Like most people in today’s world overwhelmed by the pace of technological development, Sally Bayles of New Smyrna Beach throws up her hands: ”I just can’t keep up or use all of it. It is overwhelming."
But she quickly adds, "On the other hand I wouldn’t do anything to slow technical progress.”
Technology is now evolving faster than we can learn to understand and use it. It seems like the only people who can adapt are teenagers or grade schoolers, especially as it pertains to electronics, multimedia and telecommunications, all related to the Internet.
Therefore, for those who would like to slow down the pace of technical innovation, here is a dependable and proven way to slow down all technical innovation to a slow painful crawl.
All that needs to be done is form a government office titled the Federal Inventions Agency or FIA. All new inventions would have to be tested, approved and licensed by the FIA before they could be sold to the public. Anyone selling a new invention without FIA licensing would be fined and sent to prison.
The testing and approval would be carried out meticulously with lots of reports and paperwork needed. Inventions would be rejected if there was already a similar product in the marketplace. Products could only be used for the purposes that had FIA approval.
With the formation of the FIA, many or most of those pesky high-tech start ups will cease to be created as it would be hard for start ups to raise enough capital to outlast the cost inflicted by the delays.
Moor’s law of declining cost of electronics equipment would no longer hold. According to Moor’s law, the cost of a given amount of electronics is cut in half every two years. In fact, we might see the cost of electronics start to rise.
If only the FIA had been established during the Kennedy administration, when the FDA was given its expanded powers over drug development, we would not be burdened with so much change and progress.
For example, the home computer probably would not have come out until around the year 2000. It would be the size of a refrigerator and cost more than a Mercedes Benz or two. Bill Gates might have finished up at Harvard and then really made something of himself.
We might still be racing the Russians for the moon.
Just remember if the pace of progress is too much, there is a surefire way to put a stop to it. Just form a new government bureau.