Can we really imagine what the next few years might look
like, let alone out
to 2035? Think back to 2010. It seems like just yesterday, but it was seven
years ago! Do you remember what life was like before you used to Uber your way
around town…before your phone really became a part of your life (for most of
you)…before apps were your day to day connection to the rest of your day to day
life (again for most of you)…before your 3-year old begged to play the latest
coding game on that same phone…before drones became mainstream ways of war…before
drones with HD cameras and infrared night vision with automated sensors controlled
by simple apps…on your phone…available at Toys-r-Us for $29.99 became
ubiquitous? If you cannot, then what you have experienced is what Thomas Kuhn would
call a paradigm
shift. Since 2010—really
about 2007—there has been a paradigm shift in how we interact with the
things of this world.
Now, imagine yourself in 1910. What will the next seven years
look like? What will life look like in 1917? Will we get around town in the
same fashion? Will we travel in the same way? Will we travel to the same
places? Who will lead the countries of the world? Which are the remaining
countries—or empires—of the world, and who are the emerging powers that we
would not have necessarily noticed, like the United States.
Here is a great piece, that I think I may have recommended
before that will give you a glimpse of the paradigm change about to change how
the world worked and how that world would be organized. Margaret MacMillan’s essay,
as part of the Brookings
Institute’s essay series, is a concise parallel to her fantastic book, The
War that Ended Peace, which details how the pressures of new
technologies, new alliances, new economic relationships, new ideologies
converged, resulting in the war to end all wars. Consider this—can you hear the
echoes of history sounding similar today? Can we begin to make out what our
next paradigm shift will unveil, or is the paradox of such thinking too
immature that it just has to occur for us realize it?
Of note, for those following the blog and the book-a-week
club, remember this month is a month of functional fictions. Last week should
have looked at Joseph Heller’s, Catch-22. This week was
scheduled Franz Khafka’s The Metamorphosis;
however, I haven’t received my copy yet, so I may flip-flop with The Ugly American.
Either way, as you follow along with this month’s fictions, you should be
refreshed by some witty hindsight that will open your eyes to previous
paradigms that actually still very current. The question, then, is are they
really paradigms or are they conditions of human nature?
