Surplus population

Greetings good citizen, Malthaus was first in pondering 'over population' with his 'tragedy of the Commons'; a fiction Capitalists cling to because it falsely defends their 'more for me' (and too bad for you) philosophy. While the employer class has long been under fire for not providing enough jobs for those who need them, the investor class was the first to coin the phrase 'surplus population'.

Dicken's single most famous character, Scrooge brandishes the term when 'men of good will' come calling, seeking a contribution for the, er, 'poor'.

How disturbing is it good citizen that we live in a time where a vast majority of the workforce has been made 'redundant' and therefore, 'surplus'?

Perhaps the most frightening part is who gets to decide which among us are 'useless'.

Are YOU capable of making that kind of decision? How do we sort the 'useless' from the 'worthwhile'?

Sadly, there are some basic guidelines. The young are valued for their energy and eagerness (as well as their 'affordability', call it 'training' and pay them dirt...if they quit, oh well there's always more where they came from.)

Then there's the older worker who may not have the 'pep in their step' they had when they were younger but you don't have to tell them EVERYTHING, which in itself can be a huge asset.

Between the two we have the skilled help. Still young and vigorous but they've been on the job long enough so you don't have to watch their every move.

Um, depending on the type of work you perform, your need for each age group varies. If the work is physical, you need more young workers. If the work is skilled, you need people with a solid 'work ethic'...have both in surplus, who do you cut?

The old ones, naturally. As your workers age they start to actually use those benefits you've been offering to attract 'good people' (and the people who sell you those benefits start charging you accordingly.)

We 'older workers' have heard it before, it was used as one of the 'justifications' for shipping jobs off-shore. The beancounters told us (so it must be true) that 'people are expensive'.

See, once again we, as a society/civilization are allowing a specific segment of the whole group to dictate the reason we exist.

Humans are 'social creatures'...but we're also 'opportunists'. We live communally, insect-like because there is 'safety in numbers'. Start throwing whole segments of the population out of the group and you are literally building an 'opposing army'. An army that will eventually plunder your society.

That's why the oligarchs suck as many of the young and vigorous as they can into the military, so they will fight and die someplace else rather than being a threat to them here.

That leaves all of us used up old folks to...well what, exactly?

Aren't the beancounters right? Shouldn't we just off ourselves? Wouldn't it be 'better' for society as a whole if we'd admit we'd been beaten and kiss our loved ones good-bye?

Hell no!

The (alleged) difference between us and the animals is how humans care for their elders...most of whom are still valuable in many ways (some of 'em are smart AND wise!) Our 'usefulness' to the capitalist may be short-lived but our usefulness to our family is life-long! Strong families make a strong society.

Thus it baffles many of us observers to see a fed up and disgusted people continuing to accept the abuse and injustice inflicted upon them by a tiny segment of the population.

It doesn't have to be like this, the choice really is yours.

Think it over...

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Failure to plan = planning to fail

Greetings good citizen, as the privatization train continues to crush civic ventures across the spectrum, the future is looking bleak indeed. No irony is lost on the fact that a single generation after the so-called 'greatest generation' [those who fought WWII, in the eyes of THEIR KIDS] I refer to them as the greatest morons but it's all a matter of perspective. These are the same people that failed to proscute the Robber Barons the first time they crashed the global economy.]

Those same kids are responsible for dismantling everything their parents fought for, the Nazi's/Axis may have been crushed but its capitalist sponsors have sure turned the tide, haven't they?

Which is to say we really shouldn't let a biased media pick our heroes for us [hint/case in point: guess where billionaire worship comes from?]

Now, forty years in the rear-view mirror, Republicans, you know the same party the gave us 'Opened the doors to China Nixon and NAFTA Reagan' are cashing in on the anger/economic turmoil caused by various REPUBLICAN SPONSORED Free Trade agreements!

This is almost as ridiculous as pinning the Romney designed healthcare system on Obama...or the oligarch designed TTP process currently being rammed through global legislatures [which is to belabor the obvious, the problem is bigger than just our own back yard!] on Obama because he happens to be the meat-puppet of the moment! [Which is to further imply there hasn't been a legitimate president since JFK...and some say his Daddy bought that election too. Jury's still out as to whether 'Let' em walk' Roosevelt was a 'plant' or not.]

Truth be told even Washington's 'legitimacy' is suspect. He didn't want the job but took it grudgingly.

Which brings us to today's, er, point. The cabal running things around here is out of ideas...and they've drunk their own kool aide, never a good thing, believing your own BS.

Everywhere you look infrastructure is falling apart and technology is being overrun. What are they doing about it? Our 'government' isn't doing anything...because the oligarchs aren't telling them what they want done.

But this is nothing new...history shows the self-interested regularly hijack the future for the comfort and benefit of their own. This also isn't the first time it's been hijacked by a group that doesn't care about lawlessness and widespread misery. They have convinced themselves they are safe behind their walls...and their anonimity.

This too is not new. Hard to decapitate a foe when you're not sure of its source.

If there's one question current futurists will keep circling back to it is this one. Nature (and history) both abhor voids. [History will make something up and stick it in there, they've done it countless times but nature is less 'forgiving'.]

Yes good citizen, failure to plan usually means bad things for those not in the loop.

Curious how this circles back to 'Doomsday Preppers' and the general angst the public is feeling, waiting for the other shoe to drop when the Oligarchs themselves aren't sure which way they intend to jump.

In what has become a gigantic game of 'Chicken' (and remember good citizen it's us [the uninformed but watchful] and them, those who don't know how far they can push before they are forced sic their dogs on us.]

They employ 'experts' but we've already passed several 'tipping points' which proves even the experts don't know.

Probably a good idea to get specific because your typical brainwashed conservo-moron loathes the term 'they'...like if you can't name names, you're making it all up.

What shall remain unspoken is the fact that we all know (and watch helplessly) as our 'freedoms' are stripped away...for 'our security', which means theirs of course.

The 'calvary' isn't coming good citizen...and the Indians get to gloat this time because the shoes are on the other foot. Those who stole their land/resources are now stealing it from their own people...all so 'a few' can be rich.

Some of us refer to them as the One Percent and others call them what they are, criminals...but they happen to control the [in]justice system, including the for profit prisons where millions languish for minor crimes.

If you're worried about the future at least you're paying attention, think of all the brainwashed sots out there that are going to be totally blindsided by what's in the not too distant future...and tremble.

You will be required to navigate that hoard if you want to survive...

Maybe someone will pen a survival guide to assist you through the coming tempest.

Maybe even someone you're already familiar with.

And maybe they'll thank you for letting them inside your head, as I do.

Gegner

Mass transit and the Economic desert

Greetings good citizen, while past futurists speculated metropolises crowded with people movers (Mass Transit) our reality remains personal transportation and far-flung residential communities, neither of which are energy/time efficient.

Worse, we locate 'gathering places' in urban areas that we are then required to commute to! No irony should be lost that this nonsense is fed by the conservative mythology of the 'rugged individual', better know as 'the psychopath/self-absorbed A-hole.', an unfortunate [for the rest of us] condition usually inherited from socially clueless parents despite some of them insisting they're 'self-made.'

Yes good citizen, this nonsensical caste is the same pool we are forced to draw our leaders from...which accounts for much of the fantastical thinking and lack of logic in our social engineering. {Pappy didn't raise no idiots, they raised themselves!)

If little makes sense in the world, there's your smoking gun! Why is it we can't hop a train for the opposite coast (or europe for that matter?) Because someone owns the 'airway' to either or both locations and would probably pay to have a disaster strike the alternative route. (Contrary to myth, capitalism HATES 'competition', especially the healthy kind!)

Earthquakes [and fracking] aside, air transportation is 'safer' than traveling underground for long distances but it's not as 'efficient' as overland [which is why the airline business model keeps choking and folding only to be replaced by the exact same model!]

Telling by its absence is the total lack of progress toward replacing our endangered fossil fuel powered energy infrasructure with renewable sources.

One could speculate those who profit from the current model are responsible for the lag/neglect but until the ancient one blows up the public that is being cheated out of its future isn't yet aware they have a problem that needs fixing.

Yes good citizen, the LCD (lowest common denominator) here is energy. Its efficient use dictates whether or not the place YOU LIVE flourishes or becomes roadkill on the economic dragway we call commerce...logically.

But we have already ruled logic as being inconsequential when such things are being judged. More than a few metropolises/counties/hamlets/hovels exist as demonstrations of sheer willpower.

In this respect the Native populations of the planet were decidedly more advanced than our European forebearers. They chose to live in harmony with the land rather than 'conquering' it. [You don't suppose that's what got us thrown out of Heaven, do ya?]

