I think we could all be a bit more like Clifford Stoll. He’s the polymath from the US who, in 1995, wrote The Internet? Bah! in Newsweek. It gained notoriety for being uproariously wrong in many of its predictions about the ‘‘trendy and oversold community’’ that is the web.

Stoll foretold that ‘‘no online database will replace your daily newspaper’’ and scoffed at the idea of making restaurant reservations and buying books, newspapers or airline tickets ‘‘straight over the internet’’. They’re just a few of the best bits in a short piece dense with forecasts and folksy American sourpussery. (At one point he actually uses the word ‘‘baloney’’.) The reason I think we should admire him, apart from the fact he once caught a KGB proto-hacker practically by himself, is that he wasn’t being disingenuous or self-interested with his appraisal. He sincerely believed these things. He was wrong, but with true intentions.

Indeed, as Michael Hiltzik pointed out in a 2015 Los Angeles Times article, while he made some howlers with specific details, most of his broader points have turned out to be insightful. He talked about the ‘‘cacophony’’ of ‘‘cheaply heard’’ voices, a digital world where ‘‘everyone shouts [but] few listen’’. About the hollow promises of improvements in governing and democracy. About how no digital technology could compete with a brilliant (human) teacher.

Most importantly, though, he was self-effacing. He once wrote ‘‘Now, whenever I think I know what’s happening, I temper my thoughts: Might be wrong, Cliff.’ Who wouldn’t want to emulate a man who signs off a note admitting humiliating error with ‘‘Warm cheers to all’’?