( Fifteen minute read)

It’s hard to feel for future people. We are bad enough at feeling for our future selves.

Even if we last just 1 million years, as long as the average mammal – and even if the global population fell to 1 billion people – then there would be 9.1 trillion people in the future.

Concern for future generations is common sense across diverse intellectual traditions. When we dispose of radioactive waste, we don’t say, “Who cares if this poisons people centuries from now?

Similarly, few of us who care about climate change or pollution do so solely for the sake of people alive today.

Is any of this true?

Current global rates of consumption require the resources of about 1.6 earths. At this rate, we risk exhausting our planet’s life support systems that provide us with fresh water, nutritious food and clean air.

What 2050 could look like if we don’t do anything about climate change?  This doesn’t need an answer.

That is a future unwritten.  It’s also worth noting that, in fact, it is entirely up to us whether these hypothetical future beings ever actually come into existence.

So what do we owe the generations to come?

You might answer that since we don’t even owe to them to bring them into existence in the first place, we can’t possibly owe them anything all. Then wouldn’t the people of the future be within their rights to look back at us and ask, ‘Given that you despoiled our planet, why did you even bother bringing us into existence?

Maybe we might actually have an obligation not to bring future people into existence, at least if we’re going to mess things up enough to make their hypothetical lives unbearable.

That would imply that future people count more than us. And who thinks that? Certainly not me. I’m not even sure they count the same as us. That leaves us with only one option. I hate to say it, but future people surely count less than we do—at least a little less.

“What, I am trying to get you to see, is that we have an absolute duty to future generations not to ruin their future planet.”

Think of today’s teeming masses, displaced by violence and climate change, wandering the world in search for a safe harbour.

In comparison to all that present day concrete suffering, the hypothetical suffering of hypothetical future people seems sort of distant and abstract.

I should say that I am actually all for combating climate change. And I am all for weighing both the interests of present people and the interests of future people in the calculus of what is to be done about it. I just don’t think it’s obvious how much weight we should give to the wellbeing of hypothetical future people as opposed to our own.

——————–

Now more than ever, the world needs young people to step up to address the many other challenges ahead of us.

It is crucial to engage young people in decision-making – but in parallel – it’s also important for young people to think differently about how they want to engage.

They cannot vote or lobby or run for public office, so politicians have scant incentive to think about them. They can’t bargain or trade with us, so they have little representation in the market, And they can’t make their views heard directly: they can’t tweet, or write articles in newspapers, or march in the streets. They are utterly disenfranchised.

We make laws that govern them, build infrastructure for them and take out loans for them to pay back.

So what happens when we consider future generations while we make decisions today?

Is it really as bad as all that?

Our situation can be summed up as follows:

While facing an extinction event, instead of working toward reversing the march toward climate disaster, in the name of security we are investing in killing each other.

What will it take to unleash the energy and passion of youth leaders and activists to dismantle inequitable systems and work together to build an more inclusive future?

Social media will likely play a role in that revolution—if it doesn’t sink our kids with anxiety and depression first.

Asked young people what changes they want for the future.

HERE ARE SOME OF THE RED LINES.

• Incentivize sustainable consumption and penalize production that’s not.
• All stakeholders to take urgent action to safeguard nature and future food production.
• Sanctions against institutions that resort to internet blackouts to supress citizen freedoms.
• Tech companies to be transparent about misinformation and its spread on their platforms.
• Governments to implement policies to protect individual citizens against harmful content.
• Capacity-building programmes and education to help citizens better identify fake news.
• Strengthened laws against media monopolies to protect democratic freedoms.
• A Global Convention for Cybersecurity to uphold the integrity of political systems.
• A global wealth tax on assets worth more than US$ 50 million to fight growing inequality.
• Universities to end the exorbitant tuition fees that stifle social mobility.
• Governments to guarantee universal access to mental health services.
• Governments to invest in communities most at risk from climate change.
• Financial institutions to stop bankrolling companies initiating fossil fuel exploration.
• Companies to significantly reduce the GHG emissions of their operations and supply chains to help keep global heating within 1.5°C.
• Governments to implement fit-for-purpose policies and regulations on big tech.
• Companies to integrate technology ethics into the design of their products and services.
• Governments to prioritize the immediate needs of healthcare workers and their families.
• Companies to drive digitalization in healthcare services to improve patient care.
• Governments to end qualified immunity in law enforcement for police officers.
• Increased action against gun violence.

