Humans Need Not Apply

"Yes, I'm her about the exterminator job."

I've been gone for a few weeks and in my time away I have been looking into some interesting ideas about what is coming down the old proverbial pipeline. A lot of what I have been investigating stems from a CGP Grey video, which I recently led an educational discussion on: Humans Need Not Apply. (I will put the video down at the end of this post if you want to check it out, and I recommend you do.) I have also been doing a lot of reading on the subject by Andrew McAfee (You know that guy who keeps claiming you computer is not as safe as it could be.) Well beside designing anti-virus software he is also a respected MIT engineer and his book The Second Machine Age is an interesting read.

Now what does all this amount to? If you listen to these sources and others than you may find yourself getting pretty terrified because basically the economy will collapse sometime in the next twenty to fifty years. Robots, automation, and software are getting to the point where they can do our jobs better, faster, more accurate, and (more importantly) cheaper. To take an example from CGP Grey, let's look at self-driving cars.

They are already real and they already work. There are estimates that self-driving cars will be commonplace by 2025 and will be almost ubiquitous by 2030. For me that means I can read a book as my car drives me down to the Jersey Shore. For truck drivers, bus drivers, cab drivers, construction equipment operators, garbage truck drivers, and more like them, it means they will be unemployable. Not only will they be unemployed, they will have a skill set that is no longer required in the economy. Conservatives estimates put current transportation jobs as employing a little over 3.5 million people in the USA alone, but this new technology could cost as many as 10 million people their jobs. Go even further and look at the auto-parts industry, which employs almost another 1 million people who will have to be downsized. Other estimates say that this new trend is going to drop the number of cars on the road from 245 million to just 2.4 million vehicles. (Because why would I even need to buy a car when I can use an app on my phone to send for an Uber-Auto-Vehicle to transport me to my destination at cost of 50 cents per mile, and not even have to tip.) The auto-insurance industry, the rental car industry, the used car dealers, even the parking lot industry, are all going to take hits and lose employees. That is a lot of people out of work, and its just the tip of the iceberg.

Baxter the Robot can be taught any manual repetitive job, all with less cost,
less down time, and less physical comedy than you average Lucile Ball.

If you watch the video below you will see that there is a lot of new (and working technology) that already exists that will make our jobs obsolete. I am not talking about I Love Lucy assembly-line type of jobs either, but those kinds too. (Note to self: write a story about about two mischievous robot wives who always get into hijinks at the expense of their robot husbands, and one is Cuban... for some reason.) Blue collar, white collar, professional, and even creative jobs are all at risk. There is software that can take care of payroll, budgeting, advertising, and even human resource problems. There are computers that can answer the phone, sound human, and be responsive enough to solve people's problems. And that fake story and the Lucile-tron 9000... well a computer can write a better story, literally. They have computer programs that write stories, news articles, and even compose music. As for doctors and lawyers, they have an app for that. (I'm not even being flippant.) With the advent of wearable biometric technology (FitBits are only the beginning,) you are no longer going to need to have regular physician check-ups. Your phone will be able to tell you everything from your cholesterol to your blood type. It will warn you of an impending heart attack or diagnose that sniffle you woke up with. You may still have to see an actual specialized doctor for serious issues, but general practitioners will eventually become a thing of the past. Similiarly there will still be lawyers, but all the grunt work of law will be done by computers, not interns or pre-law students, or even Charlie who has failed to make partner for thirty years. Less lawyers, less doctors, less teachers, less policeman, janitors, grocery store clerks... less everyone.

Worst of all, these newly unemployed people will have no where to go. Conservative estimates put unemployment rates in this new economy at 20%, but it could run as high as 75% in the long term. What the hell are we going to do? Most of the sources I have used for my research don't give any solutions, just problems. So, I am going to talk solutions, and you may not like them...

Solution: We do nothing. Anything we try to do to bolster a human driven economy over an automated one is only going to delay the inevitable and wind up perpetuating the idea that humans have no purpose but to work, which in my opinion is a dangerous and stupid idea. Think about it. Why the hell do we need employment? We work forty or fifty years at jobs we barely tolerate and what do we get out of it? Satisfaction? (Maybe if you are lucky.) Even worse we condition ourselves to believe that it is our employment that makes us useful. In a lot of cases we make work to make jobs to make more work to make even more jobs. How many people do you know who have retired from work and have no idea what to do with themselves? It is because they have been conditioned to think that they need to work and they have never experienced a world where that was never true. Jobs are like prison walls. Its like what Red said that one time, "First you hate 'em, then you get used to 'em. Enough time passes, you get so you depend on them. That's institutionalized."

With C3PO doing all of Luke's tricky translation work he was free to live
the luxurious life of a moisture farmer/rebel/Jedi Knight.

But it was not always like that. In our hunter-gather days estimates put the work day at anywhere between four and six hours, (of course 25-30% of hunter-gathers also died by homicide, but that's a whole other issue.) The point is that we have to ask ourselves if the purpose of human life is to sit behind a desk, earn a wage, pay into a pension, and wait for death once you retire? Twenty years ago, futurist believed that we would only be working about a 25 hour work week, because we would have things like 24-hour access to our messages, devices that would let us work from anywhere, and computers that could take a lot of the necessary grunt work out of our lives... You know what? They were right about everything, except the length of our work week. It stayed at 40-hours, not because of necessity, but because of fear and tradition. It is arguable that our current 40-hour work week does more harm than good, yet we cling to it because we believe that is the way things have always been done. Its the same for when I say, "In the future we may not have to work a full day or at all," that you have an instinctual spike of dread or fear... "How can that be?" you wonder. "What will we all do?" The short answer is: innovate and create. The long answer is: the impossible.

I understand there will be economical difficulties, but products will be cheaper and faster, and probably more disposable, but that doesn't mean all the problems will be solved. Some people have thrown out the idea of a minimum guaranteed income, a subsidized wage given to every adult after they turn eighteen. To a lot of people that sounds like Marxism, but the truth is, if we find ourselves in a world  with 75% unemployment, welfare and unemployment is going to basically become a minimum income. Then it will run out and people will still not be able to find jobs, because there will be literally no jobs to be had. So our economical thinking will have to be adjusted. Communism never worked because people like stuff, and there is no reason that changes in this new economy or that people can't make additional money on top of a minimum income. With all the free time I would expect people to use it to innovate, discover, and create. Now we won't all become famous actors or writers or software designers or scientist, but people will be free to follow their passions. If you don't believe me check out games like DayZ or Eve Online.

Both games are basically MMORPG's where the point of the game is that there is no point in the game. Sure there is survival and looting and leveling, but there are no involved storylines or epic multi-part quests. They are games where people are pretty much left to their own devices, and when you let that happen, you discover two rules: A.) Humans can be complete dicks; B.) Humans can create some pretty amazing things. There are fake multinational corporations that have arisen in Eve that are completely player driven. In DayZ players started a Hunger Games-like event that has become so popular it is now broadcast live on Twitch and other sports-gaming sites.

