The Internet Will Never Fly

From former Dave Ross Show producer Loren Skaggs…

…a 1995 prediction from Physicist Clifford Stoll, who waged a noble but ultimately futile movement to hang on to typewriters and face-to-face contact.

Excerpt:

“What’s missing from this electronic wonderland? Human contact. Discount the fawning techno-burble about virtual communities. Computers and networks isolate us from one another. A network chat line is a limp substitute for meeting friends over coffee. No interactive multimedia display comes close to the excitement of a live concert. And who’d prefer cybersex to the real thing? While the Internet beckons brightly, seductively flashing an icon of knowledge-as-power, this nonplace lures us to surrender our time on earth. A poor substitute it is, this virtual reality where frustration is legion and where—in the holy names of Education and Progress—important aspects of human interactions are relentlessly devalued.”

Full text

Here’s a classic Stoll speech:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-666540182028461233#

At 51:40 he admits he’s not much good at predicting the future.