- The best way to predict the future is to think about desire. The problem with desire is that it tends to be bounded by what’s actually possible. As we grow older, our imaginations seem to develop artificial caps that limit our ideas to things that are reasonably achievable in the short term. But who cares about what is reasonable? Here’s what I want.
I want to order a tube of toothpaste, a tomato, or a sandwich, and have it delivered to me within 10 minutes via a safe flying machine (or other delivery system; see also: pneumatic tubes, 3-D printing). This is so unromantic. Fuck what 80% of people want, I like my toaster because it's the one my roommate brought with her because it was handed down to her, the toaster her family would use every morning to make bagels she'd bring to school and share with me and our classmates. I don't think the benefit wrought from saving a few seconds is actually worth it. What am I gonna do with that extra time? I feel like I'd rather spend it being a person. There was a commercial I saw once, a late night infomercial, for a machine that you would hang your ties on and when it came time to pick your tie, this machine would spin around in a slow circle and parade your ties in front of you so you didn't have to use your eyeballs to scan ties arranged on a door or wherever. And I thought, we're really just trying to cram to much convenience into our lives. These minutes we're saving here and there, if it's not spent enjoyably, what's the point? This author, what does he want to do with his free time? With all the free time his inventions will allow, with longer lives and no traveling times or distances to shops or restaurants or post offices or London, what is he doing in this future? Sitting around, philosophizing? Drinking wine with his friends? Will that ever get old?I want to instantly find the best of something in a product category without wasting time on my own research. I want a place like Amazon.com, but, when you search for “toaster”, you are presented with only one model of toaster: the one that 80% of people would consider to be the best toaster in the world.
Your post brings to mind this short essay written by Thich Nhat Hanh. There was no soap. We had only ashes, rice husks, and coconut husks, and that was all. Cleaning such a high stack of bowls was a chore, especially during the winter when the water was freezing cold. Then you had to heat up a big pot of water before you could do any scrubbing. Nowadays one stands in a kitchen equipped with liquid soap, special scrubpads, and even running hot water which makes it all the more agreeable. It is easier to enjoy washing the dishes now. Anyone can wash them in a hurry, then sit down and enjoy a cup of tea afterwards. I can see a machine for washing clothes, although I wash my own things out by hand, but a dishwashing machine is going just a little too far! While washing the dishes one should only be washing the dishes, which means that while washing the dishes one should be completely aware of the fact that one is washing the dishes. At first glance, that might seem a little silly: why put so much stress on a simple thing? But that’s precisely the point. The fact that I am standing there and washing these bowls is a wondrous reality. I’m being completely myself, following my breath, conscious of my presence and conscious of my thoughts and actions. There’s no way I can be tossed around mindlessly like a bottle slapped here and there on the waves. There are two ways to wash the dishes. The first is to wash the dishes in order to have clean dishes and the second is to wash the dishes in order to wash the dishes. If while washing the dishes, we think only of the cup of tea that awaits us, thus hurrying to get the dishes out of the way as if they were a nuisance, then we are not “washing the dishes to wash the dishes.” What’s more, we are not alive during the time we are washing the dishes. In fact we are completely incapable of realizing the miracle of life while standing at the sink. If we can’t wash the dishes, the chances are we won’t be able to drink our tea either. While drinking the cup of tea, we will only be thinking of other things, barely aware of the cup in our hands. Thus we are sucked away into the future – and we are incapable of actually living one minute of life.Thirty years ago, when I was still a novice at Tu Hieu Pagoda, washing the dishes was hardly a pleasant task. During the Season of Retreat when all the monks returned to the monastery, two novices had to do all the cooking and wash the dishes for sometimes well over one hundred monks.
I don't know if I love this or if I sense sour grapes from all those who grew up washing dishes by hands and then discovering dish washers later in life.
You know, I used to make $175 an hour picking out projectors for large institutions. And when it came time to buy a projector to replace my Christie monster, I looked at "most popular" on Amazon and grabbed the #1 seller. No regrets. But man, I'm finicky about toasters. There hasn't been a decent toaster oven made since 2003 so I keep repairing mine. Every now and then we buy a new one and return it. Likewise, I tried this approach when it was time to get a push cart for my kid - 80% of Amazon buyers get some goddamn thing from Melissa and Doug, and fuck Melissa and Doug. I bought this thing, all 1 amazon review of it and all, and it's dope. There are times to follow the herd, and there are times to break away, and the tools you need to make that choice have long been available to us. The tie carousel is about something other than convenience. It's about fetishizing ties. Hey, whatever floats your boat. I'll say this: the next time you're on a flight, don't just dive into your Breaking Bad on your laptop. Leaf through the Skymall, leaf through the in-flight magazine. Contemplate "who is buying this? What do they want from life?" Most of them spend too little time at home, spend too much time traveling, and have a lot more disposable income than you do. As a result, they see nothing unusual about spending $80 for something that slowly parades their ties in front of them. And hey - if you ever get a chance to stop by a small airport frequented by charter and business jets, pick up a copy of this. Fuck Robb Report, fuck Dupont Registry, Elite Traveler is the most batshit insane magazine I've ever seen.
A copy of [this] leads to the mishidesign grow toy. Which is awesome, by the way. But I'm going to find an Elite Traveler. Something tells me I'm not prepared for what I'll see.
It's funny. Futurists have argued for about the past 20 years that we've forgotten how to dream. You read articles like this and you have to side with them. What do I want? I want a flying car, a jetpack, a holodeck, a TARDIS and a replicator. I want a car made out of mutherfucking diamond that runs on sunbeams. I want a communicator watch - no, not skype on an iPod nano, I want it not to SUCK. And I want it somewhere I can live forever surrounded by people who look like the China Air stewardesses who were buying groceries ahead of me last night. Your reach is supposed to exceed your grasp. I mean, look at this shit.I put it up without context because the context is kinda funny, kinda heartbreaking. That's a concept painting of a Boeing 2707circa 1966. 'cuz 5 months before he got shot, Kennedy said "let's build crazy fast crazy awesome airliners" and Boeing said "fukkit, how 'bout a 300-passenger all-titanium swing-wing monster with 200,000 lbs of thrust that will go New York to Paris at Mach 3?" They were high, of course. High as fucking kites. The OXCART was still secret back then and only Lockheed had an inkling of what a bona fide nightmare it was to get one guy up to mach 3 and keep him there but fuckin' A - it was a dream. A legit dream. Plan was, that gorgeous painting (mine's a lot more yellowed - we'll see how the replication comes out) was supposed to be a stone cold reality by the time I was due to be born. Of course, it got cancelled in 1972 because, well, supersonic transports are stupidly impractical. Neither the French nor the British ever made money on it and the Concorde was banned from New York until '78. But back in the '60s? Back when The Jetsons were on Prime Time? …well, nobody was "wanting" a recommendation engine that would tell them what toasters to buy. Michael Gerson's a stone-cold sonofabitch, no doubt. But he'll always have a place in my heart for coining the phrase "the soft tyranny of low expectations." I mean, yay for wanting things, but… Someone once asked Gene Roddenberry why Picard was bald. I mean, 500 years in the future, won't they have cured male pattern baldness? Gene responded "in the future, no one will care." I suspect Gene wouldn't have come up with a pill that uses up your excess calories (pssst - they're called tapeworm eggs). He'd have come up with a societal change that keeps us from being gluttons. Dunno. I think if Elon Musk wanted "cheaper hotels" or "drones that deliver tomatoes" the world would be a much less interesting place. Yeah, all these things would be nice to have, but if there's someone out there trying to choose between "devote my life to creating an internet-enabled wristwatch" or "devote my life to rawking the shit out of this stratocaster" I hope he chooses the strat. related, the iPhone-compatible christmas tree in the line in front of me today.
Cool. I want a lot of things, like most of us, so I'll just share one I thought of today for unrelated reasons. I want to be able to summit Everest, without being in any danger, without spending an unreasonable amount of money, without having to train to be in better shape than I already am. I made an offhand comment today that in 50 years (maximum) I'll be able to fly up to Everest cheaply, warmly and quickly just to see it, just to be there. (And it'll be taller then!) The process I'm envisioning for this is some sort of more efficient and usable helicopter, but I'll let the future surprise me. The point is that's not something anyone ever thinks about when they get specific about the future. Anyway, just a thought I had today that seems to dovetail nicely with this link.