Todays Certainty Is Tomorrows Absurdity
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Today's certainties and tomorrow's absurdities
Date sent: Sun, 5 May 1996 07:56:16 -0700 (PDT) From: "joyce@thinksmart.com" To: wake-up_brain@thinksmart.com Subject: Good Morning Thinkers! (feel free to forward)
From the Innovative Thinking Network (see Organizations That Can Help?).
Wake-up, Brain ... it's Monday again!
(The STILL absolutely free, weekly brain wake-up list)
Today's certainties and tomorrow's absurdities ... We got lots of interesting responses, including one from Saul N. Silbert who states, "To assert, unequivocally, that TODAY'S CERTAINTIES ARE TOMORROW'S ABSURDITIES seems to me to be one of today's stupidities." Probably true.
Most responses took a future view of possibilities ... for instance, the first message from Kerri Hicks states that money may be obsoleted by cash cards. It seemed that people were responding with ideas about future developments that will make current technologies obsolete.
Perhaps the more important part of this exercise was identifying today's certainties. What are our certainties ... those things that are such a part of our everyday life and thought processes, that we take them for granted today?
As an example, I just returned from a creativity conference in Holland. At one point I needed to change a flight reservation and asked the hotel receptionist for a phone book and she didn't have one! No one else seemed to think that strange but I was stunned! As an American, I take phone books for granted but will we still be printing phone books ten years from now? Probably not.
The comments we received about this question are listed below, but I'd like to push this a bit and see if we can make a list of those things that we take for granted today ... e.g. telephones, supermarkets, hair dryers, celery, fleas on dogs, mosquitos, mousepads, movie theaters, baby diapers, universities, etc. Not that all of these things will become absurdities ... but they might Send us your list ... please limit it to 10 items and send it to
From Kerri Hicks:
Cash! Coins, dollar bills; people identify this ubiquitous thing we call money with the actual stuff they can put their hands on. But with debit cards, vending cards, and the like, cash is going to be unnecessary, and indeed laughable in the next century.
You'll have a $50 card with a microchip on it, and purchases will be directly debited from that card. How many purchases of more than $50 are made with cash *now*? Checks, credit cards, and debit cards are the norm rather than the exception for large purchases. When was the last time you carried more than $50 around in your pocket? It's just a matter of time.
The upside? It's easier to track where all your money's going. The down side? For me, I'll sure miss that smell of crisp dollar bills.
From Kevin Dew:
Immunisations, Just as we think that the nineteenth century practise of giving large doses of mercury as a cure for disease was absurd, barbaric even, we will see today's universal immunisation programs as absurd. In the future, we won't be able to understand how the idea of injecting toxic substances directly into the blood stream could be seen as a health measure, and the fact that in many nations such a "treatment" was compulsory will be seen as medical fascism.
Free Trade Agreements: The instituting of Free Trade Agreements between countries without the concurrent institution of measures to protect the environment or the living conditions of the citizens of the world will be seen as absurd.
From Teddi Deppner:
The idea that you must go to school for "X" number of years before you are qualified to perform a particular job will become absurd (in most technology jobs nowadays, by the time you've graduated, the things you've learned are obsolete). Guilds and apprenticeships and learning-by-doing will be respected again.
From Azriela Jaffe:
Today we are certain that we can go to the grocery store and find enough nutrious food to eat to keep us healthy and strong. This morning, as I swallowed a glass full of capsules of blue green algae, disgestive enzymes, and sprouts in capule form, I said to my husband, "Imagine this - someday we'll be eating mostly capsules for our meals, and the food will be the side dish!
From Steve J. Bannister:
The majority of scientists develop commercial products and make careers of solving a few major problems each year for their employers in the particular way it's done in their organization. Absurd!! Scientists move about through the ether, coalescing about a problem as a temporary crew, made sufficient by the gathering the right complementary individuals, uninhibited by convention, and ready to kill, bill and dissociate.
From Cam Mayor:
1 That we must always wear clothes in public. 2 That anybody that actually WANTS to be in public office should be allowed anywhere near the position.
From Ozzie Gontang:
Running shoes will continue to advance in design and technology. They will continue to neglect a major component: Man, the thinking body.
An atavistic paradigm shift will take place. Runners and walkers will realize it's not the shoe, it's an innovative thinking body. A new line of shoe will be created that allows proprioceptive feedback to the thinking body. All of the thick running and walking shoes will be replaced by thinsoled foot covers which allow the human animal to take control of their youthful movement once again.
Traditional Tai Chi, Yoga, Stretching for the Thinking Body, etc. will grow. Companies like Nike, Addidas, Reebok and their approach to shoes will be tomorrow's absurdities. Weight machines with computers will be used to measure gradual progress in strength. These weight machines will be revolutionized as they now measure the correct increase in range of motion as they strengthen muscles.
