Tips for the near future

Douglas Coupland’s list of 45 tips for the next 10 years is excellent; even the stuff that seems wrong makes you think. Some of my favorite bits:

In the same way you can never go backward to a slower computer, you can never go backward to a lessened state of connectedness.

You may well burn out on the effort of being an individual. You’ve become a notch in the Internet’s belt. Don’t try to delude yourself that you’re a romantic lone individual. To the new order, you’re just a node. There is no escape.

It will become harder to view your life as “a story”. The way we define our sense of self will continue to morph via new ways of socializing. The notion of your life needing to be a story will seem slightly corny and dated. Your life becomes however many friends you have online.

You’ll spend a lot of time shopping online from your jail cell. Over-criminalization of the populace, paired with the triumph of shopping as a dominant cultural activity, will create a world where the two poles of society are shopping and jail.

Much of this list seems Cowen-esque, particularly this for some reason: “musical appreciation will shed all age barriers”.

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