For Futurists, the Future Always Seems Bright
We’ve heard it all before. The future will be filled with unlimited leisure time, clean streets and flying cars. What we got was fragmented and superficial free time, feces-covered streets and electric cars that burst into flames with the drivers locked inside. Should we be surprised; the Jetsuns was only a cartoon after all? We have instant communications with practically nothing of any value or originality to say to each other. Ultra-fast travel to places that look increasingly the same. ‘Art’ that hardly passes for graffiti? ‘Music’ that can scarcely pass for noise. Public health that is really just thinly-veiled genocide, and so on. So how did we get here? I would ask a different question; how could we not have? Allow me to draw you an analogy.
Imagine that a techno-wiz decides to increase the productivity of sheep herders. A noble goal on its face? After all, everyone loves efficiency increases, increases that often equate to extra $$$? What could possibly go wrong? So, disregarding the centuries of animal husbandry and the intricate relationship between man and his sheep dog, drones are brought in to replace the K9 units. They’ve earned a well-deserved break from the drudgery of herding after all, the Wiz rationalizes? The drones perform as expected, boosting efficiency 33%.
The dogs grow bored however, and the animal rights folks begin clamoring for redress of dog herding rights violations. While it cuts into profits slightly, the Wiz devises yet another technological fix, robot sheep for the dogs to herd. Initially, the dogs love it, but quickly tire of the predictable programming of the sheep. They never seem to stray, lowering the challenge for the dogs and lowering overall herding satisfaction.
When the batteries occasionally fail or during electrical storms, the dogs are brought in as backup but have lost their edge and fitness. The replacement battery costs and disposal have become a financial and environmental nightmare. Groundwater is contaminated with improperly disposed of batteries, sickening the very sheep the drones were meant to herd more efficiently.
Donald Trump, one of the drone project’s main proponents, distances himself from the calamity declaring that had he been in charge, none of this would have happened. He also claimed to have saved or prolonged the lives of thousands of sheep dogs who led a pitiful existence until he and his financing came along.