Originally Posted by
Dan Gurden
I am however amused at this thread. As open fans of the Sci Fi genre, and all of us advocating future thinking. All in support of a show where the lead characters will often ask the Computer to do half their work for them...
Our relatively negative view of computer modelling futurism is amusing.
Well, just to be clear, I don't have a relatively negative view of computer modelling futurism - I just think we should be aware of its limitations. Computer modelling is fantastic when we can account for known variables - testing aerodynamics in a virtual wind-tunnel, for example. The problem I have is that there are things which completely turn societies upside down that are impossible to account for when modelling a possible future. So a computer model can give you an outcome that's interesting to think about, and in the short term may work for certain things (predictions of population growth or traffic flow with regard to city planning, for example), but they can't give you an "inevitable" result or even a necessarily "most likely" result over a long period and large-scale scenario.
Remember, the computer couldn't translate the Tamarian language in Darmok, because it didn't have the right variables to go on (a listing of Tamarian myths).
When you are dead, you don't know that you are dead. It is difficult only for others.
It's the same when you are stupid...