Wednesday, March 10, 2010

On the future not being what you expected it to be...

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro"... Hunter S. Thompson

Being the guy in the anchorage with an electric propulsion system is something of an eye-opener in more ways than one, the saddest of which, is people simply don't get it...

And, it's just not on electric propulsion, it's about the way we tend to think dumb and not see the BIG PICTURE. It's almost like people want to get it wrong as the same old same old is comfortable.

When I was a kid in third grade, I remember learning about how the internal combustion engine was polluting, inefficient and dependent on fossil fuels (which were finite) and that the future needed some other form of power. Fast forward almost fifty years (man, you don't know how much it hurts to write that...) to the future and you'd think that we'd all be driving jet packs, hydrogen cars and suchlike.

But, nope, apparently the future cuts into rich peoples profits and as a result has been cancelled. Well, to be truthful, they want to cancel it but they only did it in a sorta/kinda way because people want to grow and learn and in spite of a real and serious attempt to dumb down the population. There are a lot of real bright people doing smart things on a cottage industry level as the tools to take on big business are now mostly acccessible and in spite of the dour economy, a lowest common denominator press, and bought and paid for politicians, we are actually living in a time of great opportunity and excitement... If only you know where to look!

But to find it you have to look in a different place as the future is most certainly not the same old same or business as usual... but it is here and it is accessible if maybe hiding just around the corner or much more likely in plain sight.

It's a future of choice and as all futures it is uncharted territory, scary and fraught with danger just as it is filled with promise and reward. You simply have to  get with the program and start moving forward.

Dicken's pretty much said it all in "A Tale of Two Cities"...

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way..."