WHOOSH!
There it goes.
And good riddance!
Right?
Well that last decade only got stupider as it went along.
Maybe the next one will be better? Maybe.
What can we say about the future?
What might the next decade bring?
Questions such as these flood the minds of concerned citizens at times like these.
We must consider that in order to understand the future, we must understand mankind.
Look closely at the word "mankind".
It's comprised of two smaller words..."mank" and "ind".
We don't know what these words mean, and probably never will.
Here are my predictions for the near future.
Today, if you left your house without a phone
it induces the same panic as showing up at a party
and suddenly realizing you forgot to put pants on.
What fringe nerdy tech will totally control our lives 10 years from now?
Cybernetic implants? Bitcoin?
Killer android squirrels?
Don't bother trying to guess.
Remember, it's not the technology itself that matters,
but the horrible and stupid new uses we organically discover,
as well as the way cultural norms respond and adapt.
Looking at your phone in the middle of a real-life conversation used to be unthinkable.
Cell phones are not a sign of power, they’re a sign of subservience.
No one could have predicted the profound effect
they have had on the deterioration of human society 20 years ago.
 |
"Yes, that's right...in the future people will send you photos of
their wangs on your phone!"
|
Ignore Everyone's Predictions
At this point a decade ago, headlines about Bill Cosby were
Donald Trump was preparing to shoot Season 10 of a shitty "reality" show.
"Disney buys Star Wars" would have sounded like the premise of a bad SNL sketch,
and "Russians secretly interfere with U.S. election" would have sounded like the plot
of a mediocre '70s Cold War potboiler starring Gene Hackman.
The bestselling nonfiction book of 2010 was "Why Prince Is An Immortal Being."
Well some stuff is easy to predict, like how China would continue its economic rise,
mass shootings would still be a problem, or how Syria would blow up.
But the biggest cultural shifts always come bursting out of the ground
like killer worms in those awful Tremors movies.
Lots of what now exists only as rumbles and rumors (there were whispers about Bill Cosby's behavior going back decades) will seem glaringly obvious to everyone in 2030.
Lots of what we assume to be true today will be referenced as crass jokes
by our older, crankier selves while we yell at kids to get off our lawns.
In the future, you won't have to yell at kids to get off your lawn.
No, you can simply send your army of evil robots to disembowel them.
No Trend Will Continue On It's Present Course
Back in early 2010. "Obamacare" was just signed into law.
Democrats controlled the White House and both chambers of Congress,
and we had a Supreme Court that legalized gay marriage and let their new healthcare law stand.
This is all after a wave of articles about
the total collapse of the Republican Party,
and how their only way back to relevance will be to purge the crazies and become reasonable adults. The thinking at the time was that they'd need their own Obama -- someone young, smart, optimistic, inspirational, focused on the future. After all, it's not like progress can go backward or something.
Oh wait, crap!!!
It totally can.
Yeah, the lines on the graph never keep going the same direction.
Our culture is a series of reactions and backlash that is impossible to project with any accuracy.
Who out there guessed that the music of rebellion
would be made by people twice the age of it's consumers?
Or country music, which became endeared because of it's honesty would become the most schlock, overproduced, cookie cutter crap ever imagined and be rewarded with popularity because it did.
Or that the biggest shows on TV would see much lower ratings
than then-unknown video game streamers?
Go back 10 more years, and things get confusing and darkly hilarious quickly.
The big worry in 1999 popular culture was that Clinton-era economic prosperity was robbing white male professionals of their innate need for meaning (Fight Club, American Beauty, The Matrix).
No one saw 9/11 was just around the corner.
In the same way, you can't possibly guess
the huge thing that's coming to fuck things up in a few years.
 |
| In the future, black and white cathode ray TVs will be all the rage! |
The Future Won't Affect You As Much As You Think
You spent the economic boom of the late '90s working multiple minimum-wage jobs at once while living in an apartment with a cockroach problem.
As for me? My biggest paydays were all in the decade that saw gas lines and there was supposedly an economic slump by the indicators officially used. Carter was President. And many people thought the economy was bad. Yet it wasn't for me. As a newcomer to the world of session musicians in the recording industry, I was making very good money. That industry was dead by the late 80s. RIP.
That's how it works; your future and "the future" are two totally different things.
Yes, the market for junk bonds may be great, but wages in your field might suck.
Or Wall Street might be poised to jump off it's roofs...while you, yourself find some niche that is both profitable and enjoyable....even...maybe...meaningful.
No trend applies to everyone, or even most of the people, and that means every headline you read about where the world is headed might be nothing more than trivia to you.
You'll fall in love while reading articles about how we're living in an age of loneliness,
or lose your job in an industry everyone insists is thriving.
Maybe you'll find a way to overcome your anxiety and depression a month after an asteroid has destroyed the West Coast. Who knows? In fact one prediction I am confident to make is this:
None Of Your Current Plans Will Work Out How You Think It Will
 |
In the future, you will sleep in a glass tube
and some guy in a booth will charge people a dollar to come stare at you naked. |
If gigantic corporations can get sucked out to sea by sudden shifting currents, so can you.
But trust me, this can be a good thing.
Sometimes the sharks are on the beach.
OK...How About A Real Prediction?
Fair enough...here it is.
It Will Go Much, Much Faster Than The Previous 10 Years
I know this seems contradictory, considering this whole post is about how the entire geography of your life can and will change in just ten or twenty years.
This is just the way your brain perceives time though.
This ten years will be a smaller portion of your life experience than the previous ten.
That's why I can absolutely guarantee you that at some point,
you'll have some version of this conversation:
"Hey, I noticed that coat I borrowed a little while back is still in my closet, do you want it?"
"You borrowed it six years ago!
What does it matter now, after a volcano has destroyed the entire American Southwest and winter temperatures are now over 95 degrees?"
A decade sounds like forever.
A 10-year prison sentence sounds like a lifetime.
But here is the truth-
Projects you're determined to complete soon,
will still be sitting there, mocking you by decade's end.
 |
Though no one knows why, up in heaven
there's a 1950s style kitchen and everyone is very impressed! |
YES, THE FUTURE SUCKS ...BUT WAIT...
Yes there is a reason to be hopeful if you are an odds man...
or woman,
of course.
Realize that if you undid the past 10 years,
Problems sneak up on us, but so do solutions.
That's why the world is still here.
The thing that will wind up saving our sorry asses seven years from now
might just turn up randomly.
The thing that caused our sorry asses to need saving
arrived the same way.
There may be friends you haven't met yet,
talents you haven't discovered yet.
You may lose burdens you didn't even know you were carrying.
Some things you're dreading may wind up being no big deal,
and some of your deepest fears
may turn out to be based on silly myths and childish misunderstandings.
The solutions may just show up at our doorstep.
Just as the problems did.
Or those sharks on the beach.
This is how to have hope for the future.
And it's not blind faith...there is a historical record
that leads us to conclude this is so.
 |
| Yep...Land Sharks. |
