By the end of this little talk, I hope you'll be able to spin your own scenarios using each of the two major sources of evolutionary change, gradual improvement and invention. We can all imagine gradual improvement, but the key is to imagine substantial changes in relative rates. I'll spend my time here giving you some examples of relative rates and conversion, plus a few related things such as recursion and mode switching. The examples aren't important - I'm not trying to sell you on any particular future, just trying to prime the pump so you can spin your own scenarios about what you know best, but using relative rates, and using conversion of function, and watching out for mode switching.
Chromatography separates molecules by their relative migration rates.
But products can now capture the marketplace so rapidly that the enforcement of antitrust laws through the courts may itself be hopelessly slow, itself another relative rates issue. When things speed up, you need more foresight. The Justice Department's Antitrust Division is obviously aware of this. Indeed, they're trying to get a head start by anticipating problems. In 1995, they anticipated so hard that they got themselves into the paradoxical position of protecting Netscape's majority position in web browsers on the theory that Microsoft could sweep Netscape aside by simply incorporating its features into Windows.