
As I occasionally write about the future in this blog, I try to keep in mind what I will call “The Futurist Fallacy” – In the future, everyone will live and behave like the futurist does today.
Contrast this with William Gibson’s quote: “The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed”, which he is reported to have first said this in an interview on Fresh Air, NPR (31 August 1993).
Both of these may hold provided that the futurist is not in fact behaving the way future will turn out. Of course every good futurist will try to behave in a future-oriented way, trying to be cutting edge with technologies and lifestyles. Many of those will however turn out to be techno-evolutionary dead ends.
Indeed! And it has policy implications.
I’m thinking of you, bus upgrades aimed at price-indifferent riders (WiFi, cushioned seats) rather than price-sensitive riders who now find the bus too inconvenient (frequency, service hours)
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