FAQ: Point-In-Time Disclaimer

You may have seen how some posts I have made are tagged with the note "Point-In-Time Disclaimer applies." Here is what this means.

Every argument I make about what we might be doing in the future is inevitable tempered by the fact that I'm making those arguments in the present. I know full well that the human race has a terrible track record for predicting "what life will be like x hundred years from now", simply because of developments that are absolutely beyond our ability to forecast. There is no way you could ask Johannes Gutenberg what he would think of of Godwin's Law and expect to get a coherent answer.

To that end, any statements I make about "what might happen in the future" are being made under the disclaimer that I could be so wrong I would never be able to understand just how wrong I was. None of this is meant to be an attempt to forecast or predict anything to come.

Rather, take it in the spirit of using the act of looking ahead to come to a better understanding of where it is we stand here and now. Because that's really about all we can do.

In the same vein, you can apply the PITD to any posts made by me at some previous point in time. If I said something five years ago, there's a chance my opinion on the subject has since changed. If you ask me to clarify whether or not I still believe something I said once, I'll do my best to answer as completely and transparently as possible.

A recent example: my comments about book blurbing I quickly realized to be uninformed and misguided, and I clarified my position on this once I realized such. But I left up the original post for the sake of transparency and accountability.