Rick Lamb [relamb@MidTechV.com] writes eloquently about the widespread malaise of indifference:

"I don't think we're entering a profoundly different era. I see nothing on the horizon that's going to cause any drastic change, at least in the near term.

"You're right about needing an awakening, but it's not destined to happen anytime soon. I sit here in the middle of the silent majority in the heart of the Midwest. Everybody complains about little things, they never have enough money, they don't have the greatest boss in the world, they wish they had better schools and better roads.

"But we're all basically content. We've got our big screen TVs, our own houses, our SUVs, our yearly vacations to Disney World, and enough food at the Hometown Buffet to keep us all obese. Some of us get in over our heads with credit card debt, but there's always our relatives to bail us out, if we don't file bankruptcy.

"I'm really surprised that we've handled the loss of manufacturing transition as well as we have. I used to work at a General Motors complex that had 16,000 autoworkers in Anderson, IN. I was a co-op student at the peak, when the oil embargo hit, high inflation, and GM started losing their market share. The place went downhill from there and just this past year the final plant closed. If it weren't for the UAW bargaining, it would have been dead long ago.

"But somehow the economy absorbed all of those people, their children, and we all have jobs and the necessities of life. Even if we lose our house, there are plenty of apartments to live in until we get back on our feet. The sky is not going to fall, our world is not going to collapse, and we're just gonna sit here and keep on keeping on. ....there's not going to be a revolution, and nobody here (the silent majority) is going to do anything about it.

"There's going to have to be some disastrous, precipitous event to cause any major change. One bridge collapsing isn't going to do it. Even two or three probably won't. We'd just as soon spend our money on a new sports stadium than a new bridge. We're all just too fat, happy, and dumb to care, and besides, it's not gonna happen to us!"

Britisher Andrew Bond [andrew@abpubs.demon.co.uk] discusses the steady decline of ISA and similar exhibitions:

"I was interested in your comments on the ISA show and, in particular, the measures that are being taken to try to revive and/or sustain the event.

"Sadly, they strongly reflect the measures taken here in the UK some years ago and are, I fear, likely to be no more successful. The truth is that, without the whole hearted support of the majors these big shows are doomed and the majors have discovered they don't need them. That's a tragedy for the smaller vendors who can't expect to attract 4,000 delegates to a user conference.

"Whether the existing user conference model is sustainable in the long run and what it might be replaced by - multiple vendor user conferences perhaps? - is probably the more important question but I strongly suspect that by the time we get the answer, it may not involve ISA."

Bob Szoke, [rwszoke@marathonpetroleum.com] agrees that technology is making us stupid, but only to a limited extent:

"If you watch young kids go through complicated intricate maneuvers on their video game controllers, while focused on the instant action, you wonder how all these sequences are programmed into their minds.

"I have one son who is a walking phone directory and another who puts TV Guide to shame. Kids today are changing the way they think, learn and remember. But they are not letting their ability to remember atrophy. Even us old timers knew to not waste time memorizing things that could easily be looked up.

"There probably needs to be more study on this whole subject before the new generations are forced into a regiment of memorization."