Two critical questions guided these dialogues:

What are the barriers that have hindered progress?

And, what key values, principles and practices will enable us to foster long-lasting systemic impact for the next decade?

As many around the world push for the creation of a more just, equitable and sustainable future we must remember that technology is one of the greatest tools for achieving these goals, but without ethical considerations at the fore… this will likely only perpetuate the very inequalities that we hope to address.

Every generation of teens is shaped by the social, political, and economic events of the day and how fast teens grow up depends on their perceptions of their environment.

For example their ubiquitous use of the iPhone, their valuing of individualism, their economic context of income inequality, their inclusiveness, and more.

Social media is creating an “epidemic of anguish.

We can’t market technologies that capture dopamine, hijack attention, and tether people to a screen, and then wonder why they are lonely and hurting. It makes humanity look like an “imprudent teenager”, with many years ahead, but more power than wisdom.

Fortunately, there are concrete things humanity to day can do.

The field of sustainability is evolving.

For example, if there is any moral weight on future people, then many common societal goals (like faster economic growth) are vastly less important than reducing risks of extinction (like nuclear non-proliferation).

The entire value chain needs to be sustainable, from raw material sourcing to the manufacturing and usage of the products.

Transparency, accountability, trust and a focus on stakeholder capitalism will be key to meeting this generation’s ambitions and expectations. Doing so would help save the lives of people alive today, reduce the risk of technological stagnation and protect humanity’s future.

Our biases toward present, local problems are strong, so connecting emotionally with the ideas can be hard. It’s humbling and inspiring to see the role we can play in protecting the future. We can enjoy life now and safeguard the future for our great grandchildren.

If we name each generation based on the technological conditions it experienced, generations may soon encompass only a few years apiece. Slicing the population into ever-narrower generations, each defined by its very specific relationship to technology, is fundamental to how we think about the relationship between age, culture, and technology.

They include the digital natives, the net generation, the Google generation or the millennials.

All of these terms are being used to highlight the significance and importance of new technologies within the lives of young people. But generation gaps did not begin with the invention of the microchip. What’s new is the fine-slicing of generational divides, the centrality of technology to defining each successive generation.

If the role of technology in shaping an emergent generational consciousness it seems obvious, to imagine a return to the days when sociological generations spanned multiple decades is over. If you believe that technological conditions profoundly shape the life experience and perspectives of each successive generation, then those generations will only get narrower. If we name each generation based on the specific technological conditions it experienced during childhood or adolescence, we may soon be dealing with generations that encompass only a few years apiece.

At that point, the very idea of “generations” will cease to have much utility for social scientists, since it will be very hard to analyse attitudinal or behavioural differences between generations that are just a few years part.

The problem is that all will come at a price. That price is and will be.

The loss of intentional and thoughtful communication techniques to preserve meaningful connections in a society that is becoming more and more reliant on technology.

Be it the metaverse, smart glasses or large language models, the world as we know it may never be quite as we first imagined it, merging into physical and digital spaces.

While the internet offers unparalleled convenience and connectivity, it is essential to recognize its limitations in reproducing the depth of personal interaction found in face-to-face encounters.

—————

Technology will be a vital tool for creating a cleaner, safer and more inclusive world, but what changes can we expect to see?

• 5G will create a lot of new use cases including drone management, robotic surgery and autonomous vehicles. Large language models will become a given because they lower the cost of artificial intelligence (AI)
• Quantum computing merges with classical computing.
• Our grandchildren will live in a very different world thanks to the democratization of products and services that are currently only available to the elite or wealthy,
• Holographic image in front of you, seen through smart glasses will be your algorithmic world.
• No matter what  future we leave behind life my advice is life is beautiful-celebrate -celebrate – never give up.
• If all of this is hurting your head, let’s just get back to the basics: if there is a secret to life, it might all be down to what we do, not what we are.

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

Contact: bobdillon33@gmail.com