As you might have noticed, it is extremely difficult to paint a picture of a 'logic driven' metropolis in a place completely devoid of this quality.

A.) may make sense but it can't be integrated with B.) because they lacked your 'vision'... so C.) will be similarly screwed.

Um, as you may have also noticed, this line of (quasi) logic has exhausted itself.

That said, Thanks for letting me inside your head!

Gegner

Trending

Greetings good citizen, while futurism was once a kneejerk passtime where you spit out what you thought was going to happen based on your general observations, picking trends is the new way the futurist puzzle is assembled.

What can we learn from current trends? Will skirts go up or down under the Trump administration? Wait, am I showing my age? How many young ladies out there just drew a blank when they read the word 'Skirt'?

Don't laugh, not too long ago my wife and her siblings were discussing their favorite recording artists and the son of the eldest chimed in with the not as dumb as it sounds question,"Mom, what's a record?"

Flip that incident over and we have the 1970's book MegaTrends, which reads like a roadmap to the future and may be a more accurate description of a work of so-called 'speculative fiction'. It's not hard to imagine this 'playbook' was in fact a gameplan for establishing a brave new global Libertarian society.

Too bad for the majority of us Libertarianism is the 'elegant term' for 'cut-throat capitalism'.

Why do these discussions about the future keep ending up in the past? Past as prologue. What happened dictates what will happen.

Trends are everywhere but so many of them are 'dead ends'. The current political circus will end just as the last one did with the coronation of the oligarch's pick and the beginning of that picks' four year battle to enact legislation that serves no one. [While rubber stamping (in secret) legislation that would get them hung for treason if it ever saw the light of day.]

But the 'secret' activities of our government aren't known until we get the PSA that there is a 'new way' of doing things and no, nobody voted for it, allegedly our lawmakers passed this stuff into law without ever reading it...but it's for our own good.

The people who drafted it said so!

But the really odious stuff, like rounding up wild horses in the arid west and selling them for meat is done by 'Executive Order'.

Despite being against the law. {I mention this because I viewed a, 'special report' last night put together by a concerned citizen and aired by a Fox affiliate which basically took the stance, 'yeah this is happening, so what are you gonna do about it?')

Wait for it good citizen...what do you suppose they, certain agents within [and make no mistake about it] THE OLIGARCH'S GOVERNMENT, are ordering this for, personal profit?

What we were really being shown was a 'hit piece' against 'Republican Democracy', a 'semi-democratically' elected government riddled with appointed positions that are doled out on a patronage basis.

Does Fox want you to revolt? Short answer is yes but the second half of that answer should disturb you deeply. They want you to rise up so you can 'justifiably' be mowed down by heavily armed riot troops/police.

How tragic that every revolt begins with the cutting down of the good-hearted but simple minded?

Back up for a moment, good citizen, What I share here is just one of many recent incidents of a government that is 'out of control'.

The true question you need to be asking is WHY the corporate owned media is taking every opportunity to convince you that our government is corrupt? Could it be that those responsible for today's gross mis-management want to return us to the old ways? [Where failing to precede anything you say to one of these self-important SOB's without a 'but my lord/lady/their imperial title' is grounds for summary execution?]

The Trump candidacy is, in many ways a 'litmus test'. The Royal 'wannabes' among us don't want to expose themselves to the wrath of a restless, demanding underclass...but if the future 'serfs' are willing to elect a new king, the oligarchs are more than willing to satisfy this demand...as long as their king knows who issues the orders in our modern 'Camelot'.

Speaking of trends, what do you think of the proposed Mission to Mars? Columbus part II or Jonestown revisited...or both?

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

The Box

Greetings good citizen, 'forward thinkers' of the past (or those who came after and 'cherry-picked' their ideas) seem to have been, er, 'restricted' in their areas of interest.

It is mentioned that our greatly expanded 'free-time' would be filled with people taking a more active role in government...but there aren't any details given and we've all seen what happens when you establish programs for one purpose that end up 'morphing' into something diametrically opposed to what they were founded for...like the DEA or the NSA, two institutions that basically exist to perpetuate their own survival. [It's a national disgrace that the prison system has been 'privatized', often by the very politicians that oversee them. Yet another 'by-product' of the Reagan Revolution.

Worse is we have judges that don't believe this is criminal!

Perhaps most troubling is how modern judges apparently don't know the difference between legal or illegal without an oligarch telling them.

Naturally, little attention has been given recently to the 'predictions' of past future enthusiasts (except for flying cars, damn things won't die!) especially their predictions of increased free time due to a growing laborforce and enhanced automation.

The question here is 'the box'. Is our failure to alter the structure of labor and society due to our [betters] myopia/failure to face reality?

'This is the way my Daddy did it, this is the way I do it and this is the way my heir will do it' (although Jerky would probably say 'son' and keep divorcing the girls that failed to produce one...)

Here we find the likely 'root cause' of the long periods of 'stasis' between 'bursts' of advancement. It's almost sick to admit the culprit is 'Tradition'. [There are nearly a thousand years between the Renaissance and the advent of the 'Machine Age' which burst on the scene during the US civil war.

Some try to separate them but the nuclear age as well as the space age are both 'subsets' of the Machine age...and so is the current computer age.

Tradition...a key feature of 'conservatism' is the reason why we have hundreds of millions unemployed and nearly as many homeless.

How is it our politicians ignore this...wart on our society?

Seems our oligarchs are 'tradition bound' too.

It is obvious to most that we are staggering (as a society) due to many significant 'self-inflicted wounds' BECAUSE those at the top oppose CHANGE.

By not 'rocking the boat' they are inviting it to be scuttled.

Are they listening? Will they before it's too late?

We'll have to wait and see.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Public Service Announcement

Greetings good citizen, Lame as it may be, I'm posting this to advise you that there will be no post today [due to time constraints], thank you for your understanding.

Gegner

Fluff Piece

Greetings good citizen, if I keep belaboring the obvious this space is going to turn into a ghost town so today's offering will be , er, Happy. [In tone at least...not sure I'm capable of
starry-eyed optimism.]

[happy talk = on]

Wake up in the morning to hear the birds chirping in the trees, no alarm means no work today {yea!) So you just lie there listening to the birds, wondering what they hear...are they doing it for a purpose or are the simple minded creatures making noise just to see what happens?

The job? doesn't matter, you only work 20 hours a week and you can put your hours in pretty much anytime you want to.

Not everybody enjoys a 'wide open' schedule and it's not without it's trade-off, your total shift flexibility comes at the price of monotony. You work on one of the 24/7 production lines. Your job is to 'baby-sit' the automated equipment.

Yeah, it's not all just sit there and look, there's some manual stuff that just doesn't automate well so someone has to do it.

When you listen to the old timers talk about having to work 12 to 14 hours a day, seven days a week for a paycheck they could barely live on you realize you don't have it so tough. Hell, back then they made you work until you were 66! Now you retire at 50, sooner if you want to bank all your vacation/sick time!

Yeah, the old-timers screamed we were bankrupting the system by giving EVERYBODY a week's vacation for every year of service but it's been fine! No production shortages and with six shifts a day (and increases in efficiency due to enhanced automation) there are surpluses all around.

Word is they're talking about giving us MORE paid holidays! (Don't know where they're going to squeeze 'em in, there's already a paid day off every month!

And speaking of days off, your's is yawning before you...what are you going to do with it?

One of the guys suggested we all go to Cancun for their Winter Festival [You have to book this stuff way in advance because everybody uses their time off...and most people keep working past their retirement age...usually at another job, just to break up the monotony.] A lot of retirees pick up part-time work, one of two days a week doing little odds and ends. Latest craze is gardening! People actually volunteer to grow them!

Who cares what the birds are saying. Time to get up; perhaps it would be a good idea to surf the net, check and see what availability looks like on the Cancun deal. Last year we went on safari in Africa...and found out the hard way why it wasn't booked solid.

We encountered a few more 'hardships' than any of us were prepared for.

Sort of a 'red flag' these days, if you can make reservations easily there's probably something you don't know about. At least everybody lived; although Harry still has that nasty looking rash he picked up over there.

You glance at your entry door and see a slip of paper has been slid through. Wonder what the maintenance team wants this time?

The notice says you're being moved to new quarters because this one is slated for rehab! They just rehabbed it five years ago (when you got here!) You smirk and realize the jobs situation is still pretty dire if they're making work at this pace.

While nobody has a car anymore they repaved the parking lot last year. Nobody uses land lines anymore but they replaced the phone system with new 'hands free' units a month ago. They've been replacing the flooring in the common areas for the past few weeks.