Yes, Jimmy Fallon, one day there will be robots doing that
job too, because of course there will be.

When left with time and resources people create (and yes sometimes they destroy because refer back to rule A.) In Star Trek, the Federation, is a society built not upon commerce or greed but upon discovery and the maximum potential of humanity. They are not driven by the need for objects or money, because why would they be? They don't need or want anything. You want ice cream? Boom... replicator makes you ice cream. You want to go to the beach? Boom... teleporter. You want the latest fashion? Download them and replicate them... Boom... The only thing left to them to get excited about or hungry for is discovery and creation. Art, music, poetry, and science are the driving factors of the Federation. I am not saying that is going to happen in the next fifty years, (or even at all,) here on Earth, but I am also not saying that it is not a worthwhile goal. It may seem overly optimistic, but when I think of the future I would rather believe in optimism, because even if we fall short we may still get something truly unimaginable.

So maybe it is time we stop being terrified of a world with high unemployment, and wonder what possibilities it can bring. In a world where everything is cheaper and abundant (including free time) maybe we can find a new paradigm for the human experience. Maybe we can create something amazing.

CGP Grey: Humans Need Not Apply

Do Androids Dream of Electric Lawyers?

Side Prediction: In the future Supreme Court Justice is going
to come with nicer robes... and a golden throne of dragons.

When last we met, we talked about the horrifying truth of how humans are really going to become nothing more than machines, or at the very least some sort of demon spawn that is half human and half microwave. In summation, expect to have microchips implanted basically everywhere... I mean everywhere... but there are scarier consequences to this trend than simply giving me legs that will let me jump like Super Mario on shrooms.

The real question of all of this is not how it will happen, but what will we do when it does? What kind of new legal consequences will there be? If my body is 51% robot, am I still legally considered human? or robot? Can I be owned by another person? And what if I break the speed limit while just going out for my morning jog? Will the law of the future even be able to keep up with our coming technological advances, because let's face it... we don't now.

PREDICTION 1. FUTURE LAW AND MORALITY

If you are a frequent reader of this blog, (and the answer to that is, you're not,) you might remember when I made an argument a while back that, Sometimes politicians just make sad and useless laws just to justify their jobs. Well in the future, our elected official may not have that problem, because there will be so many new problems cropping up that they won't be able to keep up with even half of them. I mean there are future problems we can't even begin to think about, and they are going to require some pretty hard and fast legislation to prevent society from descending into a scene straight out of Terminator or Ratatouille.

That last movie reference, by the way, was not one of my usually flippant off-kilter jokes. I am serious, in the future humans will most likely possess the ability to give a rat human-level intelligence and Gordon Ramsey-level cooking abilities, (the British accent will cost you extra.) So how in Hell's Kitchen, do we classify such an abomination against God under the law? Is that rat considered human? Does it get all the same rights that are entitled to my newborn grandchild? Would it be allowed to continue cooking or is that a violation of sanitation laws, (even if it frequently washes its little hands?) And if so, is it entitled to equal pay wages? Health insurance? Pension? Death Benefits? (Because rats live on average 2 to 4 years, and can have litters of up to 24 babies at a time.)

Okay, maybe that last example is a little ridiculous. I mean who would ever increase a rat's intelligence level to human proportions... oh wait, that is exactly what humans will probably try to do first. Rats are prime laboratory experiment animals (lab rats if you will) for a few reasons. Not only have they showed a keen ability to learn quickly, but their brain chemistry closely resembles humans. So any experiments made to learn how to increase human intelligence will most likely start on rats, (before they move up to apes and then we're all screwed.) And don't think this isn't going to happen. Humans have proven time and time again, that if it is possible for us to do something (no matter how bad of an idea it is,) we will do it. Everything from the nuclear bomb to disco has made that crystal clear, and humans have been trying to find ways to increase our intelligence since the time of your grandparents. With new genetic techniques, projects launched to map the brain and human genome, and a sizable pharmaceutical industry... it's only a matter of time.

Side Prediction: According to the Droid Regulation Law
of 2043, all androids must resemble David Bowie in the
creepiest way imaginable. 

So how do you regulate this kind of stuff? Is it fair that the rich will get to afford all these sorts of upgrades to themselves, whether it be robotic or genetic? Is this covered by my health insurance? (Which could really be a whole other blog by itself, because the crazy weird world of HMO's and health care providers will probably either collapse or see a profit boon like never before, under the weight of all the coming advancements. On a side note: I can't even get my Lasic eye surgery covered by health care... so take that into consideration when you ask your representative if they will pay for you to get a higher IQ, stronger muscles, or that third limb you've always wanted.)

However, those are all after market upgrades, what about when you start from scratch? Designer babies are not something of the future, they are something of the present. I know everyone is more preoccupied with arguing over the cuteness of their duck face photos and listening to your New Kids On the Block CD, (or whatever it is you kids listen to these days,) but while you were sleeping and looking at Internet cat pictures, companies like this one, have begun to offer options to parents who want to determine the sex of their baby. The company had even planned to offer more designer options, like hair and eye colors, but pulled the idea at the last minute because I guess someone  realized, Holy crap, that's the plot of an Ethan Hawke movie, and I guess the company didn't want to be the first one to venture into a dystopic future plot line. Rest assured though, someone will, and we're going to need laws to govern that bleak gray-and-blue-tinted future.

Think about a world where the rich will be genetically and technologically superior to the poor. Should we just make laws restricting how much genetic modifications the rich can have, or should we pass laws that state all babies born in America must have a standard level of genetic manipulation to weed out diseases and birth defects? You think the argument over welfare is acidic, wait till you have Republicans calling Democrats, "Gene Socialists," but even if we weed out diseases and birth defects, we can still go deeper. What about designing a baby to be a star football player, rock star, scientist, or maybe the perfect soldier? You can start to see the ethical and moral difficulties that might arise.

With the human genome mapped, doctors and scientist will even eventually be able to tell us if our child will be predisposed to being a dancer, a mathematician, or a violent criminal. If a child is born with a genetic imperative to be more violent than others, should we treat it any different? Or should we just put it down Spartan style, because it could be the next Hitler, and move on? Does free will enter into the equation for our little Charles Manson? Should we weed out these tendencies if we can? But aren't they there for a reason?... Go even deeper with this... What if the doctors can tell you if your baby is gay or straight? Would it be right to change that, if you could?... Maybe you're starting to see how complicated this is going to get.

Let's revist the subject of bad dystopian movies, instead this time let's talk Justin Timerblake, because if we discover the Fountain of Not Dying, (which we will,) is it right for the government to make a law preventing extreme age? Would our government dare put a cap on age the same way the National Football League puts a cap on salaries? After all, don't people kind of need to die? Not only would we quickly run out of food, room, jobs, etc, but humanity could very well stop moving forward. Again I turn to Congress, because... well just look at them... They're a bunch of old (mostly) white (mostly) men who are so stuck int their backward Baby Boomer ways that they can't even get off their assess long enough to keep the economy afloat, let alone see the reasonableness of something as simple as gay marriage. However, it is not entirely their fault. With age comes a certain recalcitrance to change or for anything new. Its a natural sort of survival mechanism hard wired into all humans (though in the future we may be able to change that too,) which is why human society needs old people to die so new people with new ideas (who are less afraid of change) can step up and continue driving us forward... but what if we never die? I mean John McCain has been in Congress ever since he fought against the Japanese with Commodore Perry in 1852, so his old ideas still hold power. Yet, is it right to mandate some sort of Logan's Run solution?

