When PG says stuff like "I'm now surprised when I come across a computer running Windows", I think he's more of an outlier than the parent poster.
Different kind of outlier though: when you're an outlier because you spend an inordinate amount of time among people creating new technology, then your anomalous experience makes you better at predicting the future, not worse.
when you're an outlier because you spend an inordinate amount of time among people creating new technology, then your anomalous experience makes you better at predicting the future, not worse.
Sometimes, but not always. If you spent all your time hanging out with people creating new technology in the mid 1980s, you might have been convinced that Lisp machines would soon become the dominant computing platform.
Mid 1980s one would have predicted Unix/C and distributed computing using Internet protocols would soon dominate, and would have been wrong...about the "soon" part.
Different kind of outlier though: when you're an outlier because you spend an inordinate amount of time among people creating new technology, then your anomalous experience makes you better at predicting the future, not worse.