Could you explain to me what " 'put the telescope backward'" means? In perceiving changes, we tend to regard the most recent ones as the most revolutionary. This is often at odds with the facts. Recent progress in telecommunications technologies is not as revolutionary as what happened in the late nineteenth century - wired telegraphy - in relative terms. Moreover, in terms of the consequent economic and social changes, the internet revolution has (at least as yet) not been as important as the washing machine and other household appliances, which, by vastly reducing the amount of work needed for household chores, allowed women to enter the labour market and virtually abolished professions like domestic service. We should not 'put the telescope backward' when we look into the past and underestimate the old and overestimate the new. This leads us to make all sorts of wrong decisions about national economic policy, corporate policies and our own careers.