Hat tip: Eugen. I like a number of these, and several of them are a
product of the law of unintended consequences. I suspect ~100% of this
list is afflicted with some form of the disease described in #21. :)
Udhay
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/a-radical-pessimists-guide-to-the-next-10-years/article1750609/print/
Douglas Coupland
A radical pessimist's guide to the next 10 years
Douglas Coupland
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
Published Friday, Oct. 08, 2010 6:49PM EDT
Last updated Sunday, Oct. 10, 2010 10:24PM EDT
The iconic writer reveals the shape of things to come, with 45 tips
for survival and a matching glossary of the new words you'll need to
talk about your messed-up future.
1) It's going to get worse
No silver linings and no lemonade. The elevator only goes down. The
bright note is that the elevator will, at some point, stop.
2) The future isn't going to feel futuristic
It's simply going to feel weird and out-of-control-ish, the way it
does now, because too many things are changing too quickly. The reason
the future feels odd is because of its unpredictability. If the future
didn't feel weirdly unexpected, then something would be wrong.
3) The future is going to happen no matter what we do. The future will
feel even faster than it does now
The next sets of triumphing technologies are going to happen, no
matter who invents them or where or how. Not that technology alone
dictates the future, but in the end it always leaves its mark. The
only unknown factor is the pace at which new technologies will appear.
This technological determinism, with its sense of constantly awaiting
a new era-changing technology every day, is one of the hallmarks of
the next decade.
4)Move to Vancouver, San Diego, Shannon or Liverpool
There'll be just as much freaky extreme weather in these west-coast
cities, but at least the west coasts won't be broiling hot and
cryogenically cold.
5) You'll spend a lot of your time feeling like a dog leashed to a
pole outside the grocery store – separation anxiety will become your
permanent state
6) The middle class is over. It's not coming back
Remember travel agents? Remember how they just kind of vanished one day?
That's where all the other jobs that once made us middle-class are
going – to that same, magical, class-killing, job-sucking wormhole
into which travel-agency jobs vanished, never to return. However, this
won't stop people from self-identifying as middle-class, and as the
years pass we'll be entering a replay of the antebellum South, when
people defined themselves by the social status of their ancestors
three generations back. Enjoy the new monoclass!
7) Retail will start to resemble Mexican drugstores
In Mexico, if one wishes to buy a toothbrush, one goes to a drugstore
where one of every item for sale is on display inside a glass display
case that circles the store. One selects the toothbrush and one of an
obvious surplus of staff runs to the back to fetch the toothbrush.
It's not very efficient, but it does offer otherwise unemployed people
something to do during the day.
8) Try to live near a subway entrance
In a world of crazy-expensive oil, it's the only real estate that will
hold its value, if not increase.
9) The suburbs are doomed, especially thoseE.T. , California-style suburbs
This is a no-brainer, but the former homes will make amazing hangouts
for gangs, weirdoes and people performing illegal activities. The
pretend gates at the entranceways to gated communities will become
real, and the charred stubs of previous white-collar homes will serve
only to make the still-standing structures creepier and more exotic.
10) In the same way you can never go backward to a slower computer,
you can never go backward to a lessened state of connectedness
11) Old people won't be quite so clueless
No more “the Google,” because they'll be just that little bit younger.
12) Expect less
Not zero, just less.
13) Enjoy lettuce while you still can
And anything else that arrives in your life from a truck, for that
matter. For vegetables, get used to whatever it is they served in
railway hotels in the 1890s. Jams. Preserves. Pickled everything.
14) Something smarter than us is going to emerge
Thank you, algorithms and cloud computing.
15) Make sure you've got someone to change your diaper
Sponsor a Class of 2112 med student. Adopt up a storm around the age of 50.
16) “You” will be turning into a cloud of data that circles the planet
like a thin gauze
While it's already hard enough to tell how others perceive us
physically, your global, phantom, information-self will prove equally
vexing to you: your shopping trends, blog residues, CCTV appearances –
it all works in tandem to create a virtual being that you may neither
like nor recognize.
17) You may well burn out on the effort of being an individual
You've become a notch in the Internet's belt. Don't try to delude
yourself that you're a romantic lone individual. To the new order,
