And now for today’s news from the Department of Serendipity.
Quote Investigator digs diligently, delightfully and with positive results into the provenance of William Gibson’s lumpily doled-out future|present.
But the bit that stands out for me is Ralph Thomas’ 1967 criticism of Marshall McLuhan…
McLuhan suffers also from a mixed-up time sense. He believes the future has already happened. He often says most people can see thru the rearview mirror, but he seems to have the opposite fault. He appears to think total automation is upon us, that the whole world is linked as “global village” by TV, that even space travel is now a reality.
Meanwhile, 45 years and exactly six Moon landings into McLuhan’s future, this from Ed Booty of BBH London…
As we’ve explored and embraced the bewildering possibilities, we’ve increasingly convinced ourselves that a revolution is here. Meanwhile real peoples’ lives and needs simply aren’t changing at the same pace. What is possible is growing at an exponential rate, but how people actually live and use technologies has changed very little. This gap between the myth and reality is ever-widening.
Mind that gap, people.
Posted by mattedgar 
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