Visionaries made 10 predictions about the nearest future. And each is wrong

A curious analysis of 10 future scenarios drawn by futurologists was made by the popular blogger Alexander Rozov:

“It would seem that visionaries (who are respected among the so-called “elites” and sometimes occupy key positions in the innovative departments of super-corporations) should have erudition, a broad outlook, a flight of imagination and circuitry consistency.

The last paragraph requires clarification. Circuitry in the narrow sense is a scientific and applied discipline on the design of electronic circuits.

Circuit engineering in the broad sense is a meta-scientific and applied discipline on the design of any schemes, including socio-economic ones. Circuitry allows you to construct design (futurological) scenarios of the structure of society, or to analyze those, identifying contradictions and inconsistencies.

If you check the circuitry - the cult SF-epic Dune by Frank Herbert, then it turns out that for all the artistic merits of this work, the design of the Dune universe does not withstand elementary criticism. This design is like a laptop with a brick case, with a horse-drawn power unit, with a keyboard from the Underwood typewriter of 1896 and with a team of medieval Chinese calligraphers instead of a monitor.

It is clear that such bonding of schematically incompatible elements will not work as a single functional apparatus.

Now let's look at the attached materials, and get acquainted with a dozen “authoritative” futurological concepts-compilations (of which 5 are presented as negative - N, and 5 as positive - P).

Let us check to what extent they correspond to the requirements of erudition, horizons, imagination and (who is extremely important) circuitry consistency. Go! We start, of course, with negative scenarios.

1N. Biological inequality A biotechnological revolution is coming. Genetically programmed health, longevity, and generally the physical capabilities of the body. By the end of the 21st century, humanity will split into biological castes. Economic inequality will give rise to biological inequality. Only individuals from the elite will have access to the genetic improvement of their body, and with the transfer of this perfection to their biological descendants.

COMMENT: this is the same case as with the Dune epic epic. And a cherry on the cake: the author of this concept (considered, by the way, an outstanding intellectual) does not even know school biology, and apparently believes that a person carries his genome in a small hermetic safe, hidden somewhere between the liver and stomach. In fact, a person scatters his genetic material around him, like a stray dog - of his fleas. Surprise...

2N. Useless class By the middle of the 21st century, due to technological and economic progress, most people will form a “useless class”. These are not just unemployed, but people who, in principle, will not be able to find a place in the new economy. Finding themselves chronically without a socially assigned cause, tasks, and goals, on a small basic income (such as a retirement pension), these people will start to go crazy. Exit for them will be, perhaps, illusions in virtual reality.

COMMENT: this construction (invented by the same "outstanding intellectual") betrays absolute ignorance of human psychology. Never before has it been like this, so that a person who is freed from the need to earn a living cannot (with at least a minimal desire) find an interesting thing for himself according to his inclinations and abilities. By the way, the “outstanding intellectual” in vain believes that the current line of progress is only nominal, and is not able to lead to the automation of material production - this line is generally not capable of anything useful, but that's another story.

3N. Man is an appendage of machines. Man will become dumber than machines (equipped with AI), so that in a few years in the system of division of labor, people will be used as relatively brainless and cheap cattle under the control of relatively smart and relatively expensive machines.

COMMENT: this design (invented by the visionary manager of a large venture company) indicates such amazing dullness and misunderstanding of elementary things in economics and cybernetics that it is possible to draw important, although gloomy conclusions about the mental level of “effective managers”. Note, by the way: none of the so-called AI did nothing at all in the field of intellectual activity. And he won’t do it - since modern AI is a fiction.

4N. A future without private property, the American Dream — each land, home, car, and other proprietary technology of each nuclear family — will become an unattainable ideal for a bright past. In the near future, most people will have no property at all. Only the use of some rented goods (including not only a house and a car, but even household equipment and clothes).

COMMENT: This is the dream of the top super-corporations. There is only one thing in it: such a dream is absolutely not suitable for people - because it means complete poverty. In such a situation, life in the countries of the 4th world is more attractive for people. In other words: if such a dream begins to come true, then the Western world will lose all quality workers - they will simply leave. This is called: competition.

5N. A person without privacy. The future is in the super-1984 Orwell style: everyone under the full supervision of the Big Brother (state bureaucracy) and the Little Brothers (digital super-corporations). No personal secrets, no privacy.

COMMENT: This is a dream of the bureaucracy and the top of super-corporations. But with the same contradiction as in the previous scenario.

***

And now for the positive scenarios.

1P. A person will not remain idle. People will not be needed for meaningful work, so they will be paid unconditional basic income, and they will engage in volunteer activities (in the style of landscaping).

COMMENT: this is the same 2H scenario, only with a comforting cookie for morons, respectively, see the comment on 2H.

2P. Relax and do not think about money. People will receive a small AML and do what they want. Extraordinary needs will be paid for some types of work that are available only to people with special qualifications or economically-demanded talents.

COMMENT: the design is consistent in the sense of circuitry, however dull and primitive.

3P. But the robots will not remain without work? People need the capitalist system as consumers of goods (which means that people need to provide some income other than AML). And people in democracies are electors of power, which means that the authorities will have to give people satisfaction in work in order to avoid social protest. This means that the law will determine the quota of jobs for people by prohibiting full robotization. Entrepreneurs will be required to employ a certain number of living workers.

COMMENT: the author of the concept believes that the majority consciously participates in the elections, and are not idiots in the manipulation of influence groups. The author of the concept believes that entrepreneurs think about the sale of goods, and not about social control. This is a diagnosis of his intellect.

4P. Earth remains to man. People are aware of the danger of robotics. People will be employed by controllers on the “OFF button” to turn off any robot or system of robots if this automation behaves in a suspicious or dangerous way.

PURPORT: there is also a diagnosis of the intellect of the author of the concept.

5P. The Opportunity to Live Many Lives Stephen Cave, author of Immortality: The desire to live forever and how it rules civilization, believes that as life spans substantially increase, we will be forced to move away from the linear sequence that exists today. Life cycles: getting an education, work and well-deserved rest, will alternate several times in the time allotted to us. And in the future - and infinity, if we achieve immortality. In one long life, a person will be able to change several professions, build a career several times and interrupt several times for a long vacation.

COMMENT: the only system-technically consistent and yet non-trivial design in this whole story. Well, at least one found a futurologist with a living brain..."