You have half a mind to complain, the place is a perpetual construction zone...but it doesn't cost you anything. Yup, housing is free...and so is house maintenance. Hell, you don't even have to shovel snow...there's actually a waiting list if you want to do that kind of work!

Silly what you miss once you aren't required to do it on your own.

You also don't miss creditors calling on the phone, debt is illegal. You smile as you pour your first cup of coffee and shuffle over to your computer, it's going to be a great day!

[Happy talk = off]

How did I do? You know, this little 'sample' could easily be your reality. The capitalist has it all wrong, the cart in front of the horse if you take my meaning. Instead of 'working to live' we should all,(now that there are so many of us) live to work.

You don't see the difference? Let me spell it out for you. Right now you work to 'live indoors and eat regularly', that's the primary motivation to get your backside out of bed in the morning, leave the house and report to a job you despise, daily.

You despise your job not because it is difficult or the people are hard to work with, you despise your job because it is a gun to your head. You're under the constant threat of 'do it or else and DON'T SCREW UP because everything depends on the boss liking you.' Nobody likes walking the 'tightrope of terror', everyday, all day but we all do it, because under capitalism, YOU have to make yourself 'useful' or the capitalist will cut you off from your means of support.

Watch carefully as my fingers NEVER leave my hand!

Flip this concept over and you 'work' because it is how you 'participate' in society, your 'work' is an way for you to share in the bounty of our species. You want to work, you want to belong and, under an 'equitable' social system, your 'right' to participate would be guaranteed.

Not wanting to work at all would be problematic...as it would invite exile...and poverty.

And no, you wouldn't be saddled with the jobs 'nobody wanted' [although everybody's got to start somewhere.] School would draw forth your talents and you'd be trained in the kind of work you had a talent for. {Important sidebar, 'The Arts' are a 'labor of love' and would return to their 'hobby' status, which is to say, like sports, you would no longer be paid to perform.)

You can blame this on 'market saturation' too if you like. There's extremely little that hasn't been done already, so much so that just to break 'new ground' the film industry is regularly flirting with perversion...and our fragile social psyche isn't built to handle it.

Yes, Virginia, CENSORS do 'serve a purpose'...but I digress.

Instead of 'working to survive' we should all feel the joy of knowing that our labors make EVERYBODY'S LIFE a little easier.

That's the difference between capitalism and socialism...that's NEVER been practiced on this planet.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

A Brave New World

Greetings good citizen, there are two 'dystopian' novels that define the post WWII era, A Brave New World and 1984. Both authors provided rather insightful portraits regarding what the supposedly 'free world' could expect now that the 'War to end all war' was...'over'?

No irony shold be lost that there were two 'wars to end all war' with the second yeilding a 'doomsday weapon' heralded as being capable of 'insuring peace'.

Is anyone surprised that War Inc is still rolling along, paying it's backers excellent dividends, better in fact than any other avenue of commerce?

How can an oversight as serious as this one escape the notice...oh, wait a minute. The movement [Futurist] started AFTER WWI and was over before WWII began. Ironically Futurism's 'bastard child', Sci-Fi didn't come into it's own until after WWII.

While much of what passes for 'info-tainment' is 'escapeism'. Even imagining a 'clean slate' [with which to start all over again] is a tall order for our beaten down psyche. Worse, most of us would rebuild what we had, complete with all it's defects because so few of us possess the imagination to make a silk purse out of the pile of offal that is our existence.

Before we get to our 'clean piece of canvas' I'd like to belabor the obvious, if it's not a [scripted] reality show, its a 'sit-com' with an outrageous premise or it's a police procedural/medical 'emergency of the moment' show.

[This is what I'm referring to when I say our psyche is so 'beaten down'.] It's work, death or Big Brother is gonna get ya no matter how clever you are.

It's important to start here to get a clear view of the foundation we're starting with.

What you can't see (on TV) are the hoards of simpletons that sleepwalk through their existence, waiting for their one big break.

Probably a good thing because it would be crushing to see every one of these 'fantasies' crash and burn leaving a path of devastation in their wake.

Um, as unkind as that last remark was, I wanted to point out that the 'clean slate' is NOT something you'd want in the hands of a child with 'unrealistic expectations' {a pretty accurate description of most of you...)

Okay, let's return to our clean slate with a clear mind.

Not empty but unencumbered by the 'you can't do that' mentality that keeps us self-flagellating on the behalf of those who would pick our pockets.

What is step one in our do-over? Is it deciding who will lead us and how or should we protect the, er, rather hapless and hardly innocent' children among us from being exploited by their more clever and less scrupulous 'peers'?

If you're from the caste that makes the rules, the more important factor is CONTROLLING who makes the decisions and who they answer to...just as the 'invitation only' crowd at our founding was primarily concerned with.

Public welfare be damned, we don't want 'normal people' making decisions that could go contrary to our interests!

Well, assuming you're not a power-mad control freak [and that's a mighty big 'assumption' to make in this stranger than Wonderland world of ours.] We'll choose the 'right' course and elect to start by protecting those who will have to live under the rules the leadership will make...but that's wrong too!

The people that must live 'by the law' should be the ones that decide what the law is...shouldn't they? Rhetorical question, the answer is again, of course!

The same 'do as I say and not as I do' crowd will complain (loudly) that this is a recipe for chaos, when in fact it is the recipe for Anarchy [which literaly means 'rules without rulers' and NOT 'no rules/lawlessness' as those who insist on making the rules shout at every opportunity. Nothing scares a monarchist/would be royalty more than people governing themselves, the true aim of democracy.]

If we examine the 'pillars of civilization' we'd find Equality as the primary pillar because without Equality there can be no Justice, which is EVER AND ALWAYS the 2nd pillar, you can't have justice first because justice without equality isn't justice at all, it's the 'rule of man' we've tried for millenium to overcome.

It is also proper to put 'the law' first...before answering the question of who will lead. [Because the answer to that question is simple, 'the most qualified'...and how will they 'prove' they're qualified? Same way we've done it for time out of mind, 'testing'.]

It is also important, with Equality as our guide, that the first 'law' be one that insures equality, the human anti-exploitation law.

ALL subsequent laws would have to pass muster with this primary law. To insure that no individual or group ignores this law, our second law would be, law-making [with or without the hyphen] is the sole domain of the people. Leadership enforces the law. The people themselves will propose new laws...with the leadership insuring the proposed new law doesn't conflict with the two primary laws. (If it does, it won't get voted on and ONLY the people can enact new legislation.)

One thing is certain, the fewer laws the better.

I have crafted a civilization based on these principles and it would be a marked change over the lawlessness we are dealing with today.

Again, brevity is the essence of communication, take this and share it, after you've taken a moment to digest and understand it.

Isn't it ironic that this 'feels' organic as opposed to the rigid 'top-down' style we lived under all our lives?

It all starts with an idea. One I'm happy to share.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Nutrition

Greetings good citizen, another favorite 'hobby horse' of Futurists past was food, although somewhat surprisingly, nobody predicted the Frankenfood that exists today.

Equally as curious is nobody predicted we'd be using 'food as fuel' either...because back then there was more oil around that you could shake a stick at, the idea of running out was laughable (just ask anyone in the oil industry...]

The Jetsons and the Enterprise both had food synthesizers although only the unit on the Enterprise utilized 'voice command'...on the Jetsons, the robot maid operated the food 'e-rack-a-tac-a-tater' (and you're older than dirt if you remember that!)

One of the other hotly debated topics surrounding food was the mess. Those who saw eating as 'the intake of necessary nutrients' theorized food would be reduced to 'pill form' with supplements available for those who needed them.

While the 'foodies' among us smiled. We need to 'chew' and more than just for the exercise. The process of preparing and consuming a meal is one of life's simple pleasures.

When we entertain, do we not 'break bread' with our friends?

Food is as much a 'social ritual' as it is 'basic machine maintenance' but the 'mess adverse' among us continued to fantascize that we'd do away with dishes and reduce the ritual of feeding ourselves to the popping of a pill, gulp and done.

It's fun to visit the future but as our 'awareness' of our world has grown we encountered the disturbing fact that we are rapidly approaching something known as 'maximum carrying capacity'...for the planet. [What, this is the first you've heard? What was Oprah thinking!]

Funny how all these discussions circle back on one another! Yes, good citizen, we need another planet, five of them if you perform acounting like a Yale MBA does (Full disclosure, I'm from Boston and I ain't giving Harvard the 'black-eye!)

Worse, thanks to widespread corruption, famine is everywhere. Even here in the famous 'breadbasket of the world' there isn't a single community in the entire USA that doesn't have a struggling foodbank.

Which is to say while some of you probably think we could sure use those pills about now...our bodies are built to 'extract nutreints' from food substances. There are no acceptable shortcuts. Don't put anything in your stomach and that bag of acid will eat a hole in you! (and blow up like a balloon in the process!)

What does the future hold? If we don't find a substitute for fossil fuel, food production will drop dramatically, with more than a little 'predictable results'.

[Fossil fuels not only power farm equipment but the nitrates used in fertilizer also come mainly from processed petroleum.] considering how badly overfarmed earth's soil is, what do you think of the global energy situation now?

Which brings us to a 'revelation' good citizen. Have you notice how everything I expouse upon has a, er, Black lining, which is to say...and it's not me, everywhere you look, we're in trouble because those running the show have the commerce system dialed to 'infinite' instead of 'sustainable'.

Which is to say we'll get a lot further working with the planet than trying to use it up as fast as...we[/they] can...

remember, the future is now!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Clones

Greetings good citizen, one of the ethical dilemma's Futurist's faced was the cloning issue. Why mess around with robots/cyborgs if you could just clone yourself for spare parts to be replaced 'as needed'?

While the technology doesn't (yet) exist to just grow part of a body and this still entails the difficulty of connecting it to the nervous system so it would work properly, advances have been made in this direction with the [partial] unraveling of our genetic code.

Again, as writers, we get to play both sides of the issue..or mix them! Which is to say let's suppose on some forsaken rock out there in the universe, some lunatic discovers the off switch for the body's self-destruct mechanism and then gifts it to both his co-inhabitants/progeny.

Now, with eternity stretching before them, who would undertake the dangerous business of space exploration?

Sounds stupid good citizen but this is exactly the trajectory our civilization is following...although I, for one, do not believe 'immortality' will be, er, 'wasted' on the unwashed. Which is to say the first immortals will keep their gift a secret...to the point of 're-incarnating' every decade or so to throw off suspicion. [This assumes they're smart enough to consider the danger of not aging like everybody else.]

But like all secrets there truly is nothing more fleeting...so we'd become a race that wouldn't dare much and risk even less.

Now we have an 'enter the clone' moment.

Our 'forever young' set knows this planet isn't going to survive them but space travel (particularly exploration) is fraught with danger, who do we send to find us a new home?

The answer, initially, would be robots...but robots are much more 'robust' than flesh and blood, even flesh and blood that continues to heal itself perpetually.

Eventually the only way to insure safety is to have somebody risk the journey...or send a clone.

Well, good citizen. Cloning, of a human, is illegal in MOST of the world...at the moment. Which is to point out that not so long ago not attending church was illegal and punishable by fines depending on which mercenary sect you were unfortunate enough to be born into...

They may even have thrown you into the stocks for your misdeed...or their own savage amusement, pick one.

So much for 'the rule of law...' [which is regularly made a mockery of.]

And no, this time I don't 'digress'...

Still we are left with the ethical dilemma, one that is particularly thorny given capitalism's stand on the issue. If you were to clone yourself (or PAY to have a clone of yourself made, that clone, under capitalism, would be your 'property' to 'dispose of' however YOU saw fit.

I'd like to believe there is still enough 'common decency' floating around that we would act to prevent/halt the bored and callous among us from cloning themselves so they could 'torture' the end result...just because they could.

Yes, part of us is 'that sick'/power-hungry.

But herein lies the 'ethical dilemma'.

Along that same line, producing whole clones just so you can harvest the organs [or have a slave workforce..or worse, both] is also 'morally repulsive' but I suspect most people wouldn't have a problem with using stem cells to grow a part they need replaced.

So, with the advent of the ability to grow replacement parts on the horizon [again, you'd need to be very wealthy] cloning is a part of the future once more!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Rock of Ages

Greetings good citizen, we continue our journey into the future with a brief overview of aging and how after decades of increasing longevity, we are now watching it slip into reverse...due to poverty.

Healthcare has made some steady advances but you won't get them if you're not rich. This contrasts rather sharply with our predecessors who predicted that by this point in the game you'd be able to choose a cyborg to live in once your physical body started to deteriorate. (and probably as soon as it became apparent all your friends had already 'upgraded'.)

The disturbing rise in dementia has taken this avenue of life extension off the table, which is a shame for those who remain mentally sharp well into their 'golden years'.

Not well publicized and not really part of the old time Futurist mindset is the idea of nano-bots (not in yesterday's discussion of robotics in general, again because this is a recent innovation still in it's infancy.)

Like the notion that robots would be able to cater to your every whim, their invisible counterparts have been imagined as working more like 'magic'...and is some cases performing repairs on the body without being instructed to.

Again, we writers take the 'contrary' path with such miracles and (not in my book) my 'short story' on the topic delved into the, er, 'mercenary nature' of tiny, obedient machines that used 'whatever was at hand' to fabricate their latest instruction.

Yup, the 'dream' is all you'd have to do is clap your hands, speak your instructions clearly, and the nanobots would make the object of your desires appear before you.

For EVERYBODY to have this work, the number of tiny, self-replicating machines would have to be enormous...left unsaid is the matter used to complete the request would also have to come from somewhere. So when the scientist tasked with containing and eliminating the now dangerous phenomenon of too many nanobots serving too many people looked into his sparkling clean toilet bowl and tried to remember when the last time HE cleaned it was...he was troubled indeed.

But I digress.

The 'concept' I was attempting to share here is how nanobots COULD BE used to 'pick up the slack' of your bodies internal maintenance functions, thus extending your life and enhancing your mental acuity...something our overlords wouldn't like very much and a really poor excuse not to do it.

And, at this early stage of the technology, nanobots are 'one trick ponies', they do what they're built to do and nothing more. More importantly, that's ALL they do and to date, they aren't sophisticated enough to listen to, never mind carry out your 'every whim.'

Some of you may find it exciting that research into the human genome (our internal operating instructions) have opened up some amazing possibilities. You may have noticed the most prevalent products coming out of code research are 'life extending' preparations.

Theoretically, if you could defeat the body's 'self-destruct' mechanism, you'd remain young & fit...permanently.

Again, when we start dancing around the topic of 'immortality' it sort of messes with your brain. As a writer this is the essence of my second novel. A breakthrough takes an eighty year old man back to the body of his twenty-year old self and all that entails.

Naturally he's old enough to know better but Mother Nature has put the 'little head' back in charge...if you want to read how this turns out you can buy 'Edge of Eternity' from Amazon.com and again, kindle users can pick it up for .99 cents.

One thing I'll share about my, er, protagonist is he's richer than Crosius, which is why he was able to 'independently fund' reasearch into defeating the death hormone and extending his life.

The conflict here is; once you have the secret of immortality, who do you share it with?

Juxtapose that with the fleeting nature of secrets and we have information that could be used to duplicate the formula is stolen and the chase is on!

Is a whole planet enough for a single immortal? It is doubtful two could occupy the same planet for long...and that opinion has nothing to do with the planet's ability to provide to the needs of two such entities.

Yeah, 'forever' sort of re-arranges your priorities and makes you look at things 'differently'.

If we accept that the 'pillars of civilization' are Equality, Justice and Liberty, immortality certainly makes this a combustable mixture and is incompatible with civilization.

How ironic that humans are 'social' creatures...people may drive you nuts but a lack of them produces the same results...

So, in conclusion, as poverty grows you lifespan decreases. If you're fortunate enough to be rich things are somewhat rosier...and if you're not, not so much.

Equality is an ideal we must strive for if we are to survive as a species.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Robots

Greetings good citizen, no discussion about the future would be complete without robots. Love them or fear them, robots are already omnipresent.

Unheard during the latest economic downturn is the effect widespread automation has had on employment. You won't find economists clucking their tongues and opining sagely, 'Yup, that's your problem right there.' [like they knew it all along.]

Not for the last time will I remind you that robots don't buy what they make. [Save in the rare situation where the robot produces parts for other robots...and even then the robot isn't the one doing the buying, robots (actually software) do that on Wall Street.

Once again we run afoul of the mistaken notion that in the future, everybody would have a robot for any variety of reasons. Originally it was thought people would have 'personal robots' to do 'drudge work' for THEM...but robots never came down to a price point where the average individual could afford one (and the ones you could afford wouldn't even make a good coat rack...just saying.)

Left unsaid here was such a mechanical wonder would have talents the average person couldn't comprehend and thus cost more to produce than the average person could afford to pay...but let's assume like our Futurist ancestors did, that the essential widgets to control such a wunderkind could be mass produced cheaply...

Who do you suppose would get their hands on 'Asimov's darlings' first?

Come on, three guesses and the first two don't count! Outside of global manufacturing, who is the biggest user of robotics in the world today? No, not Japan, the freaking US Military!

