Do you try to keep up with the future?

[workwoes123]

I’m turning 50 this year. I’ve always had a keen interest in politics, economics, social change, current affairs and generally liked to keep informed about what’s happening and where we might be heading. But recently I’m finding it really hard to get my head around what’s predicted:

The “metaverse” and the implications for finance, working, etc
Futurology
Trans humanism
Cryptocurrencies
Web3
Blockchain
NFTs

I just feel suddenly out of touch. It’s like I took my eye off the ball and it’s running away ahead of me.

Do you have an awareness of the above? Are they really going to change the way we live, work, save, communicate? Do we need to know more about them?

I had this exact same discussion with DH earlier today, talking about NFTs and digital art. I feel that until 6 months ago, I understood everything and now suddenly I don’t.

I'm 50 too, but don't worry too much. I see where you are coming from!

Eek! I'm a few years older than OP, I consider myself reasonably well informed on current affairs etc but the only thing on that list I've heard of is cryptocurrencies and I haven't a clue what it is

I admit I'm a bit of a late-adopter when it comes to future trends and usually only embrace things when they've been around a while and I decide they are of importance, use or value to me.

I don't know, maybe I'm just a technophobic dinosaur.

I’m younger than you and I have no idea what you’re talking about!! I’m still at the stage of getting my mother to use emails off her phone!

I was waiting for a job interview a couple of years ago and overheard the people at the next table proclaiming 'we have to lean in on the FOMO for crypto'.

I felt about a billion years out of touch (I was 50) and try to keep an effort to keep up to date now. Out of your list I don't know what Web3 is, I'm aware of the others to varying minimal degrees.

Oh - metaverse - don't know that one either.

We had lunch with some friends yesterday. He’s the same age as me, works in finance but works with a really young team of techy guys in their 20s and 30s. They are all investing in crypto, exploring NFTs etc etc, and he’s doing it too just to try and keep up with them.

The meta verse appears to be an huge virtual reality world, accessed by VR headsets, which can be used for… Well anything really. Virtual workspaces, meeting rooms, conferences. Social spaces, where people can meet up. So people can be sitting in their crappy apartment, but go anywhere in the virtual world.

Web3 appears to be like a blockchain version of the internet - totally unregulated, not owned or controlled by either governments or companies

IDK - it sounds like the Wild West to me, survival of the fittest, capitalism on steroids.

I’m 29 and haven’t heard of three of the things you’ve listed - futurology (no idea), trans humanism (could made a guess I think), web3 (like a next step up from web 2.0? Wouldn’t be able to guess what that involved though).

The other four I’m aware of but couldn’t really explain them that confidently.

50 is a country I visited years ago …

I could talk at some length on trans-humanism, and have a pathetically superficial awareness of the other things on your list. More through my own reading and listening than because I regularly interact with much younger people.

My parent has been haranguing me for quite some time about my failure to make a killing on crypto-currencies …

I've heard of cryptocurrencies, I would personally only trust bitcoin or a similar de-centralised publicly generated currency because it's at its heart socialist. Every transaction is on the Blockchain and can be followed but it's still private.

I remember starting a thread on MN in 2012ish where I said that Blockchain is the future, and I still believe that. Blockchain is as yet unimpeachable, at least until quantum computing has been proven beyond a concept.

NFTs are built on Blockchain, so it appears that for once I was right about something.

Quantum computing is something you left off, the implications for privacy and security are terrifying if you believe in human rights and privacy.

I'm 31 and the only thing I've heard of in that list is cryptocurrency.

Hmmm ….I’m copying down your list with my fountain pen to look up later in the dictionary, but I need to find some blotting paper first.

Crypto currency, it’s like all investing a risk and has a slight whiff of the Dutch bulb craze a few hundred years ago. As with anything there was a time when huge gains could be made.

I do not have anything to sell digitally and the only original art I have ever bought was because I saw it and loved it, I do actually game but have never bought an in game item I play the game to earn items. Some adults will spend a lot for an in game item not just fortnite kids pinching their parents credit card. A friend of ours mine spent £100 on an emote in the game we play, his character can do a certain movement with an item that appears, it was for charity but I just do not go down that road.

I get why many like it I’m not anti and was writing web pages back in 1996 when it was all very new and did seem like many a bit of a dark art.

All of this means less physical interaction overall.

I haven't even kept up with the present.
It is my resolution for 2024 to start bothering with apps.

However I don't believe in investing in anything I don't understand or that it nebulous so that rules out both crypto currency and MLMs.

I am younger than you and know a bit about all those things but I'm not really that interested in them, finance and markets are boring to me and I am opposed to trans-humanism because I find it to be anti-human.

I also just love history and old stuff, I am fascinated by the Medieval period, by the Victorians, by the counter culture in the 60's and 70s. That is what I immerse my self in most of the time. I'm more likely to be found reading a book about spiritualism in the 19th century or listening to a podcast about Hildegard of Bingen than blockchain or NTF's (which as an artist myself I dislike).

I am aware of current events and have been politically active in the past, I am technically able, I built the PC I am typing on now and can do some coding and use command line programmes and so on but for me I use these things to meet my needs not as an end in themselves.

Now I do love a fountain pen and my new project is to attempt some manuscript illumination just as soon as my gold leaf arrives!