Why do computer geeks feel they were born in the wrong time?

This is a response to a now nuked write-up by one of our valued e2ers in which a repugnant attack was mounted against those who have chosen to not be technical. While that write-up is gone, the point I was making remains as important as ever.

Yes, there was a time in which we geeks didn't have to deal with all of those lusers. There was a time when computing was pure, unsullied by the hands of the huddled masses. There was a time when these tools were the exclusive domain of several dozen spoiled, upper-class preppies-gone-bad at places like MIT, Stanford, and CMU.

Thankfully, those times have passed.

Now, every day, several thousand more people get the opportunity to interact with this device that has changed every aspect of my life for the better. It's not just me who has the ability to reach out and shape the world of software I inhabit--now it's my mom, my wife, and my daughter.

Now, every day, several thousand more people who before had to be content with finding ideas and talking to people within their own pathetic realm of physical contact are suddenly being exposed to ideas, people, and cultures they never even imagined existed. Given a chance, people have finally demonstrated that they aren't happy being spoon-fed their external stimuli by television mass-marketers--they'd far rather be swapping mp3s with Napster or flaming the hell out of someone on Usenet or Slashdot.

Now, every day, there is less of a chance that we are leaving a Newton or Einstein class mind mired in the cycle of poverty and despair that engulfs our third world. With every new copy of Windows 2000, with every download of the linux kernel, with every new dial-up internet account or cybercafe we increase the odds that we will catch these geographically unfortunate geniuses and harness their minds for the benefit of all.

Now, every day, a blind woman can read the morning news with a text-to-speech rendering browser without having to wait for her husband or her friend to read her the paper. A deaf person, equipped with a computer-controlled hearing aid, can listen to a baseball game. A stroke victim, participating in the latest in direct neural interface experiments, can say "Hi!" to his wife for the first time in 5 years.

My world is a far nicer place to live than yours.

ObOnTopicPartOfWriteUp: I don't feel that I was born in the wrong time, and I'm fairly certain I qualify as a geek.

Or, if not in the future, then back in Medieval times, or into any other time and culture where there was still some basic science to be discovered. (Line Noise)

A millennium ago, people still believed in a geocentric universe. They believed that objects were, in there natural state, at rest. Atoms, molecules, and many of the elements were unknown.

A millennium ago, most people could not read. Half of them starved before becoming teenagers. The majority of those who lived didn't have time for intellectual pursuits.

A millennium ago, the Western world still wrote 3,472 MMMXCLXXII; and 0, well, that's just silly. Mathematics beyond simple arithmetic was mostly unknown.

People in similar situations come up with similar ideas; had any present-day geeks lived then it is most likely that they'd do the same thing as everyone else: Try and fend off starvation. Avoid disease (damn evil spirits!). Keep the feudal lord happy.

The world has come quite far since MI; no one should want to go back!