2009 chasing our tails in 1967

"It's quite simple Nixon", said the young geography teacher.

It was 1967 in Belfast Ireland in a cold but relatively cheerful classroom in a very well respected private school.

"Computers will change the world. There will be more leisure. 'Youlot' (his favourite phrase) won't have to work -it will all be done by computers".

I remember saying

"But what about the world population, Sir? It will double within thirty years!"


Now, some of us  we are working twice as hard as we used to work in those nineteen-sixties-the others can't get any work at all!

Look at everybody. Running around chasing their tails -just to keep their heads above water.

So much for computers solving the labour problem!

World population was, and still is, part of the problem.

but there is another part.

There is the individual's need to be psychologically comfortable  at whatever the cost to anyone else.

In those days, as a young man, I knew about the first part.

Only experience has taught me about the second.