Side Prediction: Turtlenecks are going to make a
come back... in a big way.

Speaking of Congress, that brings up another problem in this whole thing... Congress is terrible at their job. (You had one job!) They can't even make any laws that effectively regulates the sale of firearms, and that technology was invented before the United States was invented. Most officials in Washington barely know how to program their VCR (that they still have for some unknown reason,) let alone know anything about how to make laws that actually deter file sharing, hacking, or the million other problems that dominate the wild west of the Internet. Make no mistake, the Internet is not only here to stay, it will become the end all and be all, so they had better figure out how to get a grasp on it, quickly, or they are going to be left even further behind than they already are. In fact, their inability to keep up with future demands is hindering us right now. Currently the lack of regulation over space transport, means that less private companies are willing to risk creating their own cargo/transport vehicles, because if something happens while a ship is carrying cargo from the ground to the International Space Station, (or some near-future space station or Moon colony,) there are no laws protecting that company in case of an accident. That means if something happens insurance will not help mitigate the loss of the vehicle and cargo, because they are not compelled to, even though they do it now when companies transport hundreds-of-millions of dollars across state and international lines with trucks, trains, planes, and cargo ships.

In the future, we can easily foresee how this trend will continue and Congress' ineptitude and slowness will not only will mean that they get left behind, but that they could potentially hold the rest of us back, as well. As government stands right now they will not be able to meet the demands of the future, (that is not an opinion that is an obvious fact,) which means we may not able to rely on them. I'm not calling for anarchy or any sort of rise to imperialism, but quite the opposite. I am asking us all to remember a quaint old idea called morality... I'll give you a minute as you look it up on Google.

You see, before the invention of laws, (which are a man made invention,) humans had to find other reasons to not kill each other or just generally be total assholes to one another, which is what the Greeks called ethos, or character. A lot of people, especially in America, don't understand that morality and laws are actually different things. When the United States was formed in the 18th century it was unique in the fact that it was founded upon a principal of laws, which at the time was great. It is part of the reason why our revolution was one of the only ones in history that did not swiftly de-evolve into a power struggle between would-be dictators. Unlike Britain, France, Spain, or all the rest, who added rules of law much later after their formation, America had laws and universial rights from the get-go. That meant there was never a time in American history where, we as a people, could not turn to a list of prescribed rules that told us what was right and wrong. Unfortunately, over the past 200+ years that has turned into a mentality of, "If it's not illegal, it's not wrong." You can see how this would be a problem.

Adultery is not illegal, but it sure as hell is immoral. There was a time when owning people as property was not illegal, but you better believe it was immoral. In many states a man who wants to marry another man is illegal, but it is not immoral. You see what I am saying? Now going forward, this attitude of "legal = moral," is going to get us into a lot of trouble, because the gears of Congress (especially this Congress) can be clocked with a calendar, while the gears of progress are clocked with a stop watch. If we continue to equate legality with morality, then nothing will ever be immoral. You want to have a sex-robot that looks like a 12-year old Selma Hayek? You want to clone yourself and keep that spare person alive for body parts? You want to weaponize your dog, (I mean as long as you get the proper gun permits and dog licenses)?

Look at it in terms of today. It is not illegal to Facebook stalk anyone, nor is it even that hard. However, is it right? Personally, I don't think so. In the future where privacy will be an even bigger issue than it is today, I think we are going to have establish our own set of moral standards about what is proper or improper when it comes to Internet stalking (a term which hopefully everyone gets started as negative and as a felony.) as well as many other things... However, that brings us to the next problem, morality is subjective. What I believe, may not be the same as what you believe, which is why we always have so many debates over Pro-Life versus Pro-Choice. That is also why Rick in the Walking Dead winds up having such a hard time, because in his lawless world he must face his own and subjective morality. Without law or religion there is no black and white... I mean, other than the episodes they are airing in black and white on AMC.

Side Prediction: In the future all lawyers will taste like chicken.

Maybe this is what worries me the most. In the future we aren't going to be able to use the whole religion-thing, (where God and Gordon Ramsey says you will burn in Hell if you don't do what's right,) to keep people in line. It will be entirely up to us. Things like laws are comforting because we don't have to think or judge for ourselves about the consequences of our actions. They are like the instruction books that come with Lego sets. You just have to follow what they say, but in a world where the instruction book tells you to how make a dinosaur and you want to make a rocketship, what do you do? I would like to think that we, as humans, will come to understand the destructiveness of our selfish decisions and try to actively take a stance against it, not just publicly, but in our own lives... but I have to be a realist... I am worried. We've lost our sense of right and wrong and put more and more faith in the easiness of paper laws made by less than stellar elected officials. I mean go onto any Internet forum and read the comments, they're not written with any sort of moral imperative (or even basic human decency) in mind. Humanity has lost a lot of its decorum, especially in the face of anonymous technology. From where I am currently sitting, this trend will probably only get worse.

Technology has already outpaced laws and will exponentially continue to do so. Cloning, genetics, nanotechnology, the Internet, and all sorts of new frontiers are waiting for us in the future, but these angels of our advancement do not come without their demons. The examples I gave above are only the most generalized and obvious of them. What happens when we have the ability to start breeding any animal we can think of, extinct or otherwise, do poaching and conservation laws go out the window? Can I hunt a saber-tooth tiger if I am willing to pay for breeding it?.. Even scarier, what if I want to develop a weaponized version of the common cold in my basement, and use it topple governments? How do you stop me?

I know I have asked a lot of questions in this entry (more than in any of the others,) but that is because I don't have any of the answers. In truth, only time will tell the outcome of all this. I want to believe in the positive, but I fear the negative more than anything. I don't want to say laws will become obsolete, but I do believe that in the future the burden of determining what is right and what is wrong will ultimately be placed on our individual shoulders. I would like to say that such a thing shouldn't be considered new or novel, since it is a concept older than the written Bible, but every time I see any of the programming on MTV or TLC, my doubt increases... So maybe, (just this once,) we shouldn't try and look ahead, but instead look back to a time when we let our principles govern us, because if we can use our science to resurrect a woolly mammoth, maybe we need to also use our conscience to resurrect a culture of ethos, before we all go extinct.

Resistance is Futile

Side Prediction: You're won't be able to
understand your grandchildren's life choices.

In my last installment of my ongoing series about the future, I talked about what technology would do to the economy once it started reaching Picard-like levels. Basically it would destroy it and leave us all in a state of unending material wealth that we will no longer value. This could also greatly increase the depression rates in adults as life continues to lose meaning and permanency, but that's a bridge we'll cross when we get to it. Let's talk about scarier things, shall we?

