Yesterday me and a couple of my buddies were chillin out in his back yard hittin a bubbler and smokin a blunt and we got into a conversation about what if one thing didnt go the same way as it actually did, for example lets say back a while ago when bill gates invented the computer, just think what would this world be like if he ended up being killed or something before he actually made the computer, how different that could make our world, and i know steve jobs went off to invent apple so some could say that the world would be run through apple instead of pc. but jus imagine if bill gates did get killed and steve jus said to himself thats its not worth it anymore to keep going with the apple franchise. the world would be an entirely different place from what it is now and then after thinkin that through it bring you to the point of like what could we be using in substitute for the computer, could it have been better for the world if pc wasnt invented to help with national security and to see if we could have something better invented in place of the computer? i dunno if this really makes everyone else think like it did me but i started gettin into that jus thinkin about other stuff like that, jus seems mind boggling to me. lemme know what u guys think if you have any ideas or convos like that with people i find it kinda interesting to hear that kinda stuff
i love this thought. i love thinking back on my life and locating one tiny event that changes everything. a little over 3 years ago in high school my friend called me up to ask for help with a video project for school. i almost said no cause i was really busy with finals, but i said yes, and at this project i met my absolutely best friend for the past 3 years. meeting this friend delayed my weed-smoking by about 2 years (i speculate), changed where i went to college, thus further influencing my path in life in profound ways. ..but it would have been completely different if i'd gone with my gut instinct to say i was too busy to help. just a small, but real life example.
Well technically, computers existed before Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were even born. Also, it's not like those two guys were single-handedly responsible for making the personal computer what it is today. A whole lot of other people put their ideas and efforts into it as well. Basically what I'm trying to get at is that certain points in human history are unavoidable. For example, the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution, and the Digital Age we live in now... they all would have come about regardless of the particular individuals who helped start them.
Naturally, this is all hypothetical counterfactual speculation. Not that there's a thing wrong with that!
but they could have/would have come about in very different forms, depending on who/what was changed, no?
I agree with Cosmic. First of all neither of them invented the computer, they "created" operating systems. I put created in quotations because this idea was actually created by xerox. So xerox would have made the idea themselves if Bill & Steve's ultimate adventure didn't exist. In order to keep this concept you're talking about alive, the question is "what if xerox didn't come up with the operating system. We would be back to command line and I'm sure someone would come up with a gui to replace command line anyways.
That's the very point i was trying to say, I didn't really mean it like no one would have eventually "invented it" like you guys say xerox with the operating system, just saying how the changes in PC would be if it could have been better for us or if it wouldn't be as good as the technology we have today, which could bring up a whole new arguement. Now we could get to the topic is life jus full of surprises or is everything in life lined up and is set to do what happens at that very point like it was all planned out. I don't know if you guys have heard of the many worlds theory that states that: we think particles are changing their behavior is that we’re only seeing that particle’s action in one universe, rather than the infinite number of universes that actually exist. So an observed particle with two options—say, to pound beers at a Van Halen tribute show or drop E and storm a techno club—actually does both, even though we may only observe the techno club, in some other universe, parallel to our own, that particle is rocking out to “Eruption” instead of rubbing itself ferociously on anything with a body temperature. so with that whole thing being said, if you believe it or not, in some other universe we have a whole shit load of new technology and something that does infact replace the computer. by the way for when your baked and you think about stuff like this, you should take like 10 minutes out of your day and read this. It's actually mind blowing. http://www.cracked.com/blog/2008/08/07/5-scientific-theories-head-explode/