Predicting the future is big business, and though I don't really have a natural tendency to consult fortune tellers and other folk to obtain knowledge about what lies ahead of me, I can see why other people would. Knowing that you'll be happy in the near future will make you happier now, and knowing the danger that will come on your path will allow you to arm and prepare yourself. In this last case, the question that always arises is: 'Is the culprit inevitable, or not?' Entire books have been written about it, but since I don't really see the relevance of it I won't pursue this line of thought any further.
The reason for me to start about predictions is a television show I watched last Sunday. It was a magazine featuring all sorts of (supposed) innovations from the technology and entertainment industry. They had an item where they helped people a hand into the 'cableless' world by handing them all sorts of wireless apparatuses for free. Needless to say, the show was heavily sponsored by an electronics store. In order to show off they also hired a trendwatcher every episode. Now here's the funny thing, a trendwatcher reads the newspaper, keeps an eye on the internet and perhaps pays a visit to electronics conventions once in a while. Then he writes or talks about what he think the 'trends' will be, but this concept is very ill defined, causing a trendwatcher to be nothing but a modern age fortune teller.
The trendwatcher that shared his vision with during my Sunday afternoon was in his fifties and didn't really impress me as the average 'hip' human that knows what's going on in the word. But looks aren't everything so I gave him a chance, in his ten minute feature, supported by lounge music and slick animations, he rambled on about how – even in those times of crisis – technology will increase our health, and how there'd be lots of new inventions. The thing that struck me was that he knew the economy was going to be in a state of crisis for another while (supposedly for at least a few years, if his futuristic vision wouldn’t go any further then next Wednesday he'd be a rather lousy trendwatcher). How can he – while the all economics disagree! – know that? The only possibility is that you don’t have to be an economic in order to say sensible things about economy, this is appalling though, since it'd mean that a physicist can easily take the place of a lawyer or barber while his own desk might as well be occupied by a layman or dentist.
I realized that I might be kicking a whole fuss for nothing. I understand that he's just a trendwatcher and that his function actually isn't to derive solid models about the future such as meteorologists and climate experts do (not always succeeding, but at least professionally trying.) What bothers me though, is that this type of show is probably seen by a lot of people, of whom a lot are probably unable to see through the strangely positivist claims – "Believe me, it's going to be a fantastic time!" – that this clown makes. I fear for hundreds of people suddenly finding a free (sponsored) fortune teller who tells them that the future is going to be filled with nice appliances and that they're going to be happy because of it.
Because robotic vacuum cleaners, tumble dryers working with sound instead of heat (it really was one of the things he mentioned) and highly advanced step counters aren't going to bring happiness to the masses. They only vaguely reminded me of the film 'Metropolis' and the book '1984,' in their own way reflections of what people once saw in the future.
Every time I see my brothers or sister watching an episode of 'Cribs' I sit in for a few minutes to marvel at the exquisite houses and cars, only to come to the conclusion that (up to a basic level) it doesn't really matter what or how much you own if you don't care about the things you do. Happiness is much more about how much you enjoy every single seemingly inferior task at hand then to how much you can buy. I know a lot of people, for instance, very blunt example, who are bored to death riding the train home. They talk about how long those two hours are every week home, I take it they'd be happier being somewhere else. That feeling isn't changed by a limousine with a private driver.
Don't just sit watching while the landscape flashes away before the window of your train. Pay attention to and engage with that landscape, and don't listen to the awkward looking man sitting across the aisle that's encouraging you to hope for the iPad 9 that's, to be released in 2020.
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