But as Alfred Adler said in dealing with the diagnosis of why people are the way they are: "But it could bedifferent."
From Jane Jacobs:
Certainty today, absurdity tomorrow:
Education for youth, pre-school through high school, is usually a low-funded budget item in our society. Compare what Federal, state, and county governments spend on education to what each of them spend on many, many other efforts -- including both "pork projects" and efforts to address serious problems like unemployment, violence, poverty, illegal drugs, etc.
Presumably tomorrow's decision-makers (whom we voting citizens will elect!) will re-prioritize today's spending. Funding quality education and "enabling" of youth would result in a better society for all -- and after a transition period, the money would be more than made up from decreased needs to fund "fixes" for societal problems, because those problems would have naturally declined. "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance." -- (I love this quote -- anyone know the original source?)
From W. Dewey:
- CARS: ABSURD when we all are able to teleport or bi-locate.
- TELEPHONES: soon we'll all be telepathic. Before then, computers and telephones will be the same instrument, perhaps combined with televisions.
- POSTAGE STAMPS: (you got this letter without one!)
From Randy Berger:
The US Postal System (if I had to pay $.32 for every mail message and financial payment [the check's in the mail] I would be broke!)
Telephones (already children don't know how to "dial" a phone!)
Smoking (the handwritings on the wall)
From Eddie Robinson:
Today's certainty in using paper for writing, and recording valuable information will be an absurdity tomorrow. In the future, there will be magnetic writing pads that record everything on to mini-laser discs and can be kept for 20 years or more. Write recognition programs will allow people who still haven't mastered the keyboard, to scribble onto these pads all of their notes and sketches. No more trees need to be destroyed to keep up with our ever growing population.
From J. Fahrenthold:
VHS will be like 8 track, dry cell batteries will be an anachronism, televisions, computers, and stereos will merge in Binary Audivision, air bags will yield to force fields, everything will taste like "chicken", dirt houses using solar energy will emerge, tourism will fold as the world's greatest attractions are immediately and readily available in the domiciles of the future (the dirt houses of course), music will revert to the crude instruments of the stone age (not the Rolling Stone age), telekinisis, levitation, and anti-gravitional forces will be commonplace. This will cause the so called geniuses of today to be considered the morons of the next millenium. Anyone who disagrees will be considered absurd.
From Johnathan L. Lightfoot:
One thing that I can see as being a necessity today but absurd tomorrow is the use of vehicles for commuting to and from work. With the current technologies (and the ones still to come), I see people being able to work directly from home. Further more companies are also beginning to see the benefits ie., no need for large office buildings, thus no need to buy them. I do honestly believe that my grandchildren will look back at these current times and ask me why we did something as absurd as commuting to and from work.
From Valerie Beckingham:
The way to achieve effective organizations is to pare away operational employees until only the minimum amount of work can get done and only if all remaining employees are working beyond what can be maintained on a long-term basis.
From Peter Brentano:
The ultimate absurdity seems to me that capitalism cannot (as a model) survive without competition; communism, the only mass competitor appears to be collapsing under the weight of its own internal contradictions; capitalism without communism will be left to collapse under the weight of _its_ own internal contradictions, according to socialist theory. This leaves us with the external contradiction that these two mutually exclusive and conflicting theoretical models must die... ...and leave us with?... ...ABSURDITY!
From John Cartlidge:
That: there will always be enough oil/coal/etc. People (policymakers)just don't seem to realise that **ONE** planet is all we get!
That: there will always be enough room for people and enough food to feed them.
Years ago I read somewhere that if world population continues to grow at present rates, then by the year xxxThousand (I can't remember the figure) the entire physical substance of the Earth would be converted into people. Whilst I realise that natural limits would come into play ... you get my drift.
And one from the past that I can't resist... That: nobody in the world could ever want more than 64K ram.
From Cathy TPG:
On the average, women are paid less than men.
From Vamsi Mohan Mudumba:
In this dynamic world every object would perish and become an absurdity in future. But inhibiting one's ambitions and curtailing aspirations would be like living a dead life. Everyone has to try and make a significant contribution to the society so that his achievements would be languishing atleast in the annals of history if not being applauded as the best finding and utilised forever. As someone said 'Present is but a channel through which the Future becomes the past'
For the philosophically inclined: In Indian (India as in Asia) mythology one of the characters , Yudhistira who is regarded as the embodiment of Knowledge is asked the same question. He replies "Man himself is so absurd in his thinking. In spite of seeing so many people around him perishing; refuses to believe that he too would be in the same boat one fine day. On the contrary he tries harder and harder to make himself more and more materialistically comfortable."
From Lois Carter Fay:
One of the certainties of the past has been good, clean water in the U.S. That is now becoming an absurdity that will create greater and greater havoc and health hazzards if it is not corrected. Many communities are now finding problems with the water. What can be done?
A second certainty for me has been a safe community. By living in small towns, where one knows just about everyone, people know which residents bear watching/avoiding. With today's mobile society and ever-increasing cities, the violence continues to grow. We must find a way to stop the violence. In Milwaukee, Wis., a group has gotten together for a prayer vigil at the site of each murder. They simply gather together, invite the relatives and friends of the victim, and pray for an end to violence.
From Hubert Jongen:
Too many persons take it for granted that the State, the Government will take care for your Education, Health, Work, House, Protection, Roads, Everything, etc. etc. This will change. Some of them already now showing beginning signs of malfunction. Be prepared. Find alternatives.
From Roy E. Rodriguez:
RECYCLING!, "Recycling", a very trendy; positive; good; followed with almost religious fervor; a certainty of today, but definitely an ABSURDITY tomorrow! Did you ever consider how much ENERGY is required to re-cycle? All the way from the collection process in the streets to the gre-generating raw materials to the manufacturing process. Who really benefits from recycling? It's more energy efficient to just Burn It! A thought for recycling!!!
From Tuomo Myllynen:
Now we think it is important to be highly educated specialist to get a job. This is changing school system, changing our way to teach and how to learn and how we form cources. We are getting more and more expertise on more and more narrow field or subject. Our thinking is narrowed, too. These separete areas will have value and life of its own. Who undestands the whole instead those isolated islands - who will see how all things are like a network having nodes connected together and this is the system.
From Mikel Sorli:
What about travelling ?
We all assume that travelling consumes a lot of time. Flying, which nowadays is recognized as the quickest way of travelling, includes transportation to/from airports, waiting to board, plane transfers, delays...and actually flying (take off, flight and landing). Will ever be possible to physically "transmit oneself" from one place to a distant other in almost no-time (i.e.: at light speed rates) ?.
From Stephen W. Dennison:
Two things ... The Internet and Personal Computers as we know them today.
My belief is that the Internet will not develop as quickly as the applications are demanding, and therefore will be supplanted by something totally different in a REVOLUTIONARY rather than EVOLUTIONARY move.
From Pamela Tucker:
Today's certainty that it is ok for governments to partake in premeditated killing of individual prisoners and be applauded by the majority of its citizens will be as absurd someday as chopping off the hands of thieves.
From Gina Matkin:
It is my feeling (and my HOPE) that a common occurrence of today (and indeed a certainty in some companies and organizations) that will be seen as an ABSURDITY in the future is the judgment of a person's ability or worth based on physical characteristics or individual lifestyle. Now THAT'S aburd!
From Ed Boyd:
It has been said that the only two certainties in life are Death and Taxes. It seems that as we move toward extending life, thus making the certainty of Death less certain (at least at a Certain Age); we increase the certainty of Taxes, in greater quantity and for a longer time (in relation to the period of life's extention).
The absurdity may be, that by making Death less certain, we increase the certainty of Taxes; while remembering that traditionally Death has been the only legal means of tax evasion.
Now, if all of this sounds quite absurd to you, then I may be on the right track.
From Peter L. Schuerman:
The current certainty that consciousness resides in the brain is something which will be regarded as absurd in the future. Clinical experiments by Dr. Stanislav Grof (see the book "The Holotropic Mind", for example) present strong evidence that thoughts and memories exist independently of the brain, and that the relationship between thoughts and the brain is analogous to the relationship between radio waves and radios (or perhaps shortwave radios, as these can transmit as well as receive). The lovely thing about this model is that it not only explains the clinical evidence, but also sheds life on puzzling phenomena such as telepathy, past-life recall, and even certain religious/spiritual experiences.
From Langrick:
Within the next twenty years it will seem absurb that we spent so much time on industrial progress and so little on repairing the damage that it causes.
From Wholeworld:
I think the idea that we must compete in order to prosper is a concept that we will come to know as absurd. I think competition is an aspect of our division from our highest wisdom, and it has led us to a very dangerous place. I think cooperation across national, racial, class, economic and all other barriers will come to be the norm, if the human race endure on the planet.
I also think national and economic systems are an absurdity that we'll come to recognize. I think we'll come to see that the whole planet is the domain of all people and that we are all best served by eliminating artificial barriers and recognizing our common humanity and working together to create a world of harmony.
Just as these ideas seem absurd as I write them, I think the competition, nationality and economic structures will come to be seen as absurd, and we'll laugh that we took them so seriously (or we may cry if we take them as seriously as Hitler did and do more of that kind of harm).
From Alammers:
A 166Mhz Pentium with 2 Gigs of hard drive space and 32MB RAM will be an absurdity in a year or two. [ed: remember this was written in 1996]
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