Starting Point

Out there, in a library, is a series of 1950’s science fiction/mystery books on robots and computers that fairly predicts today and the future. I skimmed the first of seven books, and I plan on reading the next six within a week. It’s called The Foundation Series by Isaac Asimov.

In the “Prelude to Foundation”, a scientist is obliged to help an emperor survive and thrive by predicting future events from historical ones using mathematical formulas. It’s a very complex equation in the beginning; because there are way too many worlds, and millions of people, and billions of daily interactions for the model to be solved within our lifetime. Theoretically possible and practically impossible! The scientist explains it: even if I wanted to, it’s impossible for me to shake the hand of every person on the planet, because many would have died before I reach them.

After 470 pages, the scientist realizes that there is a starting point world that he should study, and everything else including other worlds and human interactions can be considered second degree effects to be explained later. If he studies the starting point of humanity, he’ll need less mathematical power to handle the rest. That’s what a model is - Business models. It’s ignoring the fact that a red round apple is falling on the ground and simplifying it to a model that explains gravitational energy effect on all masses.

Isaac Asimov, wrote this in 1950’s and died in 1992.  Would you not want to talk to this man today? Especially, with the social networks server farms and data! He’s dead, and Natalie Portman is – for the most part - not going to have my babies.  More importantly, the “future is already here; it’s just not evenly distributed”. Whether you own a bank, or an online-application, or data on customers; you can study the leaders in behavior, or what some like to call the early adapters, and with some confidence explain their pattern, how that might affect the second wave of reactions, and predict the future of the group.

Let’s do some wild guessing. The biggest shifts have been caused by technology. Technology gets better, and makes itself cheaper, and the application become wider. Do you think unemployment rates would be even higher? If that’s true, how will the unemployed feed themselves and stay busy? Would the government just give them food, homes and cars? Does that substitute for the role of money in the economy? What kind of entertainment do they need? Just look for pockets of people who sample future situations to predict the future. Tell me, what do you read? What's your starting point?