Our economy will not be the only thing that sees a rise in technology. Humanity itself will continue to become more and more technological. Yes, I am talking about cyborgs, but not in the way you are thinking. Let me explain.

 

 

 

PREDICTION 2. TECHNOLOGY AND HUMANITY

Currently, I am writing a new novel set in the future and I have been doing a lot of research into what the world will look like in 50 and 100 years. What will humanity look like? And I can tell you some of the predictions and ideas out there are staggering, if not down right freaky. Obviously I can only take the predictions I read with a grain of salt (as I am sure you do with my own predictions,) but there are at least a few basic things I think we can agree upon.

First off, at this point in our understanding of technology and ourselves we must take it as an accepted fact that, (and unlike what was said by the predictions about the future from the early 20th century,) technology will not continue to become bigger and more obtrusive. Instead, the trend of technology is to shrink and become less apparent in everyday life, even while increasing its effectiveness and impact for humans. This means, things like light bulbs will disappear and illumination will be handled by the walls themselves. Laptop computers will be replaced by touchscreen pads, which themselves will be replaced by even smaller and unnoticeable portable tech. After all why do you have to carry something when you can wear glasses that will act as a computer screen and mouse movements that will be tracked by your eyeball... but why stop there?

Side Prediction: In about 8 minutes this woman is going to
be struck by a car while watching The View.

If we are miniaturizing technology enough to put it in a frame of glasses, why not go one step further and put it in a contact lens... and why stop there? If we are putting computers in our eyes, why not just take the final leap and actually give us a technological eyeball? Not only will it be able to project digital screens (literally) right before our eyes, but I'm sure we can make some tweaks to the concept of what are natural eyes are. We can make eyes that see further and sharper than any natural human can. We could even make an artificial eye that changes color based upon the whim of the user. Maybe today you are feeling like having green eyes and tomorrow purple... but why stop there? After all, if I'm watching my favorite Simpson's episode (a show that will still be making new episodes well into the 2050's,) I'll need to hear it too, so why not cochlear implants? You will be able to hear whatever you are digitally seeing, and why not throw in some Superman-like hearing powers while you're at it.

Where would the power come from? Simple. As much rubbish as The Matrix was, they did get one thing right, human beings are really nothing more than Duracell batteries. After many generations of technological growth I have no doubt that we will be able to utilize our own biometrics to power our new external and internal devices, and I am not just talking about the electrical field that our brains generate. I am also talking about the beating of our hearts, the movement of our feet, even our digestive system. they can all generate power in some form. If you wore a watch powered by your biometrics you would never need to wind it or replace the battery... because you are the battery. Yet, in this new world why even wear a watch when you can digitally project the time right in front of your eye with the blink of an eye or even a stray thought.

Here's the scary part folks. Really if you are going to put bio-implants in your eyes and ears... why stop there? Why not in your brains well? It's a much more effective way of controlling all the tech that will become part of your every waking (and maybe even dreaming) second. Also, (while your up there you might as well get the full tune-up and detailing job, because) with computers in our brains there's no reason why we can't get smarter. I am not talking about knowledge, but the ability to learn and reason. We can increase our cognitive abilities, our hand/eye coordination, our memory recall, and almost any center of the brain you might be able to think of... Yes, even the parts that control your dirty little minds. I told you this could get downright freaky.

This brings me to my second point I think we can agree upon, barring some catastrophic worldwide collapse or destruction, technology will always continue to improve, and if (as humans) we can do something (regardless of any moral misgivings) we usually will eventually wind up doing that thing. So despite our old fashioned 21st century misgivings, our grandchildren very well could become walking, talking, brain-texting machines that are as much technology as biology. I am not advocating morality on this point, one way or another. I am simply stating what I see as an inevitable fact of the future. I will leave the morality and the legislation of these new ideas to the people of the future, but seeing as how we are still having problems keeping up with the legal and moral needs of the Internet, I have my doubts that our old fashioned legal system will be able to cope with anything like this.

Side Prediction: In the future, the Roseville Elementary
Volleyball Team will be looking a tad more intimidating.

Yet, they will have to try, because with the growth of these new technologies will come a whole new set of problems. Facial recognition software, (which is already scary accurate on the damn iPhone) will only continue to improve. Couple that with our need to social network and you will have the ability to look at another human being with your optic-computer, and have that computer automatically search the Internet for that person. That means before you ever say anything to another human being you could already have opened up their Facebook, (or whatever they will have in the future, since Facebook maybe on the down slope) their dating profile, the forums they post on, their high school track records, etc. You'll be able to find out more about a person simply by looking at them then by having an hour-long conversation. How the hell is that going to change human interaction? I have no idea. Maybe it will make our conversations deeper and more substantive because smalltalk will be rendered obsolete... or maybe it will be a stalker's paradise... Who knows... but why stop there?

What will this do to professional sports? Lance Armstrong had his Tour De France victories stripped away because he was using something that stored more oxygen in his bloodstream than normal. In the future, I am sure that little feature will come standard on the basic package. We could also expect to see strength augmentation, muscular implants, greater lung capacity, and who knows what else. If a person from that future were to come back to our time, they would very much seem like a real-life superhero to us weaklings. So how does something like the NFL cope. In the beginning, I'm sure it will be easy enough to ban these technological humans from playing in the league, but if implants become the norm how can non-augmented, fully-biological athletes ever compete again? They can't, which means there will be an even bigger drive for physical enhancements. Heck, obsessive mothers and fathers already spend millions of dollars and years of their life trying to push their kids to be professional athletes, (and fulfill some unspoken desire left over from their days as a youth). This kind of technology has the potential to change everything. I mean what about law enforcement? Are all the police officers going to need implants as part of their jobs? If not how can they keep up with the new breed of (literal) super-villains they are going to face? (Then again, maybe police work will just be handled by robots.) What about soldiers? Do implants become standard issue for our men and women in uniform? What if your non-implanted child is bulled by a six-year old with the strength of an ox? Is that considered assault with a deadly weapon? There are just too many questions without answers... and why stop there?



Side Prediction: We're all going to have sweet
looking arm cannons.

Lastly, the one thing we can all agree upon is that no matter how mainstream something becomes there are always people out there who will push it further and abuse it, even past societal norms. That means, if humanity becomes augmented through invisible technology within our bodies, there will be those among us who may not want the technology to be so invisible. How many people are going to to extremes and chop off one of their hands, their arms, their legs, etc, so they can replace them with full robotic implants. It sounds like a bad science fiction, but is it really that far fetched? While we're riding this particular train to crazy town, let's go further still. Who says we even need to add technological human parts to our bodies? Why not a robotic shark fin, or a technology constructed tiger claw? Why not a prehensile tail? Why not feet with opposable thumbs? Why not four arms? Why not an implant that lets us change our skin color, or our hair color, or even the size of other (more private) body parts? Really the more you think about it the more it makes you realize how screwed up we can get, (if we wanted to.)

