A bug in a single program can propagate across continents, causing failures in ways only explainable after the fact - and sometimes not even then. Moore's law may continue to produce better and better hardware, but the improvements will be exploited in very regular applications such as digital signal processing and data storage. These thinkers predict that by 2020, humankind's faith in exponential trends will be replaced with rational, linear expectations, and we'll look back at the last 50 years as a frenetic aberration. Along with the Independents, these academics believe the pace of life will ultimately return to a safe and manageable rhythm, if only we can curb our lethal dependence on large-scale automation. However, developers and the vast majority of consumers believe otherwise, and change continues to accelerate.
Prediction remains as difficult as ever.
The principle is applied for better or worse in every situation. Embedded networks make this philosophy possible. Many end up in useless locations, a new form of garbage. Others perch on street lamps and curbs and customers' roofs. An hour or two passes.