Customer Reviews

Reality Check (Hardwired)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The first thing one needs to know about this small book from 1996 is that it is outdated and not to be taken seriously. That aside it is still entertaining, much like a good piece of Sci-fi. Myself I would have liked Sci-fi writers like Arthur Clarke, William Gibson, Dan Simmons, Bruce Sterling(he does do the intro), Greg Bear, Octavia Butler or Nancy Kress to give their opinions on the various subjects. The predictions of the "experts" are just that, predictions. The research for the book is minimal and mostly conjecture. This is a fun book but much to tongue in cheek to be totally believeable. When the serious posturing is attempted one or two"experts" are given credit to substantiate a "fact." This is more of a barometer of trends in a ever changing cyber based society. Since it was written in the last century, the computer has helped to accelerate the outdated information the book so prophetically espoused. Part hype, part fantasy, the truth lies somewhere between, it is up to the reader to predict after listening to the "experts." Beginning with predictions for 1997 and going through 2055 the authors tackles everything from medicine to online shopping and smart drugs to virtual sex. Many of the things are those that have been hyped for years already now such as cryonics and the electric car. The drawings and pictures are just as interesting as the text(one page per prediction) because it is a mix of digital inspired art and campy fifties style futuristic drawings, very funny stuff next to the "futuristic predictions." Easy to read, this book can be read in it's entirety or in sections that appeal to ones personal tastes. It does make you think about the possibilities for the future. Myself I'm waiting for the self cleaning toilet coming in 2006 but I don't think I'll be here for the virtual sex slave coming in 2055.

Have you ever heard the story of the Emperor's nose? A Chinese man decided to find out how long the Emperor's nose is. He tried to do it by asking a lot of different people... none of whom have ever seen it!

The modern version of the story is provided by Brad Wieners and David Pescovitz. Reality Check is a book with ambitious goals, but it fails to achieve them. The authors selected about a hundred of potentially possible inventions, not for how important or likely they are, but only for their "hypability".

Then the authors contacted a number of experts and asked them a simple question - "When?" - when this particular invention will come to life. Most experts replied with a year at some point in the future, some said "Never", some "Unknown" and some claimed that it is already invented. Wieners and Pescovitz then calculated the arithmetic mean of the responses and used it as the final answer. They then wrote half a page explaining this particular concept, got an illustration of questionable quality and two more pages were ready.

What is the value of the book? Not much, in my opinion. The list of future inventions has nothing to do with reality or with the future reality for that matter. The Delphi method is supposed to mitigate the differences in opinions of the individual experts and provide a more realistic estimate. But it doesn't work if the experts haven't even agreed on the basic definitions and if they have wildly differing backgrounds and interests, if you only speak with 3 experts and, most importantly, if they are not serious about the forecasting. Year 3000 is not a forecast, it's just a random number, informational "garbage" that pollutes the result more than it helps. Garbage In, Garbage Out, says the well-known principle of information science, and, for the most part, Reality Check is just that, garbage.

It works like a historical callendar, written in the year 2225 looking back. Year after year you can follow the technological progress made, even including some "never to happen" issues like human clones (?) and the paperless office. It is a must for everybody working on the business revolution in the Information Age. As expected the authors supply a lot of related hyperlinks on the discussed issues. From solar-powered automobiles to holophones, smart drugs, self replicating robots and much much more realistic fantasy

I really like this book's combination of science and facts with art and entertainment. Food for thought when I want it, eye candy when I need it.

This collection of David Pescovitz' regular column in Wired offers a somewhat tongue-in-cheek look at statistical analysis and how we envision our cultural movement into the future. Excellent graphics combined with inventive questions help convey the dreams of 'cultural innovators' and 'experts in the field.' The only thing is I'm not sure if I can wait until 2015 for real X-ray specs to come into being... ;)