[AccessD] Friday (You Know)

Several great fragments from Stephen Pinker's "How the Mind Works".

1. Rocks are smarter than cats.

(Why?)

When you kick them, they don't come back.

2. "Fifty years hence, we shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole
chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts
separately under a suitable medium."
-- Winston Churchill, 1932

3. "Man will never reach the moon, regardless of all future scientific
advances."
-- Lee DeForest, inventor of the vacuum tube, 1957.

<editorial: This part is mine, not Stephen Pinker's>
If there's anything we can be sure of, it's that the futurists of our decade
and century will be laughable a century hence.

Unfortunately, this leads to a strange conclusion. Whatever you imagine will
happen will almost certainly not happen. If you think that there will be
pollution-free cars in five years, bet against your feeling. If you think
that Iran and the USA will have a nuclear contest within a few years, bet
against it. If your best guess is that somehow Quebec and the rest of Canada
will magically reconcile their centuries-old differences, bet against it.
The rude crude law is this: whatever you hope might happen, bet against it.

In a final attempt to make this theory relevant to this newsgroup, If you
think there are no bugs in your software, bet against it. Before the week is
out, a user will prove your bet correct.
</editorial>

Arthur