The Future isn't What it Used to Be | Randall Baker
What is different now is the process and the pace of change. In the past people did not expect their lives to change, and there were strong forces in society to restrict it. This book examines not what has changed, but change itself, why it happens and how fast it occurs. Modern society is subject to an explosive increase in the speed at which things change, and there are real questions about what this is doing to society, its institutions and instruments. Is there a point at which "things fall apart," at which we simply can no longer adjust and are, quite simply, overwhelmed by our own inventions.
Within ten years much of the world with which we are familiar now will be unrecognizable in terms of medicine, life expectancy, the age structure of the population, our sources of energy, and maybe, even, our entire view of scientific reality. Yet, change as a process is largely neglected, we handle it badly, it masters us rather than vice versa. We need to change the way we think, handle knowledge, and move from crisis management to a strategy for handling change. We have no choice.