Scared? Well, there is also a flip side. Think on this: We could also use these implants and this technology to do other things. We can make our bodies resistant to disease, able to survive in extreme conditions, and maybe even to live longer. Do you want to live to be 150 years old... they might (one day) have an app for that. We need to face the good with the bad, because life is about change. We can't fight against it. All we can do is try to figure out what do with it when it arrives and how we shape ourselves and our views of the world to fit these new advances.

This lead me to my next installment: FUTURE LAW AND MORALITY. Now its time to get back in my time travelling telephone booth. Take care future-children, and stay radical.


 

A Worthless Futures

Side Prediction: Paper money will be as underrated as
Thomas F. Wilson's acting career after Back to the Future.
(Sorry TFW, I enjoy your voice-over work.)

In my previous blog I covered the topic of overpaid, under-talented celebrities and how their home sex tapes will diminish in value as the years progress. Granted, it probably was not my best post, because, let's face it, I really just wanted a venue to rant on the excesses and stupidity I see everyday when I turn on the TV (I'm looking at you NBC,) but that's all in the past, or the future, or whatever. Let's move on...

Right now I want to talk about something of real value which will lose all meaning as we springboard our way into the unknowable future, money. Of course, this leads me to my next point...


 

PREDICTION 3. THE ENLIGHTENED ECONOMY

Before I launch into a complicated discussion of inflation, supply & demand, and other such explanations that I could expertly talk about (if I had bothered to get an economics degree, or even a business degree of any type... I have an MA in Comparative Literature...) let us first look at how the economy works. From my understanding, each year prices continue to increase in all sectors of life. For example, one-ounce of gold in 1999 cost: $279.00, while its current price is now listed at: $1,106.00, (I should have gotten a jeweler's degree;) a Slurpee from 7-11 cost only: $0.99, and now it costs: $2.12 (a 114.14% increase for flavored-slush ice;) a comic book cost: $1.99, which now costs: $3.99; and I won't even go into the prices of gasoline and movie tickets. To find out more comparisons you should check out this Daily Finance article.

Basically, the point I am trying to make is that crap is expensive and it ain't getting cheaper... unless it's technology. For example in 1989, a VCR cost: $229.00, in 1999 it cost: $149.00, and in 2012, I just found one on Amazon for: $45.00. I know you're saying, That's not relevant, no one uses VCR's anymore? ...Shut-up, you sound stupid... The real truth is that technology prices still come down even as technology itself improves. For a more complicated explanation of that you can refer to this article from The Big Picture. For a more simplified explanation refer to the infograph I posted below courtesy of Jesus Freak.

So, if you will take a trip down slippery slope lane with me for a moment, let s look at where our world is heading. We are living in a world where prices of technology shrink even while prices of everything else continue to grow. One day we could, potentially, face a world where it is cheaper to buy an iPod than a gallon of milk. In the next ten years, the price of a microchip is projected to be equal to less than 1-cent of US currency. This alone has the potential to turn our economy on its head and launch an explosion of technological innovation the likes of which humanity has not seen since Cobra invented the Weather Dominator back in the 1980's, but exactly how will this effect our economy?

To answer that I want to turn to one of my favorite future societies, Star Trek, (yeah just get over it and keep reading,) and the vision for the future it has set. The Federation is an interplanetary government that for all intents and purposes has no established economy, or has, as some call it, an Enlightened Economy. Now, not a lot is said on how or why this came about, but we are left to believe that it is a result of the evolution of humanity and its shifting priorities from greed to scientific interests, the advancement of technology, and the Communist sympathies of Gene Roddenberry.

As much as I would like to examine the first reason, my argument would eat up the rest of this article, (so I'll save it for another time,) and let's move onto the second reason, the advancement of technology. The fictional universe of Star Trek has these wonderful little devices called, replicators. They are most commonly seen in the TV show being used to materialize chocolate sundaes, Klingon coffee, or hot Earl Grey tea out of nothingness. In other words, it creates food out of thin air by assembling the proper molecules and compounds in an predetermined order and pattern similar to that of an actual ice cream sundae, bowl, spoon, cherry, and everything. When you are done with the meal you simply put your dirty dishes in the machine, dematerializes the molecular structure of your leftovers, and they get stored to be broken down and used again in the creation of your next meal. This is recycling at its finest. More to the point any discarded waste, (including actual human waste) could be recycled by the Enterprise to be used in the replicators. (Try not to think about that when you're enjoying that cup of morning replicated coffee.) So it's a fancy sandwich making machine? So what? I can hear you asking... I said, shut-up and don't make me tell you again... Replicators are mentioned elsewhere as being capable of creating anything from metal/plastic composite alloys, to dilithium crystal fuel, to stupid costumes that Data uses to play Sherlock Holmes.

A machine that can make anything, even if it could not produce complex or biological systems, would utterly destroy our current global economy. Supply and demand would become a concept as ancient as the dinosaurs or Jerry Seinfeld's stand-up. Did you ever notice how quickly world order breaks-down when someone creates a device that literally allows you materialize anything you might need: food, clothing, housing, minerals, fossil fuels, Slurpees? Thankfully, we do not have replicators, but the amazing thing about mankind is that once something is dreamed up, its hard to undream it. In other words, as long as the idea exists there is the potential for its creation.

But that would require a scientific understanding well beyond our current level. Its pure science fantasy? ...I warned you! Now I'm coming over there... *umph*... Hold still... This is for your own good... *thwack*... Now where was I?

This is most certainly a far off science dream, but maybe not as far as we might think. Currently, we have a little known device colloquially called a 3D printer. There are various types, older ones that used sand-like granular material and newer ones which use cords of plastic fibers, but the principles remain the same. In short, these machines can take a 3D image from a computer and literally print out the displayed structure by rapidly laying down thin layers of material over and over again, building the projected structure from the ground up. They are still considered a bit pricey for home use, but as I explained before that will change. So imagine the potential of these machines.

Side Prediction: In the future, IKEA's distinct style will be
known as Ancient Modern, but it will still be overpriced.

If you are missing a screw or even a leg from your IKEA coffee table, there is no need to go back to the store to complain. Just go onto the IKEA website and download the schematic to your product and print out the missing piece. Heck, for that matter why even go to the store in the first place. Instead of paying $49.99 for the non-assembled furniture, why not just pay $0.99 for the digital schematics and print all the pieces out yourself?  On second thought, why even pay that much? Just do what people have been doing since the dawn of the Internet and pirate the schematics off some illegal furniture sharing website? On third thought, why pirate a hackneyed piece of Swedish junk that everyone else on the block has, and why not just use your 3D printer program and make a coffee table of your own design?... As you can see IKEA might be in trouble in this near-future vision, as will other companies. On a personal level, why would I buy my future son any action-figures, when we can just use our creativity and make them; or just go onto one of the many free sharing art/sculpture sites that will surely crop up and use one of their free schematics. Within a few hours my son (or daughter) could have a full play set without ever setting foot in a Toys' R' Us. Best of all, when my child no longer has any interest in that particular set I could just melt the plastic back down to use as more fuel for my 3D printer. (Of course, it seems cruel to melt down a child's play toys, so I'll just have to melt down the unicorn statues I made for my wife for our 10th wedding anniversary instead, but you get my meaning.) The best part of this, is that technology not only gets cheaper, but it gets better. So maybe in the beginning it is just cheap plastic knickknacks and dorm furniture, but with improvements it could potentially become a printer for anything from computer parts to auto parts.

