GE wants us to think the Future is Friendly.
Defeatists tend to think the future is bleak.
Opportunists see the future as an endless horizon.
But where is the future? Realistically – what is the future? What is the future that
WE, the millennials
WE, the unthankful consumers, and
WE, the social media obsessed divas
have come to inherit?
Well that’s not necessarily an easy question to ask. The future, I believe is a mix of everything (wooptiedoo).
The statements above clearly aren’t accurate – although my current boss tends to thinks otherwise (he’s a fucking dumbass and I feel sorry for his kids cause he’s such a God damn asshole – Fuck that guy).
We live in a very complicated world. The world tends to feel like it moves faster than we can walk. By the time you finish your degree, the world’s made a step change; that is, in areas which will allow it (unregulated, low barrier to entry, etc.).
The future is scary.
Plain and simple, the future is scary. Everyone is scared of the future to a certain extent. Everybody probably worries about the future too much, and human’s have likely worried about the future since the break of dawn – (approximately when Jesus was born).
For myself, something that makes me feel a bit comfortable is that I believe unease is a natural trait and that the idea of “wanting more” is an instinct for survival.
Being scared. A safety mechanism.
Being scared is one of those ways that our body telling us that we need to do something to change our circumstance. It’s an escape hatch – worrying, your body telling you, “Yep, something is wrong. Glad that you’re aware”.
The want for more. Why can’t humans be satisfied? Why do we always need more?
Could we say it might be possible that humans have this greed as a natural trait of survival? Traditionally, energy wasn’t so easily served.
You couldn’t acquire calories so easily. It was instinctual to have an insatiable desire for more. Who knows when intellect or experience will tell us that this trait is no longer valuable? Who knows – maybe that’s what’s scary about the future.
Developing Value.
We hear it on the news all the time. It’s clear that the future is going to be a future where past performance won’t be an indicator for the future. That means, the same avenues for “success” are NOT going to work in the future. Maybe they will for a time – maybe even our generation if we’re lucky. But these recipes, they don’t work for today.
Developing value is becoming harder and harder
A house has a lifespan of 40-70 years? An office tower – let’s just say 100. A design is “engineered” once, and replicated? And one doctor can serve say 20-30 patients/day but a machine grocer can process infinite – and is scalable.
What I’m trying to say that many of the products we create can serve many people, for a very long time, and require less people to do them.
It’s almost inevitable that there’s going to be a change in workforce. Everything we build and grow is dependant on a growing economy. AKA more people, and more usage of natural resources.
But now we have people who like sustainable. We have people who don’t want to have more than 2 kids. People themselves have are changing their values.
Betting on the future (investing) in order to spur growth TODAY, is becoming less sexy, and a little bit more risky.
Get to the Point.
We now live in a world where you have to be versatile. EXTREMELY versatile if you want to be ahead of the curve. You’re going to have to be an investor, programmer, physician, and businessman. You’re going to have to be a salesman and a networker.
Besides that, there will be more pressure to create “sustainable” solutions (from people who can’t create value – ie. regulators/government/hippies), and as businesses struggle to make truly sustainable solutions amidst falling revenues… shitty times.
JEBUS H THAT SUCKS.
Yeah! And fuck Jerry for thinking that we, are just stupid “millennials” who didn’t have to work for antyhing. You dumb fuck, you could buy a house when you were 20 and sit on your ass till you retire at one job. You fucking fuckjob. Stop fucking treating us like we’re fucking kids and that we’re fucking “millennials”. Man I hate Jerry.
Yeah, it sucks. But that’s only if you want to be ahead of the curve. Personally I’m a bit scared. But then we think about it.
We grew up in a world that was constructed by what was left for us to be inherited. It doesn’t mean that it’s the best way to go.
Two things:
1. Philosophically, where is the human race?
This is where technology is an interesting argument. We’re seeing now that resources are so abundant, that we’re questioning our value as humans. It’s too damn easy. Yeah, we’ve got great food. We can harvest, we can find shelter. What’s the point?
Technology has helped us accelerate and display the paradox of our grandfather’s race for conquest. Technology is making it harder for us to be valuable – because one genetically altered wheat increases yields by more than ANY AMOUNT of farmers ever could. Automated processes can do the job of people. What’s the point?
We’re having that moment, where we’re really faced with: What the fuck is going on?
And it’s great! What the fuck is going on? It’s so easy for someone to create their own microcontroller to accomplish some task that (years ago) would have been very hard to do!
Maybe technology is exactly what we needed to save our planet. Yes, it will be scary. Yes, there will be discontent, and yes, there will be (maybe) wars, but who did we think we were in the first place?
2. The future is friendly.
We talk about the future. At least one view.
We’re finding that our models of the past don’t extend into the future very well, and we see more (invaluable) people (government, politicians, regulation, taxes, etc), asking the (valuable) jobs/people (resources, technology, etc) to create value for everyone else. Because that’s the easiest way for the greater population to get paid.
I’m interested in knowing if there is an opportunity for a new type of “Black Economy” to emerge out of the fray. Maybe that’s what the beginning of these Amazon empire’s are. But whatever this ecosystem of the future looks like. If you can create a truly “sustainable” ecosystem – void of the constructs of today, that is functional. It doesn’t have to be huge, but it works. You’d be a step change ahead of every business you see today.
You’d have an infrastructure that works today for a society of the future.
It’d have to enable people to creating value using the “free” processes of the future. The advantages of the delivery services of the future (mailing, Uber, etc.), the platform technologies of the web for access to resources, and the ability to create the same products in ways which are “zero footprint”.
Maybe that’s the future…
Thoughts of a ho… Now you know.
