Posts tagged Future
2 Billion Jobs to Disappear by 2030
Thomas Frey, innovation editor for THE FUTURIST magazine:
Most of the jobs getting displaced are the low-level, low-skilled labor positions. Our challenge will be to upgrade our workforce to match the labor demand of the coming era. Although it won’t be an easy road ahead it will be one filled with amazing technology and huge potentials as the industries shift.
This is a really fascinating look ahead by the futurist Thomas Frey. We may disagree over whether the changes he see’s happening as a result of technological advances are a good thing, but there’s no doubt this is the direction we’re heading in. And that has huge implication for how we educate our kids to be equipped for the new world.
Wisdom is seeing the future from the present. It is recognising the consequences of what we say and do ahead of time. Wise people are never left saying, ‘I had no idea THAT would happen’!—they always see the outcome before it occurs.
Apple and Google's different visions of the future
John Gruber comments on Apple’s Keynote from Monday:
[Apple’s vision] is a fundamentally different vision for the coming decade than Google’s. In both cases, your data is in the cloud, and you can access it from anywhere with a network connection. But Google’s vision is about software you run in a web browser. Apple’s is about native apps you run on devices. Apple is as committed to native apps — on the desktop, tablet, and handheld — as it has ever been.
Interesting take. I love the main point of his article too that the announcements from Apple have effectively demoted the role of the PC and Mac. They’re now just devices, the cloud - or iCloud to be specific - is going to be the hub moving forward.
The smartphone future
Charles Arthur in The Guardian:
In the first three months of 2010, 85m PCs were sold worldwide, compared with 55m smartphones. Optimistic analysts forecast that the crossover might happen in 2012. Instead, by the last three months of 2010, 94m PCs were sold – and 100m smartphones. Analysts believe that this trend will never reverse. (It continued in the first quarter of this year: 82m PCs, 100m smartphones.)
This is an interesting look at how smartphones are gradually killing the PC (or at lease aspects of our use of it) as well as some of the implications of a future where everyone has a smartphone.
The only slightly bizarre aspect to this piece is the lack of any meaningful reference to Apple. In light of the subject matter, excluding them seemed pretty strange.
Can we opt out of heaven for the sake of a loved one?
My friend Lon Wong ponders whether we could choose to opt out of heaven in exchange for getting a loved one in:
I know I’m nothing like Jesus, but would it hurt if I tried? Could we opt out of heaven for those that we love?
Would God honor our request? Could we joyfully stay in heaven if he didn’t?
Interesting questions! I - of course - know the answers but am sworn to secrecy. Feel free to pontificate about your own ponderings though! :)
(I do have one issue with the framing of Lon’s question: Heaven is not the ultimate future destination for humans part of God’s kingdom - the new/restored earth is. We keep getting sucked into talking about the future in the language of heaven or hell and the more we use that language, the more we reinforce misunderstandings about what the Bible actually describes about the future.)