As you can see, even this small innovation could have dramatic economic ramifications. Currently, the plastics industry is the third largest manufacturing industry in the United States, with nearly 17,000 facilities in the country employing more than 1.4 million people. The widespread introduction of such a device could drastically affect this industry. Certainly demand for this special type of printer-plastic will increase, but the demand for other types would potentially decrease. I would not even want to hazard a guess what the overall impact would truly be, but I bet it would be a big one (for better or worse.) Certainly where the impact will be felt is in the industries that shape and sell already existing plastics. Industries like IKEA and its suppliers and manufacturers would feel a big hurt, as would toy companies, kitchenware manufacturers, and thousands of others that sell and produce plastic goods. Even some metal manufactures would probably see a decrease. Why use a metal stapler, when a plastic one works just fine and is cheaper to make?

More importantly a change like this would mean a shift in human thought. With the Industrial Revolution we moved from a farming society to a manufacturing one, and now with Personal Technology Coup (as I am calling it) we could again see our society shift to a thought process based less on interchangeable parts and more on personal/artistic manufacturing. Why should we pay for products that we can easily make ourselves, and even customize to our own needs and tastes? Once the PTC intellectual shift occurs, you are going to have a lot of people asking, "Why can't we do this with other things?," like metals, foodstuffs, and maybe even molecules.

Side Prediction: Apparently, even in the future, it will still
be a woman's job to make the coffee.

I'm not saying we are heading for a Star Trek world, as there are too many unanswered questions with the Federation model. I mean even that reality suggests that money has not been done away with completely and there is still at least some compensation similar to energy allotment units. However, their idea of an Enlightened Economy should give us pause. Replicators are not here yet and they won't be here for a long long long time, (If at all,) but we are already seeing possible predecessors for that device. So in the opinion of a Comp Lit major, that should be enough to make us start questioning where we are heading and what's waiting for us at the other end of the journey.

If technology continues progressing along lines and trends of personal comfort and individual design, it may only be a matter of time before we have a society that relies more on technology to meet its needs rather than big business. Granted we will still need to make money to purchase raw materials and other basic needs; and we will still need technicians to repair and maintain our devices (though even that will diminish as technological intuition also grows with each new generation,) but there is going to come a tipping point. Technology (in whatever form) is going to outpace the economy and we have to be ready for that moment. Once people lose the need to work (or at least work as much as they do,) we are going to need another reason to keep our society from breaking down.

This, of course, brings me to my next installment: TECHNOLOGY AND HUMANITY. Farewell, until we met again... Hello?.... *slap*... Wake up!... uh-oh... *casual whistling*... *receding footsteps*...

The Celebral Cortex

Side Prediction: In the future, we are not going to
understand the fashion sense of our children.

Continuing from where I left off in my last blog, in a world where TV is a more personal medium and where there is greater accessibility to creative equipment, and the means to distribute those personal creations, I have to wonder what will become of those wonderful glittering stars and starlets that we are so used to obsessing about. This leads me to my next point in our little theoretical journey through the future...

PREDICTION 4. THE DEMISE OF CELEBRITY

I am going to start off this blog by saying that I hate celebrity. Now I am not saying I hate all celebrities, in fact there are some pretty cool ones out there. What I really hate is this obsession that our culture has developed with an elite set of individuals, which we allow to dominate the news. "Oh we lost how many troops in Afghanistan today, it doesn't matter because Paris Hilton bought a new dog." (I will not even go into my disgust at the talentless celebrities who are celebrities for no other reason than the fact that they know how to drink and work a video camera while in the bedroom.) In fairness, I am sure this is not a new thing, but I have to wonder if Rock Hudson and Cary Grant found themselves hounded by cameras and reporters with every step they took. There is no doubt in my mind that it has gotten worse.

However, in a future world where anyone can pick up a camera and make themselves a movie star or a sound recorder and make themselves a hit singer, can celebrity survive? I do not (hope)think so, mostly due to the fact that celebrity culture is built upon business and corporations. As much as many of Hollywood's elite would hate to admit that their own status rests in the hands of production companies, that is the way the industry tends to work. After all, if you cannot get hired to start in the big movies or be on the label to make that hit single, no one is going to call you a celebrity. Yet if the entertainment industry becomes more decentralized among independent artists and filmmakers producing and distributing their own art this removes the power more and more from the hands of big business. It is logical to then believe that the status of celebrity will start to decentralize as well. I mean in a future where movies, music, and TV have become so easy to produce and distribute I have to wonder how important the status of celebrity will be. If everyone in the world is suddenly truly capable of being famous does that make anyone famous anymore? Will the Oscars and Emmies become more like those participation trophies you receive at the end of the Little League season when you were a kid?...

Probably not. After all there is the element of fantasy that goes along with the obsession of celebrity. The idea that offers people a sort of release from life. People obsess about celebrities because they want to be them and they want to forget about their own humdrum lives. This is a truism of human nature. We envy and fantasize about the things we cannot have and the people we cannot be. Yet, even this argument brings us back to the bigger picture. In a world where there is social media, cheap and quick access to production technology, and humanity's driving artistic nature, why can't we all become celebrities if we want to be?

Speaking solely as a writer, with technologies from spell check to blogging to eBooks and everything in between, we have already begun to see the world of publishing explode. There are now a whole slew of ways to self publish and promote yourself as a writer. The days of Thoreau sitting in a log cabin by candle light are long gone. (Heck, if Snookie can write a book how hard can it really be, right?) We also need to take into account that technology and our access to it grows exponentially every year. Not only does it become better, but cheaper. So in fifty, twenty, or even ten years I can foresee a time when anyone who wants to make a song album can use equipment found in their room that will match the quality of anything we hear today on the radio, or use a green screen and editing software to make a movie at match for any Hollywood blockbuster today.

Side Prediction: Coming for the Fall 2086 Season:
The World According to Paris Hilton's Brain

This new wave of Post-Indie (Because Indie is not even "Indie" anymore, just ask George Clooney,) material will also serve to cut drastically in the profits of production companies, which means a huge drop in profits for the artists, actors, writers, directors, etc. Currently, production companies pay celebrities millions of dollars because in turn they expect to make billions of dollars from the consumer. If the consuming stops, (or at least lessens to a trickle) not only will celebrity salaries begin to drop as well but the celebrity life-style. If companies can no longer afforded to pay actors and singers their unreasonable and outrageous salaries for two months of work than that actor will no longer be able to afford those fancy cars, huge homes, or throwing those parties that would put Andrew Jackson to shame, (and if you don't get the reference read a history book.) As we all know (and as Paris Hilton certainly knows) money is one of the key aspects to the celebrity fantasy, but if singers, actors, and all the rest are no longer making the big bucks will the fantasy be able to hold? More to the point I think we will find out very quickly how many people are in it for the money and how many are in it for the love of the craft.

