Don’t show me the past or the future; show me what you can give now

By David McElroy · October 28, 2011

Do you ever watch videos from high-tech companies that are supposed to show off what they’re going to bring you in a few years? I watch them, but I know better than to believe they represent reality. It’s dangerous to try to live in the future instead of the present, whether you’re a company or an individual.

Microsoft has a new video out showing us what it expects the office of tomorrow to look like. To me, it just looks like something put together by an art director for an especially sterile and boring science fiction movie. It’s vaguely interesting if you’re into technology, but the track record of this sort of future-looking prediction isn’t good. (If you want a real laugh, check out what a technical magazine predicted in 1968 as life in the year 2008.)

It’s not just Microsoft that makes this sort of thing. I remember a similarly laughable video made by Nokia in 2009, and since Nokia is now fighting for its life two years later, it seems unlikely that the company still plans to pursue those fantasies. Way back in 1987, Apple made a similar forward-looking video based on the vision of then-CEO John Sculley (a couple of years after he pushed Steve Jobs out of the company).

So why am I so disdainful of this sort of video? Is it just because they tend to get things so wrong about the future? No, that’s not it at all. It’s true that the future never looks quite like what the futurists predict, but the real problem is that focusing so much on way down the road — and talking to the public about what’s down the road — does absolutely nothing to sell products today.

If Microsoft thinks it’s a good idea to design the office of the future as shown in the video, it ought to create the products and put them on sale, not just talk about them. (Remember the Microsoft Courier video for a product that was to never exist?) The same goes for Nokia and the old Apple (prior to Jobs’ return). I want to contrast that to Apple after Jobs’ return. Ever since 1997, Apple has adopted the exact opposite policy. Whatever they’re working on or even conceiving for the future is top secret. They don’t talk about something until they’re ready to sell it. As a stockholder — and as a customer — which is more interesting? What products might be available in five years? Or what products I can walk into a store and buy next month?

We need to be the same way with the people in our lives (and we need to expect the same from them). We need to quit dwelling on past glories or future hopes. We need to concentrate on what we’re willing to do — today — for the people we love. We need to ask the people in our lives what they’re willing to be or to give to us — now — not at some undefined time in the future.

I’ve been guilty of living in the future, and I’m not going to do it anymore. I can tell you from painful experience that if you live life in the future, it never comes. All we have is right now. If we live life fully today, tomorrow will take care of itself. If we have our eyes on the future, we get passive and stagnant — ensuring that we never can reach the dreams of tomorrow.

I know where I want to be in the future, but I’m not necessarily going to talk about much of it until I’m closer to delivering it. I’ve had enough of talking and embarrassing myself by not delivering. It’s a great thing to be an artist who shows you great visions of the future, but if you don’t actually convert what you’re talking about into reality for other people, you’re not a visionary. You’re just a dreamer.

Real artists ship real products and make good on real promises for the people in their lives. That’s what I want to do.

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We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

A child having a tantrum understands only one thing: Did I get my way or not? He doesn’t understand the issues involved. He doesn’t understand the reasons that went into a decision. He doesn’t understand any of the things that mature and reasonable adults have to understand in order to live healthy lives. By his reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down his disastrous tariff scheme, Donald Trump shows himself to be — once more — a screaming child having a tantrum. Outside the world of mob bosses who expect to get their way every time, normal adults don’t act this way, but Trump isn’t normal. He’s an angry and vengeful man who has narcissistic personality disorder. And we are in danger as a result. Trump doesn’t understand the legal issues involved in this ruling. He doesn’t understand economics. He doesn’t understand rule of law. He doesn’t understand that he can ever be wrong. All he understands is that he didn’t get his way. And he is now a narcissistic and raging little boy who also happens to hold life-and-death power over most humans on this planet. He’s dangerous — and the system which gives him that power is even more dangerous.

Is it an attempt to blur the gender line between men and women? Or is it some weird tribute to the traditional Scottish kilt? It’s hard to say, but fashion designers keep pushing for men to wear skirts in the last few years. Both men and women in modern fashion seem oddly androgynous, as though it would be offensive for a man to look manly or for a woman to look feminine. A CNN article about the latest fashions from Paris caught my attention Monday and left me wondering about the ugly clothes the designers are hawking. If a man wants to wear a skirt — or a kilt — that’s OK with me, but I’ll stick with a traditional dark suit with a white shirt and tie. (Well, when I’m not wearing t-shirts and sweats, of course.) I always wonder who actually buys the outlandish garb from fashion designers anyway. I would be humiliated to be seen in any of this stuff, but I obviously have no sense of high fashion.

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