The Future of the Future

How lame is our current culture going to look to someone exploring it a hundred years from now? You could start by considering life in 1917, as American was embroiled in World War 1. There’s a scary thought. Will someone be writing “You could start by considering life in 2017 as America was embroiled in WW3.” Yikes…

Let’s figure on that not being our history and how about another bite of that nice fresh-baked brownie you got at the dispensary?

OK: 1917. Candlestick phones, Model T’s, women’s suffrage, bowler hats and new-fangled typewriters. Quaint, but relatable. Which is to say in the hundred years between now and then, we progressed faster than a speeding freakin’ bullet, going from 17 mph to 17K mph and developing technology absolutely and unimaginably magical. How much of what we are today could a smart reader like yourself have figured on back then? Commuter jets? Gay marriage? Pop Tarts? VR? Chuckie Cheese? Rock ‘n’ Roll??

So the Q that keeps rattlin’ around in my head is if that much happened in the trailing 100, what can we expect in the Next? And let’s consider Moore’s law and apply it to the future of everything. Which is to say we’re evolving SO much faster than we ever have, the amount of general information in the world has gone from doubling every thousand years to every hundred, every 50, every ten, five and yes, one or two, now. Doubling.

And at that rate, we, each and every one of us, brainiacs all, are gonna be equally gob-smacked with what happens in the Next hundred, because we can only guess at where they’ll take us. Or our kids, at least. Who’ll likely live well into their hundreds and vaguely remember gramma n gramps giving ‘em bitcoin to go out and buy some toy levitation shoes.

Quaint.