What future shock?

“There are limits to the amount of change that the human organism can absorb, and that by endlessly accelerating change without first determining these limits, we may submit masses of men to demands they simply can not tolerate. We run the high risk of throwing them into that peculiar state that I have called Future Shock.” Thus wrote Alvin Toffler in 1970.

In articulating the effect of Future Shock, Toffler observed that “US is a nation in which tens of thousands of young people flee reality by opting for drug-induced lassitude, a nation in which millions of their parents retreat into video induced stupor or alcoholic haze…”

Thankfully, this bleak vision of the future has not come to pass. Indeed, the changes have continued to accelerate, perhaps faster than what Toffler might have imagined. And yet the nation seems quite healthy, and population thrives without “opting for drug-induced lassitude or retreating to video induced stupor”.

What happened?

For one thing, human beings have proven to be much more resilient than predicted in the face of onslaught of something new all the time. Contrary to what Toffler said, the parents have not given up and “retreated into alcoholic haze”, rather they have learned how to use FaceBook and iPad.  Young people have not fled reality; rather they have embraced it. They have shaped the future through imagination and hard work. Not only have they coped; they have thrived.

And this is just the beginning, because the very technology onslaught that Toffler feared is helping us cope with itself. Our brain is no longer alone; it now has plenty of help from the likes of Google and Wikipedia. A new study confirms, what we intuitively feel, that Google is changing our brain. It is changing how and what our brain chooses to remember, thereby leveraging its existing capacity (Ref. “The Internet has become the external hard drive to our memory” by Daniel Wegner and Adrian Ward, Scientific American, November 2013).

We have not even talked about implants as a way to cope with the accelerating future. Memory implants will not just leverage our brain; they will expand it---increase capacity and processing power. The Pentagon---DARPA---is already considering restoring combat memory loss using implantable devices. How far do you think is the day when we can purchase memory sticks for our brains from the local CVS?

The problem with predictions such as those made by Toffler, or before that---much before that---Malthus, is that they extrapolate future from present, and do not take into account human ingenuity to meet challenges.  

They are the ones getting shocked by the future.

Set Point

I spent a good part of my career consulting in the transportation industry. One of the projects I did was for a group of telecommunications companies looking to develop some idea of what the societal benefits would be if the country were to be wired for broadband. This was 1991 and their objective was to use the data for investment plus, I am sure, lobbying purposes.

This project was my introduction to the science of traffic congestion, because we were trying to quantify reduction in congestion if people telecommuted (a novel idea then) instead of driving to work.  This would lead to increased productivity, a major element in calculating the societal benefits of improved telecommunications.

We came across an interesting phenomenon---a road remains equally congested even if a fraction people stop driving to work. The reason is that the non-commuting folks, who are reluctant to drive on a congested road in the morning, will now take to the wheels since fewer commuters are on the road. So, the road gets congested again---almost as if it is doomed to some level of congestion. In other words there is a set point of congestion, which is difficult to alter.

The reverse is also true. The road can become so congested that at some point the commuters get fed up and seek alternatives---car pools, transit system. So the congestion gets back to where it was---its set point.

This phenomenon of set point applies to human conditions as well. Behavior psychologists point to our happiness as something that has a set point. According to this theory, we all have an internal set point of happiness. If we try to increase our happiness, say through material acquisition, we will get some temporary improvement, much like the congested road, but in a short time we will be back to our set point of happiness.

Interestingly, just like road congestion, the reverse also applies. If the happiness is reduced, say due to a major illness, financial difficulties or death in the family, it gets back to its set point after the passage of some time.

I am now discovering similar set points in other areas as well. Take anxiety for example. Upon retirement, I thought my anxiety level would permanently reduce. It has not exactly turned out to be that way. As work related anxiety has gone, it has been replaced by that caused by the silliest of things---will I reach the theater in time? Are these the right photographs to enter in the camera club competition? Will a blizzard disrupt our planned trip to Central America?

It looks like I have a mildly anxious set point that I cannot shake off!