How will the world look in \ufb01fty years? What will your everyday life be like? With which items will you surround yourself? People who pondered this question \ufb01fty years ago had fanciful notions of how \u2018the future\u2019 would look: highways in the skies. Cities that resemble glass worlds. Bullet trains winding between gleaming skyscrapers. We would live in plastic capsules, work in underwater cities, vacation on the moon and consume everything in pill form. We wouldn\u2019t conceive offspring any more; instead we would choose children from a catalogue. Our best friends would be robots, death would be cured and we would have exchanged our bikes for jetpacks long ago. But hang on a second.<\/p>\n
Take a look around. You\u2019re sitting in a chair, an invention from ancient Egypt. You wear pants, developed about 5,000 years ago and adapted by Germanic tribes around 750 B.C. The idea behind your leather shoes comes from the last ice age. Your bookshelves are made of wood, one of the oldest building materials in the world. At dinnertime, you use a fork, a wellknown \u2018killer app\u2019 from Roman times, to shovel chunks of dead animals and plants into your mouths. Nothing has changed.<\/p>\n
So, how will the world look in \ufb01fty years? In his book Antifragile, Nassim Taleb gives us a clue: assume that most of the technology that has existed for the past \ufb01fty years will serve us for another half-century. And assume that recent technology will be pass\u00e9 in a few years\u2019 time. Why? Think of these inventions as if they were species: whatever has held its own throughout centuries of innovation will probably continue to do so in the future, too. Old technology has proven itself; it possesses an inherent logic even if we do not always understand it. If something has endured for epochs, it must be worth its salt.<\/p>\n
You can take this to heart the next time you are in a strategy meeting. Fifty years into the future will look a lot like today. Of course, you will witness the birth of many \ufb02ashy gadgets and magic contraptions. But most will be short-lived. When contemplating the future, we place far too much emphasis on \ufb02avour-ofthe-month inventions and the latest \u2018killer apps\u2019, while underestimating the role of traditional technology. In the 1960s, space travel was all the rage, so we imagined ourselves on school trips to Mars. In the 1970s, plastic was in, so we mulled over how we would furnish our see-through houses. Taleb traces this tendency back to the neomania pitfall: the mania for all things shiny and new.<\/p>\n
In the past, I sympathised with so-called \u2018early adopters\u2019, the breed of people who cannot survive without the latest iPhone. I thought they were ahead of their time. Now I regard them as irrational and suffering from a kind of sickness: neomania. To them, it is of minor importance if an invention provides tangible benefits; novelty matters more.<\/p>\n
So, don\u2019t go out on a limb when forecasting the future. Stanley Kubrick\u2019s cult movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, illustrates why you shouldn\u2019t. Made in 1968, the movie predicted that, at the turn of the millennium, the U.S. would have a thousand-strong colony on the moon and that PanAm would operate the commuter \ufb02ights there and back. With this fanciful forecast in mind, I suggest this rule of thumb: whatever has survived for X years will last another X years. Taleb wagers that the \u2018bullshit \ufb01lter of history\u2019 will sort the gimmicks from the gamechangers. And that\u2019s one bet I\u2019m willing to back.<\/p>\n
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The Art of Thinking Clearly <\/strong><\/em> How will the world look in \ufb01fty years? What will your everyday life be like? With which items will you surround yourself? People who pondered this question \ufb01fty years ago had fanciful notions of how \u2018the future\u2019 would look: highways in the skies. Cities that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15708,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/post-16.jpg?fit=496%2C336&ssl=1","rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/post-16.jpg?fit=496%2C336&ssl=1",496,336,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/post-16.jpg",496,336,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/post-16.jpg",496,336,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/post-16.jpg?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/post-16.jpg?fit=300%2C203&ssl=1",300,203,true],"large":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/post-16.jpg?fit=496%2C336&ssl=1",496,336,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/post-16.jpg?fit=496%2C336&ssl=1",496,336,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/post-16.jpg?fit=496%2C336&ssl=1",496,336,true],"portfolio-square":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/post-16.jpg?resize=496%2C336&ssl=1",496,336,true],"portfolio-portrait":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/post-16.jpg?resize=496%2C336&ssl=1",496,336,true],"portfolio-landscape":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/post-16.jpg?resize=496%2C336&ssl=1",496,336,true],"menu-featured-post":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/post-16.jpg?resize=345%2C198&ssl=1",345,198,true],"qode-carousel_slider":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/post-16.jpg?resize=400%2C260&ssl=1",400,260,true],"portfolio_slider":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/post-16.jpg?resize=496%2C336&ssl=1",496,336,true],"portfolio_masonry_regular":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/post-16.jpg?resize=496%2C336&ssl=1",496,336,true],"portfolio_masonry_wide":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/post-16.jpg?resize=496%2C336&ssl=1",496,336,true],"portfolio_masonry_tall":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/post-16.jpg?resize=496%2C336&ssl=1",496,336,true],"portfolio_masonry_large":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/post-16.jpg?resize=496%2C336&ssl=1",496,336,true],"portfolio_masonry_with_space":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/post-16.jpg?fit=496%2C336&ssl=1",496,336,true],"latest_post_boxes":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/post-16.jpg?resize=496%2C303&ssl=1",496,303,true],"woocommerce_thumbnail":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/post-16.jpg?resize=300%2C300&ssl=1",300,300,true],"woocommerce_single":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/post-16.jpg?fit=496%2C336&ssl=1",496,336,true],"woocommerce_gallery_thumbnail":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/post-16.jpg?resize=100%2C100&ssl=1",100,100,true]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"https:\/\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/author\/admin\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"Philosophy<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"How will the world look in \ufb01fty years? 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\nRolf Dobelli<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"