One of my favorite quotes is William Gibson’s “The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed.” He apparently said this for the first time as far back as 1993 and it seems more true today than ever. We now have self driving cars and heel-to-toe walking robots. And at the same time we stil have a few hunter gatherer societies that live almost entirely untouched by civilization.
But what is most striking to me is that many of the conflicts around the world seem to be about the past actively fighting the more even distribution of the future. Wether it is the Taliban or religious extremists here in the US all want to wind back the clock on important aspects of human progress. I suspect we will see even more of that as the transition to the future is scary and as currently designed makes many people feel as if they are being left behind.