Now a robot capable of being a 'personal assistant' implies that this piece of equipment would be capable of performing pretty much any task the average human could...and you wouldn't have to feed it, clean up after it or give it a rest break.

It wouldn't complain about being assigned to latrine duty but it also wouldn't need one...the pluses just keep adding up! Does anyone else see the really big minus here?

A robot does what it's told without asking questions. It is the one item that should NEVER be used in military service yet our skies are full of them, 24/7.

Guess what, this was NEVER put to a vote. Some madman in the Pentagon issued the order and now we have drones! Humans pilot the drones so it isn't the exact equivalent of a mindless killer but there's a BIG difference between flipping a switch and pulling a trigger. What we don't know is how many 'drone operators' suffer from PTSD.

Most people have seen 'I Robot', the film adaption of Asimov's short story...and some of you read the story and know the film version left out several key elements...and it made you wonder what the film-makers were steering clear of?

You see, Asimov's short story is a precursor to the Terminator Series [sans the foolish notion that the machines would have to resort to time travel to assassinate a single puny human before it was born.] If the machines ever do 'rise', kiss your backside good-bye because it's all over.

I hope most of you can recognize 'realism' when you see it. We are no match for machines now, we'd be at even a greater handicap if we were facing machines designed by machines (for the specific purpose of wiping us out.)

So we circle back to that old axiom, be careful of what you wish for, you just might get it...

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Habitable Planets

Greetings good citizen, as an author I have 'experimented' with a variety of concepts. When 'dry-running' these ideas, the mind travels along some strange paths. While it isn't official, NASA has ceased it's space program (as the capitalists have moved THEIR manufacturing capacity from the US to the less envoronmentally cautious People's Republic of China.

As you might guess, this thought experiment led to the inevitable 'Capitalists in space' story where 'the final frontier is finally opened up after an accident with a force field generator experiment creates FTL travel.

You know the drill good citizen, the instant we gain the capability to to travel to distant stars in a 'reasonable' timeframe those twinkling lights in the night sky become 'Real Estate'.

So my short story 'The Eye of Orion' was born. [You can buy my collection of short stories titled Big Questions from Amazon.com and if you have a kindle [or download the free kindle app] you'll only pay .99 cents! If you're a Kindle select customer you can get it FREE!

But enough marketing, back to the future! In a sort of 'cut their own throat' misstep, colonizing our celestial neighborhood would be cost prohibitive and the time frames involved would be gargantuan. We could do it but ROI would be in the fourth decimal place, cost-wise. [Not that it actually matters.]

Cracking the light barrier is the first step in a mission we (sorry, because the oligarchs are looking to the future it's easy to fall into the trap the it's being done for us all...my bad) have already expended billions in the search for another 'habitable' planet, When we find a suitable one we will launch a mission to explore/colonize this (hopefully) virgin world.

In my fiction story the planet they find is closer in fact that it was on paper and only took three weeks to get to. Handy because it wouldn't take a lifetime to get there and should it prove inhabited, another lifetime to wave off follow-up missions. This also allowed them the leisure to park in orbit and observe the planet for signs of (intelligent) life and to test the atmosphere for potential pathogens...which, in my story, prove no match for our germs.

Not only does the intrepid 'Baron' (this is just keeping it real, if you're NOT an oligarch, your NOT getting your hands on classified military technology for zip...like this guy does...because he's a Baron!) seizes the technology used to build the first interstellar transport(s) he also uses 'creative financing' to fund the mission and gets the courts to provide legal ownership of the entire planet [ostentatiously to 'protect the investors'...of course!]

Then we arrive at the transportation arrangements themselves. The 'nobles' could buy passage on the ship and cruise in luxury to vist their holdings in the sky but the 'hired help' was placed in suspended animation and slabbed into the cargo hold for their 3 week journey. The practical considerations here are the trip would be instantanous for the travelers and they wouldn't need food or sanitary facilities...or require a large security contingent to, er, 'safeguard the ship.'

While the ships (on paper) cost a kings ransom to build, they ran on gravity, which is free. That didn't stop the Baron from charging (whatever the traffic would bear) for a three week nap and a job at the end of the ride. While the nobles [people rich enough to buy titles from the Eye of Orion corporation, the Baron just happened to inherit one here on earth.] could come and go as they pleased [and most of them could be bothered, they didn't care.] It was a one way trip for the average technician.

Imagine being stranded on a planet forty light years from Earth with a 'management team' operating under the same 'principals' they exercise here?

Like the current exercise in 'bad judgement' [the one-way trip to colonize Mars] our protagonist The Baron nor ANY of his 'backers' personally make the trip to their 'goldmine in the sky', everything they need/care about is here...and space travel in notoriously hazardous.

Worse, having 'high net worth' individuals on board increases the danger of 'mishap' exponentially. {Thanks to our insane inheritance laws.)

The significance of this should not be lost on anyone, especialy the marks that plunked their money down for a one-way trip to a gulag in space.

Once there the Eye of Orion corporation LLC evaporated. The job promised at the other end of the ride was provided by the other nobles wishing to attract 'settlers' to their fiefs...so they could TAX them.

Naturally, never going there meant all they knew about operations/conditions on the colony came from underlings that had a vested interest in not 'rocking the boat'. All the management team had to say was 'you'll never see Earth again' to anyone that got too ardent about reporting the 'heavy-handed' treatment of the, er, 'prisoners'. A term the management team used regularly among themselves when referring to the fools who paid good money only to find themselves 40 light years from the nearest judge.

While some of you may be shocked at the idea 'man's 'inhumanity' to man is legendary'...and if left unchecked, will follow us off planet.

The advantage of being 'the god of the story' is I was able to provide a 'happy ending', the Baron, once he learns of the horrors he's brought upon people that trusted him leads the charge against the other nobles and, well, you'll need to buy the book to find out how things settle.

I believe most will agree, seeking out habitable planets [considering the investment it will take to reach even the 'closest' one.] is far preferable to the costly and dangerous colonization of the hostile environemts offered by our nearby neighbors.

I have the advantage of writing fiction, I could create a habitable planet as close to earth as I wished...because it wasn't the 'habitable planet' aspect that was central to my story.

It was the batshit crazy humans and the 'baggage' they'll carry with them as they set out to trek among the stars!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Anger [past as prologue]

Greetings good citizen, Happy Friday! Not that Friday means what it used to in our 24/7, shop til you drop economy...and most of us, if we have a job, it's retail where the weekends have become meaningless...or worse, if you don't own the dump, you're scheduled to work.

If you're unemployed then the weeks are nothing but a perpetual weekend. It's always Friday/Saturday but you have nothing to do because you don't have the money. Nice day, cloudy and cold, doesn't matter today is going to be the same as yesterday...and the same as tomorrow (until YOU make yourself USEFUL to somebody...a task that gets more difficult with each passing day.

Our Futurist forebearers completely missed this one, even those who believed robots would do EVERYTHING for us. What nobody saw coming [back in the Whiz-bang days] was the collapse of capitalism...which is weird because without the 'gun' money provides capitalism failed everytime it was attempted.

Ironically, the equation is falling apart from the 'other end'. We now have the ample supply of 'captive customers' that capitalism requires but the captives don't have the necessary income to keep a 'for profit' business model afloat.

Worse, the ones keeping the 'market dominance' aspect of capitalism alive don't themselves need the money.

Can anyone else see a problem here?

Naturally we need to revisit history if we are to understand how we came to be in such, er, 'straits'.

Buying and selling is a reasonably recent...'innovation'. Before modern times, buying and selling was something only owners did...the rest of us, pathetically, were 'owned'. For some this meant a bill of sale with our name on it and for the rest it was our 'mark' upon a contract providing us with 'permission' to farm a specific plot of land and surrender most of what we grew in exchange for being able to keep (hopefully) enough to survive on during the winter months.

And make no mistake about it, a 'bad year' on the plot didn't mean you were cut slack by the landowner, it meant the portion you got to keep shriveled to nothing.

Yes, this was life before the 'Every MAN an owner' brand of capitalism was established. How ironic capitalism fizzled out when it was tried experimentally with 'subsistence farmers'...because, as you know, EVERYBODY planted what sold well the year before, making for shortages in almost every commodity except one, which you now had in spades.

This is a 'flaw' in capitalism that educators fail(ed)[they're still doing it so both ways please!] to point out to non-agrarian students. The kids of factory workers didn't need to know what the 'bad old days were like' and telling them would only make them wonder what kind of people were in charge of things...

Thus we circle back to 'anger'. Why is everybody so angry?

While the 'angry' thing is what you see on TV, most of the rest of us are totally 'befuddled'. We have no clue where the money is going to come from to pay for all the crap that keeps getting dropped in our laps by our 'You're on your own' government.