Now I am not saying that there will be no more famous people. There will always be people who amaze us or who we wish to emulate. There will always be people who are extremely talented, but with a more decentralized entertainment system I think we will see the demise of celebrity as a cultural phenomena. After all, when I think of the people I truly admire and truly enjoy meeting, they are not the untouchable upper-strata of the silver screen. No, they are the lower levels of the entertainment industry who continue to trudge along because they truly love what they are doing, most of which are local artists and writers who have not forgotten how lucky they are to be doing what they love.

As a sort of disclaimer, I do not believe sports stars would be really affected by any of this. Mostly, because in order to be a professional sports player you have to have a highly developed skill set and compete in an already rigorous vetting process to attain the professional level... and to be honest I really do not believe that that there is any professional player that I would consider a celebrity (despite some of their outrageous behavior).

Similarly, in the future I see that skill and creativity will be what really counts in entertainment, and by leveling the playing field, the truly talented, (and I do not include myself among this rank) will receive the recognition for their work based upon their ability and not upon their status. Those who are famous in the future will be admired in the same way we admired people like JRR Rowling, John Glen, or Colin Powell. They will be people who deserve the respect and adulation not because they are highly paid, but because they accomplish great things. Nor will these people have every aspect of their private lives scrutinized and photographed. They will not have to adhere to some kind of quasi fantasy/reality TV-like life style in order to keep the media interested in them, and I think we all can agree that is a much needed change, for all our sakes.

I do realize that more than any of my other prediction this may just be wistful thinking on my part, but I really hope not. The truth is that even if we progress to a future where entertainment becomes truly decentralized we may never be rid of the idea of celebrity as long as we are still creatures of material desires. This, of course, brings me to my next installment: THE ENLIGHTENED ECONOMY... See you in the FUTURE... future... future.... future...

The Evolution Will be Televised

Side Prediction: In the future we will stop weaing pants.

"Welcome to the World of Tomorrow!"

"Why do you always have to say it that way?"

"Haven't you ever heard of a little thing called Showmanship"

    -Futurama 1x01

I have been doing a lot of thinking about the future lately, (mostly about what I will have for lunch and for dinner, and possibly the vaguish possibilities of a zombie apocalypse.) However, if the world is lucky enough to survive the undead uprising of 2026 I do have a few idea on where we are heading both technologically and culturally, because I as I explained briefly in a previous blogs, the two things are inexplicably linked in our society.

This actually lead me to my next point:

PREDICTION 5. THE DEMISE OF TELEVISION

I know it sounds as hard to swallow as any of the programing on TLC (at what point did they stop being "The Learning Channel," and start being the "The Exploit the Depraved and Hapless For Profit Channel?") but it's already happening. It is also best for me to clarify that I do not mean television shows, just live television as we think of it. Already TV is becoming much more personalizable (is that a word?... it is in the future.) With things like On Demand, Hulu Plus, and Netflix (all of it streaming right through my PS3) the world is already starting to become a place where TV is something we no longer have to schedule our lives around. According to a survey done by TiVo only 38% of the TV watching Americans do is "live," and Netflix is the 15th most watched channel in the US. This statistic also takes into account people watching delayed TV and is rather self-servings for the TiVo corporation, but it does make a certain amount of sense. Personally, I do not watch "live" TV unless I am bored, (which is not as often as I would sometimes like.) With the ability to shape my TV watching around my schedule I can see no reason for anyone to go back to watching TV shows according to a somewhat draconian programming schedule... well except to make sure that your jerk co-workers don't spoil the ending to Game of Thrones for you on Monday morning, (Thanks Matt... Jerk.)

All of this is compounded by the fact that with premium channels it is possible to get upwards of 1,000 channels on your TV and most of them are filled with crap I will never watch in a million years (and by that I mean reality shows.) Americans will only ever watch the smallest fraction of everything being broadcast. Even if we go with a safe estimate of an average of 500 channels that every American TV viewer has access to, and say they run programing for 20 hours a day (also a low estimate). That means we are still looking at 10,000 possible hours of TV watching to be done in a single day. According to the NY Times the average person spends 4 hours and 39 minutes. (The 39 minutes must account for the fact that no matter what I do, something always interrupts me before the end of Law & Order... All I want to know is if he is found guilty!) That means that the average person spends 4.65 hours out of our estimated 10,000 watching TV. Thus, using our numbers the average American TV watcher will only watch less than .05% of everything being broadcast on a daily basis.

This is an unsustainable system, and more importantly an annoying one. The reason there is so much crap (reality shows) on TV is because there is so much airspace to fill. I just paid my cable bill which was about 88 dollars. Roughly 30 dollars of that is phone and internet (I only got the phone because they made me get the damn bundle package.) I ran some quick calculations the other day I determined that I am paying roughly $50.00 per month for my basic cable use. I barely use it. Instead I could cancel my cable (and phone landline), just pay for my Internet, and also pay for Hulu Plus for an additional $9.99 per month and not only get the benefit of watching almost any show I can think of (except premium channel shows) but also of watching any episode of almost any show that I can think of. Even if I was feeling crazy and I added on a monthly subscription of Netflix I will still be saving roughly 20 to 30 dollars of money per month. Why am I not doing this?

Side Prediction: The trend of 3D movies will die a horrible
death only to be resurrected in another forty years.

My own financial issues aside, I can see a world where TV and movies all exist within a digital Internet queue. If you feel in the mood to watch Doctor Who, you pull up the menu, scroll to the episode you want to watch and let it fly. New episodes will be added on a weekly basis as well as new and old movies. There will probably still be some "live" screened channels such as the news and sporting events, but I am sure even that will give you the option to watch at a later time. There is a lot of implications that come with this cultural shift. Not only will phrases like prime time programming, day-time programming, or even Saturday morning cartoons become meaningless, but we will move to a world where our culture is no longer bound to the shackles of TV. We will come to treat TV more like personal movies. We will be able to watch them when we want, and we will probably become more discerning in our choices. A lot of the filler that exists will drop off and shows will compete with each other not just across "time-slots," but on a one-to-one basis. Without a need to fill airtime shows like Backwater Hicks Doing Backwater Things, I Married My Ancient Alien Abductors, and anything on HGTV will probably not survive the transition. These "boredom" shows are what people watch when they can't find anything they like on. Such shows will become obsolete, and hopefully take the reality show industry down with them, (but that may be wistful thinking more than conjectural based prediction.) Also, in this scenario the DVD rack will become something of a relic. When everything is a remote click away there will be no need to keep physical DVD's or Blu-Rays anymore. Things being as they are, I am sure that there will still be advertisements, but we will learn to live with it.

