Some Thoughts on our Future.........

In my humble opinion, it’s getting increasingly obvious that the world we know is on the verge of changes our human minds simply do not have the capability of understanding or comprehending. A hundred years ago, could our ancestors have possibly comprehended that in the year 2019, we would have robots rolling across the surface of the moon and Mars, automobiles that could drive themselves and machines that could think 1,000 times faster and more effectively than the most intelligent humans could? Of course, they could not. Likewise, the 2019 versions of our minds, advanced as they are, cannot possibly comprehend the changes we will see in the not too distant future.

Our 2019 minds are busy enough, keeping up with our careers and our families and tending to the daily grind. We are bombarded with news every day and so much of it is biased and negative. At least for me, it does little or nothing to make me a better person or more effective in my job. The news (that gets printed or broadcast) is mostly bad - terrorism, the constant threat of war, civil strife, political unrest and financial uncertainty, etc., etc. Pelted with all of this bad news every day, it’s pretty easy to feel that the world and humanity is in a downward spiral that it may not recover from. A recent poll in the U.S. had over 50% of those polled saying that the world was “going to hell in a handbasket” (a crude and outdated American expression but........you get the idea). I believe that a big part of this general malaise is that the world is now changing faster than our human mind's ability to process. When changes occur faster than our minds can comfortably process those changes, the “fight or flight” mentality embedded in our genes since the time of the cavemen takes over. It might go a long way in explaining how negative, and even angry, so many people seem to be these days all over the world.

The good news is that the confounding and ever-accelerating changes we are experiencing in our world might very well be dragging all of us, kicking, grumbling and somewhat obliviously, to a better place. Or, as Buckminster Fuller said “We are engulfed in an invisible tidal wave which, as it draws away, will leave humanity, if it survives, cast up upon an island of universal success uncomprehending how it has all happened”. He said this in 1969 and he said it would happen because of the computer. It is impossible for our human minds to fathom the changes computers will make in our lifetimes. In the not too distant future, Artificial Intelligence may surpass human intelligence and from there, the things it will be able to do are simply above and beyond our ability to comprehend.

The world that we know may be unraveling but I believe this is a natural and necessary step in our evolution. The media tells us every day about how bad things are now and it's very easy for people to get completely mired in it and lose sight of the bigger picture - our destination. As for me, I think it's much more constructive to devote my energies to thinking about how good things could be and to chart my course firmly towards that destination.

The transition will be the prickly part. Millions of jobs and entire industries will disappear but new jobs and new industries will emerge to take their place. We will all need to keep our minds agile and open to new ideas. Embrace changes and learn new skills. Exactly how this will all unfold, none of us can possibly know but one thing is for certain. We will, every one of us, have a “front row seat” in the most fascinating time in human history thus far.

It is said that one is either part of the solution……or part of the problem. The changes I do my best to ponder here will most likely happen with or without our personal intervention but, nevertheless, let’s all do our best to be part of the solution. Be kind to one another, keep learning, share, help whenever you can and never lose sight of how truly fortunate we are to be alive during this amazing time and place in history.