How Soon is Now?

.. as The Smiths once said.

I was reminded over the weekend about this post by sf writer Charlie Stross. It's a very interesting read on future gazing and why you're even less likely to predict accurately the near future than ever before. Stross argues that once it took 125 years for world wide acceptance of a technology - now it takes 16 or less. Such speed of change makes attempts by the always-catching-up law to regulate technology in any degree of specificity look ever more doomed. Another vote for Chris Reed's doctrine of creative inertia?