After clapping mosquitos for the past few days,
Went to a few events, and one of the more worthy updates,
Was the Ted Circle I just attended.
Great turn up of people from diff age, disciplines and nationalities.
The theme was "Future".

Topics Discussed :

Our Blindspots and how to Overcome? 

Interesting opening topic. It gives us a lot of scope to tackle this theme. A lot of discussion centers on the inability to see what was unimaginable, some kind of disruption in social, medical or  economical aspect, or even political. My thoughts, well, that's the reason why we develop tools or frameworks to think about the future seriously.

Importance of Foresight

Yes there are uncertainties, etc, but foresight in my opinion, prepares us the complexity in problem solving, the creativity in critical thinking, and better prepare us from the changes that may come. A part of foresight is also hindsight, where we look back in retrospect to look back into olden days principles, way of life, purpose, etc etc, such that we may uncover some old wisdom we may have overlooked.

Dystopian Scenarios 

Some organisations, some scholars, do look into scenario based roleplays, looking into different scenarios, some more realistic, some stretch a variable to the extreme, to see the complications and possibilities. That is the reason why sometimes when things happen, the "solution" magically seems so reachable, because someone probably had thought of that before. In SG for instance, have avenues such as Centre of Strategic Future, to look into this. In fact they have recently published a Industrial Revolution 4.0 discussion.

Legacy (how, why, what happened)

In the olden days, people talk about legacy, inheritance, empires, etc etc, these things seems to slowly fade away. Why? I guess in my opinion, economically, the bigger players are extinguishing the flames of the youths, and created a world where legacies are unreachable, and things are getting more and more ephemeral.

Plastics (positive and negative)

Other than the negative aspects on environmental care and etc, is also interesting to think on the perspective of Time Capsule, as these are perhaps the only things that would last till generations to come, and what written documentation can we have on these?

Oral Written Visual Traditions

From the past, we have cave paintings, oral traditions and stories, and some form of documentation. What would be the next form of documentation? Are data stored virtually everlasting? Will it be complete?

Future Intelligence (make sense of clues)

As we consider a lot on proper documentation of things, should we also give credit to the intelligence of the future generations to be able to make sense and decipher what ever we leave behind? They probably and piece together the picture if we leave enough clues and enough alternate cross referencing materials.

Automation to Inequality and Purpose

Automation replacing manual labour and etc is frequently talked about. How did Automation contribute to inequality, and how does it play apart in Globalization? And with jobs closely tied to the purpose of happiness or existence whatsoever, will automation redefine us? Do people fear automation due to the fear of becoming useless? Is there a possibility that we displace enough people to become useless? What is our actions and attitude then? Does blind rejection of automation and prevention of progress solves this?

Does Capitalism frees up time for pursuit? Or rejection of technology let us inwardly happy?

It's an oxymoron, that when technology makes things more efficient, and frees up our time, we tend to have lesser time, as we are always looking for other things to do to fill in that time, we are constantly searching for purpose, to fill the need of Novelty, Relation, Autonomy, Competency, and inversely causes Anxiety instead. It may be an endless pursuit in the end, if you stare at the abyss, the abyss stares back at you. Some people instead, reject technology, be secluded and look inwardly into meditation, into self searching, into detachment. This works to some, but not the entire society, for it is the capitalistic society we live in doesnt allow us to. And if we do, are we progressing or regressing? But in the end, is society always Capitalistic or are we ready to give up something, to sacrifice something, to make a revolutionary change?

Are we giving enough chances for our youths?

I will leave this thought to you...............