every column starting in 1928. By September 1929 everyone shrugged him off as "always wrong". On the other side, anyone can look at their own experience and claim that, since they have never died, they never will.

All we can do is wait and see, and make prudent preparations for any eventualities we consider to be likely. Personally, I consider the demise of the Internet likely. Not today, or in the next five years, but sooner than most would believe possible.

And to say that I am wrong because Thomas Watson, president of IBM, said in 1943 "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." is hardly sound reasoning against my case for the transient nature of the Internet.