a source of competitive advantage and that the internet revolution had been overhyped. The second book, by the very same author, argued that software companies were now too successful and the internet revolution was causing a fundamental shift in society. While the theses were mutually contradictory, the one common thread was unremitting negativity toward the then-new technology called the internet.

Another more recent example is with Facebook and social media.

Despite piling up 500 million users in six years, in 2010 people were still calling the company abubble that would never live up to the outlandish $33 billion valuation that people had placed on it. This narrative still held as late as August 2012, as Facebook’s stock plummeted after the IPO and it was an open question as to whetherThe war on drugs, commonly said to have been declared by US president Richard Nixon in 1971, has, by popular acclaim, been lost. There are dissenters, most notably many national governments, but plenty of expert studies have long since declared that the game is up.

Typical of the dozens, if not hundreds, of analyses is a report published in 2011 by the Global Commission on Drug Policy, a body comprising a former UN secretary general, a former US secretary of state, a former chairman of the US Federal Reserve and other luminaries. Their report began with a bold declaration: “The war on drugs has failed.”

The US authorities immediately rejected the findings. The report ended up in the usual place: on the shelf.

The war on drugs has cost a great