Worse, everytime you switch the TV on it promptly spews a new threat to either your health or your security. [Understand, most of these threats are remote to say the least but it still distracts you and irritates that little nub inside your mind that says 'why doesn't the government do something about it?']

That little nub, good citizen is almost rubbed flat in the voracious consumer of TV..an audience that continues to increase as unemployment continues to climb, thanks to 'government instituted globalization' brought to you by the conservatives that somehow, miraculously keep getting elected.

Isn't THAT what's making you angry, good citizen?

Why do all the 'stupid people' [and admit it, in your mind you're surrounded by IDIOTS!]keep voting against their own interests?

Well, it starts with Rush Limbaugh (and friends) convincing everyone who would listen that all LIBERALS we in fact card carrying communists bent on giving away everything you worked so hard for to the 'mud people'.

Guess who the mud people are? If you think it's the illegal immigrants who put food on your table for less than minimum wage you're WRONG! The 'mud people' are, in fact, the unemployed listeners of conservative psycho babble like the Rush Limbaugh Show!

And remember, Mud spelled backwards equals Dum!

I'd like to take this opportunity to remind you that the future is ALWAYS rooted in the past, WHAT WAS SHAPES WHAT WILL BE!

Live and LEARN, good citizen!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Ready or not...

Greetings good citizen, Ready or not, here comes the future!

Parts of it you aren't going to like and other parts you're going to love (because the wheel of fate occasionally deals each of us a winner every once in a while, even if we don't realize it at the time.)

It's those tiny rays of happiness that keep us hanging on for more.

Largely ignored is the 'existential question' which nobody can definitively explain...and worse, it is this line of thinking that leads inevitably to the justification of 'omnipotence'.

[Argument: since an obvious reason isn't apparent, we must exist as 'the agent's' of some higher form of life/? that we can only sense but not interact with.] [Secondary argument: Since this 'entity' is so far ahead of us on the evolutionary scale, we can't even begin to understand why it created us...]

This is a total load of manure but many believe [because they've been told from birth of the imaginary exploits of this entity that nobody has ever seen or heard...(outside their own head.)]

Perhaps the most fatuous attribute bestowed on our imaginary overlord is how 'he/she/it' Loves us.

Take a good look at your life good citizen and wonder if you'd wish any part of this existence upon your worst enemy?

If this is 'love' I don't think any of us are prepared to deal with this supreme being's hatred!

But, like I said, he/she/it is imaginary...

What do phantoms have to do with the future you might ask?

Remember yesterday when we speculated on why these technological leaps, these mini-renaisances, only come in sporadic bursts? Well, our self-professed betters [after they get what they want] often use the 'it displeases God' factor to slam on the brakes so they can milk the latest round of developments to the fullest.

Like Time and Money, God is a 'human construct'. Just another tool the initiated use to keep the 'superstitious' among us 'in line'.

Once you're aware of this it's surprising how frequently this 'hammer' gets pulled out and wielded.

No irony should be lost on the fact that many today believe [just as our ancestors did] that we are living in the 'endtimes'.

It's not humorous at all that every, er, civilization, bar none, has an 'end times' prophecy. Even the 'flash in the pan' civilizations that failed see their own demise coming foresaw the end of the world...

Sadly for the devout, this common thread only serves as further proof that this whole 'spirit in the sky' thing is nothing more than a tool designed to trump common sense for the benefit of the few. [Remember your history, ALL Monarchies, bar none, claimed they were 'god's chosen'.]

So as we roll into an increasingly god-less future, we can only wonder what new tool they will pull out of their bag of tricks to keep the rest of us 'in check'?

[Remember, the other 'justification' for staggering opulance has again been laid at the feet of the 'inexplicable' and brushed off as 'God's Will'.] When the beneficiary KNOWS this was definitly not the case, they stole it 'fair and square'.

This time they seem content to let God slip under the waves of uselessness because they finally have what God used to provide for them. God allegedly knew your every thought and deed, with modern surveilance they too are 'god-like'. The one thing the human created entity fell short on consistently were 'miracles'. For every 'just in the nick of time' rescue there were thousands of incidents that ended in tragedy, 'luck/chance' being what it is.

Um, back to those 'endtimes' and the, again, universal 'happy ending' every one of them promises.

Rationally speaking, if you're waiting for 'god' to come save us, you'd better not hold your breath. The only factor still in play as far as the future is concerned is LUCK/CHANCE.

Will the tyrants, through their lack of vision and ham-handed mismanagement have brought about their own downfall and will their incompetence destroy life as we have come to know it?

As far as predictions go good citizen, this is an outcome we will witness before the end of the decade.

Gegner predicts [although in all fairness I have been off wildly on this score more than once...only cementing my belief that the 'data massaging' is much deeper than anyone suspects.

Life's about people, not numbers. If the end result is off one way or the other it doesn't matter. The goal [should be] survival of the species and the greatest good that can be achieved.

Have we equipped our children with the tools they need to succeed where we failed?

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Trends

Greetings good citizen, 'Futurism' is (and appears to have always been) a brief phenomenon. For short periods of time, usually during periods of swift technological advance OR persistent social turmoil, open speculation regarding the future of mankind comes back into vogue, again briefly. [Because current management knows it isn't good for the public to spend time pondering how things might be 'different'.]

Not to kick you in the shins or anything but it's your persistent lack of attention that has brought about this cess-pit that has been manufactured for us by the agents of the oligarchs. {How ironic is it that the oligarchs themselves aren't paying attention either?}

I'll admit it was the current election cycle that inspired me to take a quick step back and ponder, even briefly, what is must have been like to live during the 'Whiz-Bang' times. It was literally a 'mini-renaissance'. What caused the sudden surge in ideas that had been (and continue to be, suppressed) for so long?

Well, good citizen, today's title is 'trends' and like the prophetic book of the Seventies, Mega-Trends [which accurately predicted (if not actually drove) the push towards 'globalization'; despite trade already being global for many centuries prior, but we are all aware the public is gullible.]

We will take a moment to examine some current 'trends' mostly because they are more than a little 'disturbing'. One of my earliest memories is JFK's assassination. History shows the USA was in trouble, management-wise long before that but having that as my first significant childhood memory affects your mindset.

Different people attach different significance to this historic event. I'll share what that event has come to mean to me. It represents the death of the 'Party of Jefferson'.

To me, there haven't been any Democrats [capital D] since they laid JFK to rest. Sure, we have had 3 (nominally) 'democratic' presidents since but none of them, including the parties current candidate, espouse the historic Democratic values that historically gave Democrats a three to one edge over the status quo minded Republicans.

The current 'media made' front-runner isn't a Democrat at all and neither was her husband, the man responsible for the second global economic meltdown. [But it's okay, he was just 'doing what he was told'...]

Let's lift the war club once again to bash the opposing team as well. The 'clown car' filled with platitude spouting ego-maniacs isn't what we traditionally called 'The Party of [bad} Ideas' anymore either. [It's no secret that both parties take their marching orders from the oligarchs!]

It's an oxymoron to point out that the Republicans have only one idea and it can fix EVERYTHING (even when it can't!)

Over the decades since the "Reagan Revolution" [Reagan's election is the first real proof that the oligarchs had stopped pretending that they kept their hands out of politics and, thanks to Dick Nixon, had put together a media monopoly that answered only to them...it's all there if you bother to look but no, you're too busy looking for terrorists...or commies or commie terrorists...or commenting on what your facebook friends ate at the latest choke & puke...

But I digress.

Let me get this off my chest. I find it deeply disturbing that NOBODY, in the past six election cycles has demand proof the winner of any contest went the way the media reported it.

Is the media the problem? ABSOLUTELY!

Given the depth of 'public dissatisfaction' with the (obvious) oligarchy how can the two front runners both be members of the same reviled One Percent?

People may be, er, ignorant but they aren't THAT STUPID!

So, if is smells like a rat and it scurries like a rat and it steals like a rat, how many of you think it's a Cat? Because that's what you're being 'sold', that the results of our 'secret balloting' can't be known. Or worse, can't be questioned.

The combined 'failure' to act responsibly or to hold the criminals accountable rankles even more when there is no hope of derailing the criminal control of what passes for our government.

Which is to say, those mini-renaissances are over until we cowboy up and take back control of our justice system. We can't build a future with those who 'have all THEY want and want no more' running things.

Yeah, what I'm saying is we could all use some more 'whiz-bang' in our lives instead of the opposite...[aw crap!]

Probably one of the disappointing aspects of both A brave New World and 1984 is they both end with the bad guys winning...because history shows the 'merciful' get what ask for when they fail to make hard choices.

