Elon University
The prediction, in brief:

In 50 years when you look back and when it’s pretty well understood what this “Net” thing is, it may be called something different by then. People will say the idea that it is a collective consciousness was maybe a good way to start thinking about it but it was kind of a rudimentary, naive way. It’s really a lot more than that. It’s a lot more than a collective consciousness, and I don’t even know that it’s a collective consciousness, really.

Predictor: Hahn, Harley

Prediction, in context:

Harley Hahn made the following remarks in a 1993 Q-A interview with a writer for the online magazine “Voices From the Net.” ”I think that say in 50 years when you look back and when it’s pretty well understood what this ‘Net’ thing is, it may be called something different by then. People will say the idea that it is a collective consciousness was maybe a good way to start thinking about it but it was kind of a rudimentary, naive way. It’s really a lot more than that. It’s a lot more than a collective consciousness, and I don’t even know that it’s a collective consciousness, really. I know that ever since the beginning of time it seems whenever human beings have had a chance to communicate, they do. They get together. Whenever there’s a chance to send messages they do, and the ‘Net’ that we’re building, it seems like we don’t know why we’re building it, and we’re almost unconscious that we’re building it, but collectively we are trying to connect up to one another as much as possible.”

Biography:

Harley Hahn was a technology author, analyst and consultant and a prolific writer of books about computers and the Internet in the 1990s. (Author/Editor/Journalist.)

Date of prediction: October 1, 1993

Topic of prediction: General, Overarching Remarks

Subtopic: General

Name of publication: Voices From the Net

Title, headline, chapter name: Harley Hahn: Author

Quote Type: Direct quote

Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.spunk.org/library/comms/sp000317.txt

This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney