The Future Quoted

Every month Forbes magazine has as it's last page a series of quotations. The page is titled "THOUGHTS On the Business of Life"

In January they looked at the future... I thought I'd add my $.02 worth of talkback...

"The future is no place to live your better days" - DAVE MATTHEWS

1) We cannot have it all now. 2) Tomorrow will be a better day 3) Trying to live all your better days in the future is as foolish as trying to live all your better days right now. Youth and life are for learning, experimenting and experiencing. Later days will may whatever comes your way richer and deeper because you delayed. Life is not a zero sum game. There will always be more, better and more pleasant days ahead... Shouldn't we be saying "Today was good, Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one"-?


"There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in" -GRAHAM GREENE

It doesn't always come rushing in all in a gush. There is no single moment when we swap being a child for being an adult or being old. We get peeks and glimpses. Sometimes we get a full dose that is more than we can handle. Sometimes we get so much that our childhood is shortened... The future is always waiting in just the next instant with a surprise...

"Prophecy is the most gratuitous form of error" - GEORGE ELLIOT
"Wall Street indexes predicted nine of the last five recessions" -PAUL SAMUELSON

Self evident...


"The future is called "perhaps" which is the only possible thing to call the future. And the important thing is not to allow that to scare you" -TENNESSEE WILLIAMS

We can change the future. We cannot change the past.We can change the way we view the past. Sometimes for the worse. Sometimes for the better. We cannot fear tomorrow. Even if we are certain that disaster awaits, there is always the possibility that changes will make it better or worse...

"The more unpredictable the world becomes, the more we rely on predictions" -STEVE RIVKIN

Some places they are called forecasts. Sometimes the Board of Directors will spend the forecasted profits. They can be very upset when the results are different. Nobody ever gets fired for bringing in better results than forecast. Many have lost their heads to disappointing results.

"I never think of the future. It comes soon enough" -ALBERT EINSTEIN

I do. I think often about the future consequences of events around me. I am aware that "demographics is destiny" and that as a "Boomer" we will be changing many things for the better as well as for the worse... Most of which we cannot predict. We have a life long history of unintended consequences from our best wishes and good intentions.

"We not only romanticize the future; we have also made it into a growth industry, a parlor game, and a disaster movie at the same time" - EUGENE KENNEDY

Our politicians are promising us great things personally, bad things for the EVIL RICH, and dire consequences for all of us -IF ONLY- They all seem to have a program that involves more of our money, freedoms, privacy and innocence. If only-we would trust them they would provide or prevent exactly what we are seeking.

"The future, according to some scientists will be exactly like the past, only far more expensive" -JOHN SLADEK

Many of our politicians want to lead us into that fantasy world only this time they will arrange funding. No Thanks. I'd rather have our own future, similar but enough different so that the past has been taken into consideration.


"My future starts when I wake up every morning. Every day I find something creative to do with my life" -MILES DAVIS

What a great way to live. I wish I could say that.

"The best way to predict the future is to invent it." ALAN KAY

Amen. Americans can create our own future. We usually drag the rest of the world along with us. Sometimes they don't want it. Mostly, they like the results. They could create their future, but they are afraid of the changes.

The Future is Already Here

Cross Posted at No Rules.

FuturePundit, Randall Parker runs one of the most interesting blogs in the Blog-O-Sphere.

Here is but one small sample of but one topic:

Biomass Plus Hydrogen For All Transportation?

Hydrogen generated by nuclear, wind, or solar electricity could greatly increase the quantity and energy density of liquid fuels made from biomass.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Purdue University chemical engineers have proposed a new environmentally friendly process for producing liquid fuels from plant matter - or biomass - potentially available from agricultural and forest waste, providing all of the fuel needed for "the entire U.S. transportation sector."

The new approach modifies conventional methods for producing liquid fuels from biomass by adding hydrogen from a "carbon-free" energy source, such as solar or nuclear power, during a step called gasification. Adding hydrogen during this step suppresses the formation of carbon dioxide and increases the efficiency of the process, making it possible to produce three times the volume of biofuels from the same quantity of biomass, said Rakesh Agrawal, Purdue's Winthrop E. Stone Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering.

The researchers are calling their approach a "hybrid hydrogen-carbon process," or H2CAR.

The resulting liquids would be more like gasoline than like ethanol since they'd be more chemically reduced and therefore more energy dense. That would remove one of the big downsides of biomass: ethanol only takes you two thirds as far as gasoline and therefore you have to go to gas stations more often if you burn ethanol.

Agrawal is essentially arguing to use electricity from wind, solar, or nuclear to make liquid fuels

Yes, another interesting fellow you should spend some time scrolling down and getting to know. He covers medicine , science, technology and sociology... A little bit of something for everyone.
Please read him. I always learn something.