Wisdom from our Frozen Brethren to the North

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I'm in Toronto visiting eldest son for Canadian Thanksgiving.

The Globe and Mail had a great piece by Canadian author Douglas Coupland, entitled "A Radical Pessimist's Guide to the Next Ten Years."

Some highlights:
  • It's going to get worse
  • The future is going to happen no matter what we do. The future will feel even faster than it does now
  • In the same way you can never go backward to a slower computer, you can never go backward to a lessened state of connectedness
  • Expect less
  • People who shun new technologies will be viewed as passive-aggressive control freaks trying to rope people into their world, much like vegetarian teenage girls in the early 1980s
  • The future of politics is the careful and effective implanting into the minds of voters images that can never be removed
  • We will accept the obvious truth that we brought this upon ourselves

Believe me, you owe it to yourself to read the entire piece.

Douglas Coupland has written numerous works of fiction, non-fiction, as well as worked as a visual designer. Before I leave Toronto I'm going to need to track down copies of some of his work.

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