Last time I saw anything resembling an ad for a futurist was at the turn of the millenium. Some outfit, don't remember which, was looking for predictions for the year 3000. I thought about predicting the law of gravity would be repealed, that anti-gravity machines would be commonplace.
I stayed with something more down to earth -- that males would be extinct. Thanks to cloning, women would finally say enough to man's warlike, aggressive ways.
I see evidence of this already. Over my lifetime I've noticed, as the stigma of homosexuality has thankfully faded, that there's a lot more lesbians than there used to be.
Men. We're losing market share.
***
I admire optimists, I really do. I wish I could do it. I'm an idealist but a cynical one. I look at everything at its first, most perfect way, and then watch as the world beats it down.
When I look at the future of our planet, I see increasing exploitation, climate change and various levels of tragedy. It is in nobody's economic self-interest to save the planet, it's in everybody's interests -- and wealth doesn't work that way.
When I look at the future of our country, I see an unstainable standard of living, unsustainable levels of debt, and a political system incapable of making a difference. I see an ever-widening gap between the haves and the have-nots.
When I look at my own future, I think about my dream since high school, my turn-life-on-its-head strategy.
Instead of trying to always make more money, I wanted to get totally set up on some spot where I wouldn't have to worry about money at all. Some high-tech, earth-friendly home surrounded by ponds, greenhouses, orchards, vineyards and some totally funky treehouse campground for a side business (to pay the property taxes). I always figured there'd be some big pandemic (avian flu anyone?) and that I'd be out in the country watching in sadness from a distance.
I actually got halfway to that dream before life got in the way.
Optimism. Losing market share.
***
Read an interview in the Sunday New York Times Magazine. Fella with a book out on the history of ideas. He said the worst idea ever -- by far -- was montheism, the idea of one true God. Considering there have been 4,000 recorded religions in history, he said this has been the source of more conflict, death and war than any other single thing.
Hard to argue with that, but it's a bit harsh for my tastes. I can say this much about religion; the majority of the benefits are personal, and the majority of the costs are societal. Reminds me of an old joke: "God is the best partner you can have who doesn't want a cut."
Personally, I'd say the worst single idea was the idea that land could be owned. I'm not calling for the abolition of personal property or anything that hopelessly utopian and communisitic. I'm just saying the idea that land could be owned was the engine that drove economic inequality. Marx, for instance, called rent the ultimate capitalist crime, and I'm reminded of the response of the Iroquois chief when told white settlers wanted to pay him to own the land: "Who will own the air?"
Maybe we should have ownership of air.
Then it would be in somebody's interest to keep it clean.
***
Since I mentioned the New York Times Magazine, I should note its Year in Ideas Issue is a highlight of my year. And contained therein was the best use of stem cell research I've ever seen -- in-vitro meat.
Once you get past the first-impression creepiness factor -- if I was marketing it, I'd certainly change the name -- it's an amazing idea. Instead of factory farms spewing pollution, instead of all the industrialized cruelty of the modern food chain, you have what are essentially petri dishes, and instead of growing yeast or some kind of test culture, you're growing pork loins.
I'm down with that.
As much as I like the idea of growing salmon steaks in a test tube instead of strip mining the oceans, I know with any revolutionary idea there will be pushback and resistance. I know there will be issues of safety, and even high-browed debates on whether muscle tissue grown alone would qualify as life / consciousness / whatever. And I say bring it on. It's a great debate to have. Somebody might even prove to me it's a stupid idea, and that's okay, too.
Open-mindedness. It's been losing market share, too.
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