Ray Bradbury:
Few days after world lost the greatest inventor of modern times, dust is finally set and smoke cleared so we could think about it without unnecessary emotions. And if you will do so, it'll turn out that everyone could live full intellectual, social and informational life without any of Steve Jobs' inventions. And it's not just because Jobs didn't actually invent personal computer, computer mouse or multi-touch, problem lays deeper. So let's look into this deep.People are idiots. They made a lot of stupid things: costumes for dogs, marketing managers and stuff like the iPhone, getting nothing but a sour aftertaste. If we'd worked to develop science, explore the Moon, Mars and Venus... who knows what the world would have been like? Humanity would be able to travel through space, but it chose consuming instead - drinking beer and watching soap operas.
50 years ago words "21st century" sounded like magic, humanity just went through most terrifying war in history, rebuilt the world and made first steps from our cradle planet into infinity of space. 21st century promised, no, it guaradamnteed, coming of real Future. Future of energies previously unseen, mastered by people, new people, capable for great deeds and daring to discover new breathtaking horizons. 20th century was full of expectations, some of them were naive like Marty Mcfly's sneakers and hovering board from 2015 but those were signs of great things to come: space travels, instant education, cold fusion, universal cure, global communication and much more.
While we were expecting this Real Future, along came our present. Time when progress doesn't make humanity able to do more, but to do less and feel no frustration about it! Time when people worship super thin phones and computer pads with rounded angles instead of real innovations. The pseudofuture, the Suckfuture.
In the Real Future man will build bases on Moon and Mars, ecological cities and spaceports on Earth. In Suckfuture man takes photo of himself near business skyscraper in Dubai and MMSing photo to his friend in London, he also could edit photo so it will look like everything is under water and fishes are swimming around. Wow!
In the Real Future man will learn all human languages and cultures, he will able to quote Sheakspeare and discuss learnings of Plato as an equal. In Suckfuture man learns 1337 speak and forgets how to write without mistakes, Microsoft Word will correct everything. Wow!
In the Real Future man will be ready to meet and greet advanced alien civilizations. In Suckfuture people tell the whole world through social networks and YouTube about how unsatisfied and desperately lonely they are. Wow!
People who lived in 1950s and 1960s would have laughed their asses off if they knew that in future people would fear end of world from zombie apocalypse and Maya prophecy much more than nuclear war. But just like the real Future, thermonuclear menace is not gone, it will return, maybe decades later.
Now, in times of global crisis, world of Suckfuture with it's smoke and mirrors techniques slowly fades away. What we will learn from it? Probably not much, maybe that Steve Jobs, man of great determination and perfectionism, wasn't Da Vinci of our time, but man who gave us perfected work tools for our age. Tools that will help us to bring the Real Future faster, not to hide from it. And that he was also guy who wasn't afraid to tell truisms in public:
I hope we will also see how group of talented individuals united under banners of Project Reality will also bring their vision into reality. They will work on it, I know
Inspired by A.B. Pokoy
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