i'm not angry, I'm disappointed 7: the future is dead

This is the kind of presentation designed to scare the bejesus out of someone with limited analytical capabilities, i.e. why is everything going so fast? Because you haven't been paying attention, dummy. Also, most of these numbers are kind of suspect. I mean, the computational ability of the human brain is not something you can compare to a computer that easily (I thought they already did this in the 80's), 25% of high IQ indians does not mean that these people are going to take your job tomorrow, etc. The future is scarier than ever, but it will be in cute pictographs with a fatboy slim soundtrack. So, is everything going to change in the blink of an eye? Probably not. This is all information technology and it's consequences, after all, and human beings are the only part of the system that all of these things are for. The only real game changer is thinking in terms of AI, that might really give us a whole new world.

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End Theme week here: So, what have we learned? Governments are weaker in intent, but economically decisive and information-rich. Corporations are inordinately powerful and beholden to no ideals beyond profit, individuals are free, but groups are targets. The right wing is resurgent, the liberal left is the new center, which cannot hold. Academia is distracted and bickering. Technology is reshaping everything, but in a much more shallow way than everyone thought. Our culture is surrounded by quotes most of the time, except when it's trying, mostly failing to make a point. Everyone under 30 is going to have to participate in changing a global economy based on maximising profits at all costs into something sustainable for longer, solve the energy crisis, the fresh water crisis, rising populations, all while maintaining social justice, personal freedoms and rights, hindered by religious and social conflicts, an unstable and highly volatile international political situation, ineffective, but paranoid and cynical governments and obscenely powerful corporations. The only hope is an extreme appeal to intelligence, reason and personal responsibility. We'll probably make it, but at what cost?