Ramblings that get longer

As it always does, my mind seems to be skipping back towards the ideas of Cyberpunk.  I’ve been a fan of the worlds created by various artists and authors for years.  Maybe that’s why I went into computers.  Doubtful, but it seems like a good answer.  Perhaps there’s some sort of draw to a world that is altogether completely overwhelming and interconnected.  Or maybe I’m just fascinated by urban density.  I’ve visited a few large cities, but they never strike me as dense until you reach certain parts of them.  All are strangely built up to a point, and then everything falls off.  The quicker people can get away from the density, the better they like it.  I can’t blame them.  It’s dead silent where I live, and as long as I don’t look towards the one street light on my block, I can see stars as far as the eye can see. 

It really makes me wonder.  One of the things I realize is the current education system will not keep up with the rate of growth.  One size fits all does not fit all.  Eventually, there’s going to be a separation of students.  There has to be to maintain technological ability and skill.  I was reading something earlier about the creation and production of virtual machines to segment individual computers for personal use.  It would be much like running VMWare for servers, but instead running it on desktops.  You’d have multiple virtual machines running throughout your computer, with each having a separate purpose.  Depending on what you were trying to do, you would create multiple virtual machines across your desktop.  With the ever present threat of virus and malware, it seems the only logical thing to do. 

Unfortunately, people like me would have to maintain those environments and would have to understand what was going on.  And some people are just technologically inept.  They have no interest or use in technology, much less a desire to learn it and learn how it works.  I often wonder what would have happened if I had learned and developed the skills I have now in my 20s instead of my 30s.  Would another decade of information have made that much difference in my future growth?  What about 20 years?  What if I had spent time learning this information in my teens?  Who would have taught a young kid the ins and outs of systems?  Could it be we will be slowly moving towards the archology models described by William Gibson?  In them, he describes people growing up in company towns and being taught company thoughts, with the idea of developing the best and brightest to become leaders in the company.

Gibson never really talks about the inside development thought much.  He only talks about “stealing talent”.  Perhaps the average person is just too simple and really doesn’t make a good story.  It’s only in the breakaway that people become interesting.  So what does it eventually become?  A collection of corporation-states all building great cities to develop the talent?  Or is it the artificial intelligence world where humans are essentially out of work because robots can handle most services like Dredd?  Both are possibilities.