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Message |
| Posted By: |
UT |
| Date: |
7-Sept-2003-12:33:41 |
| Subject: |
"Seeing" The Future |
I've been reading a lot of science fiction lately, to catch up on what's happening in the genre in case I feel like writing some of it, and I've rediscovered the joy of SF. At its best, SF is about "seeing," catching the scent of an emerging trend early and then following it to its logical conclusion.
So I thought I'd start a thread here for those who think they've "caught a whiff" of the future in the course of their day-to-day self discovery. It's for people to post things they think might turn into realities, for those who are interested and might gain insight from what others "see."
Me, I can "see" many things, not all of which I like. For example, I don't expect the market for programmers in the developed nations to *ever* pick up again; there is simply too much profit motive for employers in moving that labor offshore. (Why pay someone in NY $50 an hour when you can get the job done for $15 an hour in Malaysia?)
I wouldn't invest any effort whatsoever into anything related to fossil fuels. They're going to last at best another 15 years and it's gonna get real ugly on the planet as they start to run out.
On the other hand, given the horrible stratification of society into rich and poor, with a rapidly diminishing middle class, careers that cater to the rich should be booming, if you can stomach working for them. Personal security should be one of the "growth industries" of the decade.
Insurance will go bye-bye for a while. My experience in that industry taught me that every insurance company in America (due to creative accounting loopholes) is underfunded by at least half. That means they can't afford to pay off on the policies they've issued in the case of a *big* disaster like a California earthquake or a really big terrorist attack. Most of these companies have bankruptcy papers already written and stored in a vault for just such an eventuality, needing only the proper dates and signatures to get them off the hook financially overnight and leave the policy-holders with diddleysquat.
Sadly, what I see as the biggest growth industries I wouldn't be able to work in, for ethical reasons. They will be all about *escapism*. Designer drugs, designer full-immersion videogames, full-contact bodysuits to sell simulated sex, etc. Since the very *concept* of all of these things is to take people further and further away from Now and into a world of unreality, I have Buddhist-oriented ethical problems with them, but those who don't could probably find careers there. Then again, those who don't could work on the newer, smaller, "better" nuclear weapons programs, too. :-)
Speaking of escapism, I predict it's less than five years before we start seeing live executions on television. And, of course, a major theme of all "reality" TV shows will remain "culling the herd," meaning that the people on the show will have to get together and vote to see who stays and who goes. This is important because it's *training* for what whole populations will be expected to do as neofascist governments "cull the herd" on a larger scale for their own reasons.
On both the plus and minus side, lifespans will rise enormously. Plus because people will live longer; minus because people will live longer, and there will be no money to support those longer lifespans.
And the area *I* plan to give some thought to, in terms of career? Eco-engineering. With the Bushies declaring CO2 a non-pollutant, global warming is now a certainty, and this summer should give you a glimpse of what that's going to mean. There will be intolerable heat and massive blackouts and equally massive water shortages. So anyone who can invent some kind of air conditioning that uses no water and very, very little power will make a bloody fortune. Underground housing, that requires no cooling and no heating in the winter, will also be a big market. Marshall McLuhan once said, "Man shapes his tools, and thereafter his tools shape him." Think of the panic that's going to happen when millions of people used to electricity don't have any more of it. Think what's gonna happen when people who haven't felt the reality of a 100+ degree day in decades because they spend all their time in air-conditioned houses and cars can no longer turn them on. It's a huge market for someone, and "green" and life-affirming at that.
Anyway, these are just a few of my futurethoughts on a September afternoon in Paris. What are yours?
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