And that's the 'root' of the problem, good citizen. Nobody wants blood on their hands, even when it's 'necessary'.

Thanks for letting me inside your head...I apologize for the disturbing nature of this post but you can't preach about doing the right thing if you won't take a stand.

Does the oligarch's willingness to suffer criminals make them 'better' than us or are they fearful that a lack of mercy will be returned 'in kind'?

I suspect it's the latter that (occasionally) stays their bloody hand.

Gegner

From This Day Forward

Greetings good citizen! Can't very well call this a Futurist Blog if we don't at least speculate somewhat on what the future might hold, eh? Somehow I'm pretty sure most of you aren't sitting there waiting for the next version of the I-Phone to be released...and asking you to tell me defeats the purpose of this blog. It's up to me to tantilize your mind with some fantastic predictions for the future, so let's get started:

1.) In the future nobody will work.

That one is sort of a cheat because we don't provide a definition for work nor do we provide a milestone for achieving this goal.

As you might imagine, for certain segments of society, the act of thinking about what needs doing is considered 'work' so the only way to acheive a 'nobody works environment' is through an extinction level event...which may or may not occur in the next fifty years.

Let's use the fifty year 'benchmark' to keep our predictions more, er, 'grounded'.

2) Fifty years from now we'll all be 'related' to one another.

Um, this prediction is even darker than it appears on the surface. For a debacle like this to come to pass it means the current chiselers in charge will have succeeded in wiping the rest of us out, leaving only their relatives alive.

Like flying cars, it is unlikely a cabal of madmen would succeed in wiping EVERYBODY but their own kin out so this isn't a very 'practical' prediction...(but neither were flying cars.)

3.) You will vote directly on the proposed laws (and not for politicians.)

Sounds reasonable, doesn't it ? Naturally, it won't happen until AFTER the revolution so it's not particularly practical...but it could happen and a lot sooner than our fifty year timeline. Voting directly on the laws is an old idea that the criminals in charge hate.

What if we decided...next prediction!

4.) All money will be digital AND it will be impossible to transfer funds between individuals [your money is for YOU!]

All CRIME is 'cash & carry'! Remove the 'benefit' and remove the crime. People won't steal because there won't be anybody to sell the goods to.

Here we have two great ideas in one, crime prevention AND increased security. Some jokers will steal for the lark but, well, the next prediction explains why 'sane' people won't...even on a bet.

5.) There will be NO prisons in the future.

Again, this is actually scarier than it sounds. Our brave new society will no longer incarcerate or execute those unwilling/unable to live by the rules. We will instead revert to the ancient practice of 'banishment/exile'. Naturally, specific areas will be set aside for this purpose...and they won't be particularly 'hospitable'. If you aren't an extreme survivalist the odds are very good [to excellent] that exile will equal a death sentence. Which is to point out the obvious, exile will be reserved for extreme cases (get bagged with stolen goods more than once and you're begging to be exiled!) but nobody is getting sent to the 'badlands' for J-walking or speeding or spitting on the sidewalk...(minor infractions.)

6.) Everyone will have a job.

Even the laziest among us needs SOMETHING to break up the endless tedium of doing NOTHING. More importantly, our 'work' defines us. It is how we participate in society it is also how we 'excel!' So for mental health alone those deemed capable of putting in a shift will be assigned work and earn an income. If you can't work, you will be supported by society and provided other creative releases to make your life as meaningful as possible.

This is a bold prediction because the current [crime-ridden] capitalist system CAN'T provide full employment. The difference is since our future civilization will NOT be 'profit-driven' we will be able to perform all of the tasks that went undone due to deficit spending/insufficient tax-base. [Sound like a pipe dream? Remember, Mother Nature doesn't have a cash register, ALL resources are FREE. So is labor.] Are capitalist starting to look like criminals? {they should be...)

Think about it, no more unemployment, no more welfare and no more homelessness [because housing will become a 'gimme' too.] Not only will you be assigned a house but you won't have to paint it or mow the lawn because someone else gets paid to do that for you!

Really went screaming off the reservation there, didn't I...but every one of the above items are 'doable' if we cast off the yoke of those who claim to own what rightfully belongs to all of us.

Worse, they defend this criminality by claiming (and it's NEVER been tested) that the rest of us 'lack the ambition' to do what we do every day for freaking peanuts. Does that make sense to you? We're already doing it...but they think we wouldn't if they didn't have their foot up our backside.

Sort of beyond cheeky, isn't it?

What do you suppose we should do with people like that?

Humble them would be my suggestion.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

So...what's new?

Greetings good citizen, the entire Futurist movement was born during a time when technological advances were virtually a weekly phenomenon. There have been several theories put forth for why science surged forward during that period of thirty or so years but now if you ask the question 'what's new'? The answer is 'nothing'.

Have we really exhausted the frontier of scientific research or did the patent office slam the brakes on technological advance?

How freakish to think that for a while corporate research teams did nothing but focus on filing for patents to protect the patents they already held [by closing off the avenues of research competitors might take to 'improve upon' existing technology.]

Says something about our legal/commercial system that this practice is even permitted but one must remember they [our self-professed betters] leave the 'more for me' prefix off the currently practiced brand of Capitalism.

So, technologically speaking, has there been anything 'new' since the world's first video game?

And the sad answer is, if there has been something new in the past forty years, we all remain ignorant of it.

Another 'byproduct' of the research done to prevent new research from advancing is none of these avenues were pursued and the people who filed the patents are now long dead so we have no idea what they were chasing!

What we need is forensic scientists to go back in and reopen the avenues that were shut down to prevent the one thing capitalism can't tolerate...competition.

We touched briefly yesterday on the topic of 'opportunity cost' and the, er, 'economic junkyard' left behind by the four decades of 'whiz-bang' technological advancement is staggering. Perhaps more bizarre is the mirror this holds up to our (and we didn't choose this, it was/has been/is being 'thrust upon us') 'anything for a buck' society.

More ironic is if you have an idea, they want to 'help you' bring it to market! One must keep in mind that 'invention' is the MAIN PATH provided by our self-appointed overlords to success. What they don't tell you is if you don't possess the wherewithal to bring the product to market yourself, their 'assistance' will cost you the controlling interest you originally had over the path your idea takes. No irony should be lost on the fact the the more they 'help' the smaller your share of the profits become.

So a few brief paragraphs and we uncovered why the seemingly relentless 'march of technology' stopped dead in it's tracks a couple of decades after it began.

The corporate owned media disdains anything that detracts you, the 'subservient subject' from the predatory system that feeds on you. Which is to broach a topic some of you may have tumbled to already, I am 'down on capitalism', bigtime.

If you have a problem with this [and I'm sure you do] I'm here to provide an 'alternative'. It's one thing to complain but if you don't have a 'better idea' then shut up and keep shovelling, it's getting deep over here!

Most of you realize we can't use 'the system' to alter the system, the tools deliberately don't exist. Worse, those preaching 'revolution' are offering the same crappy deal we already have, just different 'bosses' who may or (most likely) may NOT be any 'better' than the ones we are currently saddled with.

Why revolt to lose ground? How ironic those in charge today count on that very premise to push you back and to keep you backing up...accepting a weaker and weaker hand each time.

How does one revolt against freedom and liberty? What you're really rebelling against is the 'illusion of freedom' and the mock Liberty the lack of choices you are offered presents. The deck is stacked against you and if you don't believe that then there's something sticking out of the seat of your pants...

Most of us would be content with a 'level' playing field, the question is how to achieve that?

The answer is to place the law beyond the reach of the self-interested. The one 'test' that even our current society fails miserably at is the 'freedom test'. The first law on any just society's books must be an anti-exploitation law!

Making this the second or third item doesn't qualify. That the law treats all people equally must be rule number one.

If you are to have any hope of your children tasting the air of freedom you must act before the planned genocide begins! (Remember yesterday and the 'revelation' that Malthaus was right and how that fact has changed everything?)

The 'equation' for a just society is simple. The cornerstone is Equality, the second leg is Justice, which flows from equality, and the third leg is Peace, without which there can be no prosperity...

So, if we shift our focus from technology we can indeed find new ways to look at old ideas, just as those who would rob you have 're-invented'/perverted new ways to cheat you of your due.

Now that you are totally confused I'll leave you to digest this latest excursion into uncharted teritory...

Thanks for letting me inside your head!

Gegner

The Final Frontier...

Greetings good citizen! While not a favorite subject of Futurists Past, Space was assumed to be 'easily conquerable' by the [then] relentless march of technology.

