{"id":845,"date":"2020-07-29T10:47:09","date_gmt":"2020-07-29T10:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ezilon.com\/topics\/?p=845"},"modified":"2021-05-13T14:22:49","modified_gmt":"2021-05-13T14:22:49","slug":"its-too-late-for-future-shock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ezilon.com\/topics\/its-too-late-for-future-shock\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s Too Late For “Future Shock”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In 1970, Alvin Toffler’s<\/strong> book “Future\nShock<\/strong>” predicted a world in which technology evolved so quickly\nsociety was stunned, unable to adjust, succumbing to “shattering stress\nand disorientation”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A decade later, John Naisbitt<\/strong> took a less cataclysmic\nlook, focused on the next decade, with “Megatrends<\/strong> – Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives”; he\nupdated that in 1990 with “Megatrends<\/strong>\n2000<\/strong>“.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An\nanalysis of Alvin Toffller\u2019s ideas <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toffler proved to be both\nright and wrong. “Future Shock” did attack millions of people, but\nprimarily those in the newly freed nations of the former Soviet Bloc,\nespecially Russia itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hundreds of immigrants\npouring out of those nations to the United States in the 1990s reportedly\nreturned complaining about “too much choice”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even a worldly British author\nand high tech consultant who spent the 1990s living and working in Southern\nCalifornia and Washington, DC, will soon publish a book about his American\nexperience that includes a chapter on how even Western Europeans can be\noverwhelmed by American-style consumerism. The working title? “A\nCornucopia of Confusing Consumer Choices: Forty-Five Types of Shredded Wheat?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Toffler failed to\nforesee was the ease with which Americans, Canadians and, within the dominion\nof their own societies, the rest of the “developed” world not only\nwould accept but often demand faster implementation of new technologies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Generations raised on Star\nTrek and Star Wars did not merely anticipate desktop computers, instant global information access, hand-held global\n“communicators” and robots<\/strong>, they built them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Analyzing\nthe ideas of John Naisbitt<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of Naisbitt’s\npredictions, such as a rise in home-based “networking”, were\namazingly on target, especially considering he never used the words Internet, e-mail, global positioning system\n(GPS)<\/strong> – none of which as yet existed – nor terrorism,<\/strong> arguably four of the most important factors driving late\n20th and early 21st Century society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ray Kurzweil\u2019s concepts of a technology based\nfuture<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps the most astounding –\nand controversial – look at our technology-based future came in 2001, when Ray Kurzweil<\/strong>, one of the world’s most\nhonored inventors, authors and futurists, published his “Law of Accelerating Returns”.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“An analysis of the\nhistory of technology shows that technological change is exponential, contrary\nto the common-sense ‘intuitive linear’ view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we won’t experience 100\nyears of progress in the 21st Century – it will be more like 20,000 years of\nprogress (at today’s rate).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ‘returns’, such as chip\nspeed and cost-effectiveness, also increase exponentially. There’s even\nexponential growth in the rate of exponential growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within a few decades, machine\nintelligence will surpass human intelligence, leading to The Singularity –\ntechnological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the\nfabric of human history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The implications include the\nmerger of biological and non-biological intelligence, immortal software-based\nhumans and ultra-high levels of intelligence that expand outward in the\nuniverse at the speed of light.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 And that is only the opening paragraph! (The\nentire piece is available at http:\/\/www.kurzweilai.net\/articles\/art0134.html?printable=1<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kurzweil’s “law”\nhelps explain what Toffler feared and Naisbitt sought to analyze. As to whether\nKurzweil is qualified to make such bold statements, consider his remarkable\nbiography at http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ray_Kurzweil<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or simply Microsoft chairman\nBill Gates’ 2005 description of him as “the best at predicting the future\nof artificial intelligence”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given Kurzweil’s Law,\nNaisbitt’s “Megatrends<\/strong>”\nand Toffler’s “Future<\/strong> Shock<\/strong>” already are being dwarfed\nby the speed of technological advance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any new version of either\nbook would have to be electronically published to avoid being comically\nout-of-date before ever reaching a bookstore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The world in the next 20 years<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consider a few examples of\nwhere we are headed in the next 20 years or so:<\/p>\n\n\n\n