If you are a futurist, you should be watching the sex industry. The world's oldest industry is full of shiny new ideas and quick to adopt new trends and technologies. It's also very flexible. (Puns all fully intended). I wrote in more detail about this subject here. Enjoy.
Tag: futurism
Postalgia / Prostalgia – Is this as Good as it Gets?
Postalgia is a term used by science fiction writer William Gibson to explain the future fatigue plaguing contemporary culture. Postalgia is a hankering after the present; as opposed to nostalgia, which is a hankering after the past. Postalgia is the sense that things right now are as good as they will ever get. It is … Continue reading Postalgia / Prostalgia – Is this as Good as it Gets?
Volatility is not Dynamism
"Your iPhone is all that is left of your once limitless future" ~ Eric Weinstein There is a difference between volatility and dynamism. There is a difference between invention and innovation. There is a difference between technological adoption and technological disruption. There is a difference between technology that accelerates and (re)distributes that future, and technology … Continue reading Volatility is not Dynamism
Have patents outlived their usefulness?
Are patents still a useful invention to carry forward into the future? Unaffordable price increases in the medical industry (where patent hoarding is a common practice where well-funded firms stock up on pre-emptive patents - i.e. patents for hypothetical future medtech innovations, new drugs, and medical devices) indicate that abuse of patents might be part … Continue reading Have patents outlived their usefulness?
On cults, climate and culture
Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood - based, of course (loosely) on the infamous, real-life story of the Manson Family's murder of Sharon Tait and her friends story gives us a glimpse of the dark side of happy hippie culture - and how counter-culture-culture can turn into a cult. Recently, I was asked to co-author … Continue reading On cults, climate and culture
Trend retrospective, a decade in the rearview mirror
At the end of last year, I was asked to write a few thoughts on the most important, most disruptive technological milestones for each year of the last decade that will continue to have an impact in the future of the decade to come. Here follows the original version of that article, before it was edited … Continue reading Trend retrospective, a decade in the rearview mirror
Nothing is real, everything is possible
One of the big trends and socio-economic trajectories I'm focused on right now is the concept of how life is becoming untethered from reality. I'm not just talking about virtual / augmented reality and literal virtual escapism; and fake news and deep fakes either (although that's indeed an important part of it), rather I'm talking … Continue reading Nothing is real, everything is possible
The Future Starts Now
The choices we make today, as individuals, as businesses, and as societies ripple out all around us, amplifying over time. What will future generations – our children and our grandchildren (indeed, even our future selves, should we live long enough, as well we could)- make of the choices we are making on their behalf? The … Continue reading The Future Starts Now
Can we build a shared future without a shared past?
As deep fake technologies "improve", they now have the ability to manipulate the past as well as the future. We can no longer be sure that a historical document, photograph or even video footage has not been manipulated to change history (in ways not even Orwell's Big Brother could have imagined). Case in point, here … Continue reading Can we build a shared future without a shared past?
The true believer
Eric Hoffer was an American dock worker. An everyman. Not a rich man, not a man you would have noticed in the streets in the 1930s and 1940s. One of the nameless, voiceless masses we live and work with every day. But he was more than that. He was also a keen observer of human … Continue reading The true believer