There’s a bookstore in Mebane, NC that regularly sells books for a quarter each, which makes it easy to pick up off-the-wall things. On one visit, I found a copy of The Dilbert Future (Scott Adams). Copyright 1997, it offers Adams’ vision of the 21st century.
I’m not a particularly big fan of Dilbert, although I often enjoy the cartoons when I come across them. I can’t say I feel I’m missing out on much by staying out of the corporate world. Academia has its own ups and downs, of course, but I at least know how to swim in that sea.
I like to read predictions of the future, written in the past, both for how ridiculous people imagined 2014 to be, and how right they were.
Take, for example, Prediction 52 in The Dilbert Future:
In the future, everyone will be a news reporter.
Adams wrote, “People will have access to software that constantly combs the Internet for ‘small’ news that is relevant to them.”
Of course, the Internet was a thing in 1997, but it looked more like this: { link } – clearly not the information-blitz we know today.
So how many news reporters are there? Here’s a stat. As of today, there are almost 75,000,000 WordPress sites alone, not counting the other blogging platforms. Not all of those sites are technically “news”, but there are 75 million people with something to say, and at least a handful with something relevant… which raises a new question:
Is this a good thing?
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In Future Shock (Alvin Toffler, 1971), Toffler introduced the idea of “overchoice,” the benefits of diversity and individualization being cancelled by the complexity of making a selection.
In a world where we can have news tailored to our own interests, opinions, and ideals, we risk hitting a standstill, a world which merely consists of an echo chamber parroting what we want to hear and leaving no room for growth.
But I want my voice. And I don’t see why I should get to put up a site and say my thing, but not let anybody else do the same. So now we have hundreds of millions of voices. But people like to listen more than they like to talk. Right?
Spoiler: Just about as much as the Internet is treasure trove of civil debate and dialogue.
The problem isn’t the number of voices. It’s the lack of ears. Spend a few moments browsing a large web forum, and it’s easy to get the impression we’ve lost our ability to listen to an opposing viewpoint and respond in a respectful manner. Or maybe we’ve never had that ability at all. The forum for Gentoo had a very colorful assortment of political mud-slinging. Note, this was a support forum for a flavor of Linux. Let’s not even touch on DeviantART, YouTube, or Facebook.
We, as a species, need to learn to listen better.
And read more.
So go pick up a copy of The Dilbert Future if you’re into past predictions about today. It’s an interesting read.
