The echo of drums announcing the imminent sale of computers, DVD players and other appliances, has come to my ears. Like other recent rumors, the “bang-bang” begins abroad, but in my neighborhood shops nobody knows anything about the “technological onslaught.” Despite so much despair for the changes that failed, I believe that yes, the ban on buying computers has been lifted, or rather, it has vanished before its ineffectiveness.
With a several decade delay, a memorandum will permit selling the electronic circuits, optical readers, and chips that create, reproduce and disseminate information. The reason for not selling them earlier was not electricity consumption or the fear of social differences but, until yesterday, so that they could control their spread. Since an iPod fits in a pocket, a Minidisk stores several films, and the little innards of a Flash Memory can carry a hundred documents, what is the point of their prohibition? Why wear yourself out in a fight that already has a winner: Technology.
Still, the opening measures will be gradual and well-spaced. A clear game where the carrot is the desired air conditioner that will be available in 2009 or the symbolic toaster for which we will have to wait another two years. At this rate the satellite dishes will arrive in mid-century and my grandchildren will know, in their teens, GPS.