Why don't we already have thriving colonies on the Moon and Mars? Remove 'cost' from the equation (all resources are 'free' to the owner, another good reason to re-think this capitalism baloney; we should, at the very least, have a 'dump' on one of them...but we don't.

And again the question of why comes to mind?

We could ask an 'economist' but by now most of us realize a degree in economics is about as useful as a degree in voodoo. If economics were in fact a science, don't you think at least one of them could work out a 'fix' to the crashing global capitalist economy?

No irony should be lost on the fact that economics (as it is currently, er, 'practiced') isn't that far removed from voodoo. Worse, the factors scuttling widespread prosperity are in fact correctable (but modern economists are trained to ignore them.)

Shifting into reverse for a moment and asking one of these so-called 'economic experts' why we don't colonize 'near space' and their response (if they had one) would be the ever so handy 'opportunity cost'.

Why would you 'waste the resources' to ship, say highly toxic materials off planet? [The beginning of the arguement that says 'better use' of those resources could be found here for what you wanted to use to blast refuse into space.)

This of course begs the question of why the sky has become a parking lot for secret military satellites...and what about the cost to park them in space...and you'd get either, "They're keeping us safe" or "that's the military's business".

While a few dozen are part of the GPS network, understand the Global Positioning System wasn't developed to assist people that can get lost driving around the block. GPS was developed to improve the accuracy of weapons delivery...

While our 'wiser heads' expended the resources to send equipment capable of photographing you in your bathroom naked from space. Emptying the world's cooling ponds of spent reactor rods and sending them into space/storage on an uninhabitable planet would have been a 'waste'?

More 'baffling' good citizen is half the planet's workforce is 'under-utilized/unemployed and yet these orangutans 'fail to see the benefit' of providing them with jobs. [I appreciate this is an insult to orangutans and that there is much that needs to be done here on this planet but 'resources' are being 'squandered' [largely through the incarceration of those the current system doesn't/can't provide opportunity for and that is criminal mismanagement along with the mis-management of criminals.]

Past or future good citizen, the 'decision-making process' regarding resource usage needs a serious overhaul...but that's just my humble opinion.

It also points a large rubberized finger at the, er, 'efficacy' of our 'college educated' management team. Seems these clowns wouldn't know the right questions to ask if their lives depended on it (and, none too shockingly, ours increasingly do depend on our ability to effect the course of human progress.

When you start rioting over the mis-management of resources, their [the people in charge] plan is to shoot you like feral animals...and nobody will be thinking about 'opportunity costs' them. They've butchered millions, many of whom could have been mankind's salvation, just to preserve their own power {often solely for the sake of that power.)

Humanity can no longer afford the luxury of that kind of 'self-interested' thinking. It's time to place humanity first.

If we are to ever advance into the cosmos we must first put our own 'house' in order...and while there aren't many old time futurists around to ask, I believe they'd all agree.

Um, once again, it is not my intention to tell you 'what to think', I merely want to 'give you something to think about'...

Thanks once again for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

What does the future hold?

Greetings good citizen, Happy Saturday! In the halcyon days of Futurist past, our forefathers predicted shorter work weeks/days but, perhaps ironically, none of them foresaw today's 24/7 shopping/retail markets.

Were they gifted with an understanding we lack or was it the fact that all the laws ever written, good or bad, remain on the books today? Which is to point out the prohibition against Sunday sales (in our majority Christian nation) were seen as sancrosanct/involable.

Probably not too surprising that those who believed everything would be automated also believed the Sabbath (at least the Christian one) would remain...holy/off limits?

Which is to point out yet another reality that has crept into our everyday existence...having it both ways.

Not that I'm picking on anyone's religious beliefs. I am like the defenders of free speech (which we all know is an oxymoron at best.) Which is to say, I may not agree with your version of 'Spirit in the Sky' but I'll defend your right to believe in s/he/it with my dying breath.

Me, I don't have any truck with Spirit in the Sky, I have no use for a supreme being that would let a place like this exist in the first place never mind letting it rot, neglected like this existence has.

Make no mistake about it, good citizen, God ain't gonna get you, it's those who claim to speak for him you have to watch out for.

But I digress [like screaming off the reservation digress...apologies.]

I was headed toward those abbreviated workdays/weeks our futurist forebearers foresaw that never materialized and I got sidetracked by the 24/7 retail world that none of them saw coming...because of their devout dedication to the supreme being.

From a 'need fulfillment' basis, the more 'hands' you have available, the quicker a task can be accomplished [although it does create the phenomenon of 'too many hands', which interfers with 'efficiency'.]

Worse, our efficiency obsessed capitalists fail to see the circular relationship between worker/customer. I'm sure most of you are aware you need a job to procure what you need in this whacky world of ours, but far too many CEOs believe 'customers' (especially paying them) are someone else's problem.

Worse, these same nitwits consider workers a liability, it is any wonder you can't live on what you're paid now, never mind half that [due to reduced hours]?

You're literally taking up the slack for the customers they can't employ. How's that for a kick in the pants? Half the workforce is destitute and you're paying more than you should because the stupid capitalist won't hire more workers and shorten your workday.

Now I have the dog chasing it's own tail! The problem isn't 'too many workers' the problem has ALWAYS been 'skinflint capitalists'.

Not that the problem goes away by simply dealing with the mismanagement that created the problem in the first place (and you know this means every 'business major/MBA' is a MORON [but you knew that already too, didn't you?] In order to shorten the work week and enfranchise all workers we'd need to create a 'sustainable' economy where everybody pulls their weight, something the current system can't accomodate.

So this wasn't exactly a post about our future but it hopefully goes a ways towards explaining how past futurists got it so wrong.

Until next time, good citizen,

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Optimism indeed...

Greetings good citizen, Welcome to my new soapbox where we will journey into the past and marvel at how the self-professed 'Futurists' got it so wrong...

But that would get old quick so I will add that some of the 'predictions' of these far-sighted 'imagineers' could lead to our salvation.

Yes sirree Good Citizen! What this blog holds out to all with the mind to grasp it is HOPE, we can indeed avoid the trainwreck we all see coming.

Take a good look around you good citizen. The world is coming apart at the seams, mismanagement is omnipresent and justice has a price tag hanging from it.

Worse, most of you have seen that there is no way to use the system to fix the system, the strings are where they were intended to be, well beyond YOUR reach.

It's not helpful in the least to point out that the leaky, limping madhouse we live in is overseen by college graduates, proving that college serves more as a 'fraternity' than institutions of higher knowledge. a money-fueled filter intended to keep the 'unwashed' from anything resembling the decisionmaking process.

But I digress, Let us return to the days when staying abreast of technologies march into a bright future was akin to a holy calling of devotion.

No doubt about it, The Futurists were born during a time when technology was transforming nearly every aspect of life on a nearly daily basis. These dreamers had little reason to 'hold back'.

Flying cars? Well, that vision persisted into the fifties and several prototypes were developed but in the end the liability proved too much for even the most fearless investor.

Push button food? Some opine microwaves are the incarnation of this 'out of the 'can/pkg', into the man' phenomenon but GMOs are just getting started...for better or worse. Which is to say the jury is still out on this one.

We'd be all over the map if we were to visit every frontier imagined by those who dreamed of what the future might be like...and while the pace of technology has slowed down considerably (for a very disturbing reason, do you know what that reason is?) we will drift to an arena that has preoccupied many a Futurist's mind...automation.

Even with off the charts unemployment it is not uncommon to hear 'someday a robot will be doing...'[fill-in-the-blank.} The not particularly bright futurist dreamt of a future where humans filled their days exploring while living off (the imaginary) 'fat of the land', robots would see to our every need (and,left unexplained, the rest of us would live off the trust funds our parents' patents on various robotic innovations would provide for us.)

Another factor the more attentive Futurist foresaw was the 'population boom', that advances in medical technology would mean more people lived longer...sort of dooming the dreams of the roboteers because robots don't buy what they make, only 'human robots' do.

Well, what did these more astute imagineers see? They saw a future with full employment driven by a shorter workweek/day.

Wait a minute...you can't make it on forty hours pay, how are you supposed to get by on 20?

Let's retrace our steps for a second and visit something they don't teach you in college...all money is 'funny'. Loyal readers are enlightened to this fact. I have long railed against the perversions perpetrated by the 'artificially rich' [hoping that someday others would join in my outrage.]

You'll get by just fine on half the hours because either wages will raise to make up the difference or prices will drop...and it is my 'opinion' that many things that serve as 'income streams'[so a few can be rich] today will revert to their natural 'free state' so we can establish a 'sustainable economy'

Apparently brevity is shortest route to the heart of the reader. While you may never read anything more important, it is equally important for me to respect your time constraints.

Until next time, Thank You for letting me inside your head,

Gegner