More importantly, this will really open the door more independent projects created not by big name production studios but by average people on the internet. If we start streaming all TV from the Internet it will be easier for local and Indie productions to make the jump to mainstream TV watchers. This trend will only be helped by the rapidly dropping costs of professional-grade cameras, production equipment, and digital graphics and editing programs. Culturally, this should make for greater competition and higher quality programing. In the long term, this could even spell the end for the monopolized TV industry and their network corporations. If the playing field that is TV is leveled according to quality and viewing demands than that can only be a good thing for anyone who enjoys watching quality television.

Even as far as the "industry" is concerned they should not see this move to personalized-streaming TV watching as a bad thing. In actuality, this could be the move that saves TV and movies. Online piracy is a fairly common problem. More and more websites crop up that allow people to download torrents and illegally stream movies and current TV shows. If the networks and production companies get behind a TV system where everything is streamed from the internet and available when a consumer wants it for a minimal price than I predict you will see a lot of these pirate sites close up shop pretty quickly. As a disclaimer, piracy will never go away, but after iTunes came on the scene pirate programs like Napster and Limewire wound up losing a lot of users and content. Usually, if there is a simple and cheap way to get what consumers want they will be too lazy to go through the hassle that piracy entails. If it comes to having to pay $9.99 a month for any TV show a person wants or having to set up a torrent downloader, search through the internet for a reliable download source, and finally spend a few hours downloading the content most of the lazy consumer driven public will choose the former rather than the latter.

More than likely the "industry" will survive along with some of its more powerful corporations, but maybe those who will have the greatest to loose from a system like this is the actors (or more specifically the celebrities.) In a world where there is greater accessibility to TV creation and little to no live TV the status of celebrity will start to lose a lot of meaning. A lot of this leads me to my next prediction THE DEMISE OF CELEBRITY, but I will talk more about that in my next post. For now... I'm hungry.

Flying Car Insurance

BEHOLD THE FUTURE... where for some reason the only
person who has access to a flying car is this gray-haired
woman in a burka, and everyone else is still left to traveling
by conventional cars in the background. It is more likely that
this picture is telling us that in the future old people will be
given flying cars because it will be less dangerous than
having them on the road with the rest of us.

Did you ever think it is weird that we do not have flying cars, or moon cities, or robot butlers? I mean it is 2012. In 3 years on October 21, 2015, Marty McFly is supposed to arrive from 1985 to find a future full of hoverboards, rooms filled with fax machines, and self-fitting clothing, and yet I still can't find a suit-jacket that fits me properly. Heck, according to Star Trek by 1993 genetic superman were supposed to seize control of more than 40 nations on the planet Earth, and yet in reality steroids are still outlawed by Major League Baseball. I will not even go into the disappointment of 2001: A Space Odyssey. (I mean Pan-Am running a space tourism company?) So what happened?

In a nutshell, culture happened. Ironically, we have discovered that it is easier for us to predict how science and technology will advance rather than how culture will advance (and trust me we have tried.) Technology is created by humans so we can sort-of predict how it will progress, after all as as long as we can imagine it we can conceivable achieve it. However, culture changes so rapidly that there is no telling if the technology we want today will even be desirable in the future. For instance, in the 1950's people had all these grand ideas about the technology and appliances that would come available for the busy housewife in the future. Now technologically speaking household appliances have come a long way, but what those past futurists never really understood is that by the time those technologies existed Mom would no longer be in the kitchen, but in the workplace. The same is true of the flying car.

When talking about flying cars our ancestors never took into account some of the cultural and world imperatives that would arise in the last half-decade to make that dream somewhat improbably. For instance, even if the obvious safety problems of giving normal everyday people access to a flying hunk of metal, accelerants, and exotic plastics could be overcome, no one seemed to be able to predict the culture of litigation and frivolous lawsuits that would try to use the courts to sue over everything from hot coffee to video game violence. No car company in their right mind would assume the legal responsibility that would accompany the mass production of a machine with more litigation-related earning potential than a toy box full of rusty nails. Even more daunting is that by the end of summer gas prices will hover somewhere around $4.00 a gallon. I have a 12 gallon tank in my little Saturn, and yet I still wince when the pump ticks past $35.00. A flying car would not only consume more fuel and cost more to refill, but would probably also cause greater damage to the environment. No one thought of environment or gas  issues in the 1950's when cars were made of steel and American pie.

Basically, thanks to the intervening years and the changing priorities of our culture, often even when we have the technology to finally accomplish the things we thought we wanted, it turns out we do not want them any more. Its like being a kid and wishing you had enough money to get the GI Joe Battle Tank toy, and ten years later when you finally have a job and the money to afford that toy you find out you have other priorities in life. Hmm... spend money on a toy or dinner with a pretty lady... (duh... toy.)

Left: What people in 1952 thought the future would look like.
Right: Some hellish future-vision where women can vote.

The real problem with a lot of these past future-predictions is that when making assumptions about the future our ancestors thought technology would continue to grow and become more obvious, like robot butlers. However, what we have seen of technology over the past several decades is that technology does not become more obtrusive, instead it becomes more subtle and seems to disappear from plain view. Your cell phone has more computing power than biggest super computer of the 1970's. It has more technology and memory space than all the crafts that ever landed human beings on the moon combined, yet it is small enough to fit in your pocket. Wires are disappearing as everything goes wireless, microchips are shrinking to microscopic proportions, and soon even something as subtle as the home computer may disappear forever as its functionality just becomes incorporated into everyday life.

To complicate the matters, culture and technology have an almost symbiotic relationship with one another, (much like art and culture, but that is a whole other discussion.) As culture influences what technology is created, that technology then influences how culture develops. The most classic example of this is, the Internet. The world wide web was created by the US Government as a way to communicate and store records in a non-central location in case of a Soviet nuclear strike. Thus, its creation was influenced by the culture and times it was created in. Over thirty years later, the Internet has become the biggest driving force behind culture in the history of humanity. People live their lives on the Internet, children are growing up never having known anything other than Facebook, Twitter, or Google. For better and worse it has become one of the biggest factors in our lives, and because of that it is not only influencing things like our humor, our art, our porn accessibility, but it is legitimately creating a new global culture. I will not go into the impacts of the Internet on culture, since the list is incredibly longer than I could even begin to list, but it is worth mentioning that any visions of the future we now have, will always incorporate a network of information that allows for the rapid exchange of thoughts, ideas, and pictures of cats.

So where does all this leave us? Well initially, it means we will probably not have flying cars anytime in the near future or jet-packs or underwater cities, or etc. It is more likely cars will become smarter and cleaner first, and maybe even disappear altogether. However, it also means that any well-meaning prediction about the future will need to take into account the coming cultural shifts that will not only influence technology but be influenced by that technology, but those are no small predictions. Only a fool would really try to make any meaningful predictions about future-tech based solely upon his own hopes and ideas... So stay tuned for my next blog entry when I do just that.