[extropy-chat] technological equilibrium

[Adrian Tymes]

--- Rik van Riel <riel at surriel.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 15 Jul 2004, Adrian Tymes wrote:
> > Or perhaps we've simply gotten better at
> compressing
> > information, and *that* is one of the reasons
> we're
> > developing things so fast today.  If it takes you
> a
> > few days to learn a complex topic, where
> previously
> > the fastest option was a college course that took
> > months, then it becomes more feasable to
> incorporate
> > said complex topic into a short development cycle
> 
> Funny, I tend to think the opposite is true.  A
> century
> ago, somebody could go to university and learn ALL
> of
> physics, and in the 1960's it must have been
> possible
> for a single person to learn ALL of computer
> science.
> 
> In contrast, I suspect there's nobody who knows
> everything
> of either field today...

Because there's so much more to know.  Someone could
still, if they wanted, try to learn all of computer
science that was known in the 1960s, omitting anything
discovered or invented in 1970 or later.  It wouldn't
be at all practical for anyone but a historian, and
even then possibly of questionable value, but it could
be done.