Are we designing a future or destroying a future? Years ago, people planned their future and a lot of structures were in place to facilitate that. Those were the years of interest bearing savings. Pensions were once commonplace. There were better schools and libraries. Jobs once were plentiful and innovation was how companies got ahead. Most people got married, bought a house and a dog and then started having kids and raising them to carry-on into next generations. People hoped to make social contributions that would improve the lives of their kids and even the lives of other people through jobs that produced goods and services used by others. Churches had big congregations and people talked about having a spiritual life. That narrative belongs to the long ago now.

Since then, a wartime economy formed. Taxes went up. Easy money came along and the derivatives markets unbalanced real estate. Most people can’t afford a home now. Family formation is flagging. Savings accounts don’t provide much interest. With inflation, a low interest or no interest saving account can’t grow a nest egg for the future. The future seems empty of promise. We hear that the disruptors in IT are winners leaving the rest of us to scramble for a future that we can’t quite reach or understand.

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Bill Gates once said that people who don’t learn computer moderated tasks will be frustrated and shut out of the modern economy. What I noticed at the time that he said that was that investment in computers was costly and reduced the profit margin. Yet everyday all the time people kept saying that the future relied upon computer moderated success. Now IT has combined with government to be funded by tax money…no profit making required. And computers, which we all buy now to use at home and at work seem to loom over us all. Will AI soon run or ruin the world?

Before all this government funded computer tech took us into a new trajectory that was less human centered, science was really doing science. Scientists weren’t promoting ideas that got them grants and ignoring obvious and truthful information that would exclude them from grants. Science was exploring the natural world and learning about it. Universities were full of people asking questions and getting answers that had the beautiful shimmer of truth or as near to the truth as we could understand and propose. New ideas were welcome and happening. Investigating the natural world often led to improvements and new ideas. There weren’t influencers trying to make people’s minds up for them. Influencers weren’t dominators changing people’s minds in order to shape someone’s fortune by creating a fantasy centered marketplace.

I was reading somewhere yesterday that the workforce is aging and old people will just have to keep working longer. This is a fantasy narrative. Old people can’t replace younger workforce displaced by policy decisions that have made universities more expensive and less powerful at really educating people to live in the real world. As we move into Halloween, the really scary thing is how fantasy-based AI narratives are becoming and how hopeless they are at providing actionable news that helps people make good choices.

As we all face a fantasy narrative world that dupes people into hopelessness, remember that humans without computers have built most of the useful human world we see around us. And the natural world doesn’t need us to believe in it for it to continue being a miraculous network of life and wonder filled beauty. If you can’t find a way to contribute to an economy that is in trouble right now, remember that you are a valuable part of the natural world. The fake computer-moderated economy can waste energy and raise your energy bill price but it can’t even understand the natural world that you are a part of. Keep making things and doing things and thinking your own thoughts. Find your way by connecting with the real world.

At some point we will realize what we are losing and then as a society we will begin choosing what could be a better world. That would be a world that empowers us all to do something good with our efforts, our ideas and life energy. A new future can embrace more of what’s real and leave all the fakery behind.