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Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

1401 points alankay | 2 comments | 20 Jun 16 18:04 UTC | HN request time: 0.422s | source

This request originated via recent discussions on HN, and the forming of HARC! at YC Research. I'll be around for most of the day today (though the early evening).
1. mempko ◴[20 Jun 16 20:00 UTC] No.11940975[source]▶
Alan,

You have inspired me deeply, thank you. I love working with man's greatest invention, but I have a deep sense of dread. HN is very good about projecting a fantasy about the future, that technology can solve all problems. I would love to see a world where people use computers to compute. However, global warming is a real threat and my biggest fear is that our pop-culture will prevent us from solving our problems before the chance to solve them is taken away from us.

With such a huge threat to humanity on the horizon, do you maintain a sense of optimism here? Or will humanity forget how to "compute" the same way Europeans forgot how to make Roman concrete?

replies(1): >>11942059 #
2. alankay1 ◴[20 Jun 16 22:22 UTC] No.11942059[source]▶
There are some good old sci-fi stories about your last question.

People in my process are optimists. People in my position who spend a lot of time trying to improve education are realists.