Watts Wacker

Resident futurist at the Stanford Research Institute

Watts gave Real Timers a preview of life beyond the year 2000. Here are a few highlights of what Watts has termed "The Dream Society":

Philosophy: Absorption of Paradox
The ability to hold two mutually contradictory thoughts simultaneously will be a survival skill in not be so much an art in the 21st Century, as a survival skill. One reason: With the rate of change accelerating with unprecedentedat a heretofore unfathomable speed, everyone will need to create multiple --, and often diametrically opposed --, visions of the future to be prepared for what's coming next.

Dominant Physical Structure: Theme Parks
There are already 500 in the US today, and as 2000 approaches we can only expect more as our desire to opt out of the stress everyday life for a "Truman Show" version of reality will increases exponentially.

Defining Activity: Turning Dreams to Reality
One example, British Airways buying a decommissioned space shuttle for trips into outer space in 2005. If we can imagine it today, we can probably buy it tomorrow.

Dominant Resource: Intellectual Property
We already live in an age of knowlege workers. The next step is an era where knowledge is more valuable than the goods being transacted. PTo put it another way, it's not the machines that are valuable, but the code that runs them.

Dominant Metaphor: Fusion
We've seen it in cuisine and in the melding of the life and social sciences to form disciplines such as bionomics and evolutionary anthrophology. Expect more as geographical boundaries collapse and the world itself becomes one massive multicultural melting pot.

Rituals: Individuality and Uniqueness
TWhereby the citizens of McWorld will relentlessly seek individuation. Or, as Watts put it: "The more we become the same, the more we'll crave minute points of differntiation."

Travel: Telepresence
The ability to be in more than one location at the same time. Think videoconferencing on steroids.

Interaction: Neotribes
As people continue to lose their identifaction with a particular nationality or religious group, more and more will identify themselves through common interests which are focused on icons and rituals. Harley Davidson has already built a business around this idea.

Work: Spiritual
Workers of the Dream Society aren't looking for just a paycheck. What they desire is an alignment of beliefs that will allow their working lives to reconnect with their personal lives. Forget "the mission", after 2000 it's all about "the journey".

For more insights check out the book Watts co-authored with Jim Taylor of Gateway Computers: The 500 Year Delta: What Happens Next After What Comes Next (Harper Business) at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0887309119/002-0407886-1938233