And yet, I can't help thinking that I would hate to live in Tolkien's time. When I was around 10, in 1975, I built a giant computer out of a cardboard box. To me, a computer was the same as a spaceship--something I would never own. Then in 1978, I saw an ad for a TRS-80 personal computer, and my world flipped.

Even now, in my 60s, I can't wait to sit down and start programming (with or without AI). I've had a long, fruitful, and extremely fun career with computers, and I can't imagine what I would have done without them.

Does that mean it's all relative? Whatever we're used to, that's what's good and any change is monstrous? Or is there really such a thing as progress and degeneration? Is it possible to say our time is better or worse than Tolkien's in some absolute sense?

I don't know. I think if you take a Rawlsian perspective, and imagine being a random person of the era, I think being born today is far preferable to being born in 1892. On every measure--childhood poverty, violent deaths, even air quality--2026 is better than 1892.

And that improvement is due almost entirely to technology--to the machine.

I’m not a fan of cars or environmental damage but the idyll that he puts on a pedestal just didn’t exist for the vast majority of humans in Britain (let alone elsewhere in the world)

Is it possible for a tech-oriented ideal to escape "machine worship"?

As we strive to refine our "machines" ever further, and our "machines" become ever more capable, where does that lead us?