Quote from: DannyHamilton on April 14, 2013, 07:09:11 PM

Quote from: webchris on April 14, 2013, 07:00:28 PM

Something for future generations to figure out, though. But we should remember the lessons of Y2K about not trusting future generations to fix all the problems we leave them.

Sure, but can you imagine people from 1880 trying to decide how to deal with the possibility that phone lines might not have enough bandwidth for all the potential future uses and trying to create solutions for problems that wouldn't exist for another 120 years?

It is impossible to predict what technologies will present the best solution 130 years from now.

This. Predictions beyond 20-30 years become highly dubious. In 1800s someone trying to make railroads future proof would likely have laid down 4 or more tracks in parallel to ensure sufficient train bandwidth and dumped billions into researching a way to build a tunnel under the Atlantic ocean. Obviously trains will be used for everything so best to prepare for the future. It will be massively expensive but then we will be future proof.

In hindsight that would have been a horribly bad idea because technology caused innovation to branch into directions the planners in 1800 could possibly have imagined.