, 1 min read
Imagining the future trumps intelligence…
Whenever I meet young people, I alway stress how their future will be very different from the present. To anyone who lived through the first Great War (1914-1918), they would have thought that the Second World War, if it were to happen, would be quite similar in nature. But, in fact, nothing of the sort happened. The first Great War saw the soldiers stuck in place in dirty holes for years… the Second World War saw soldiers literally running forward (or away) on the battlefield.
Importantly, the strategies that worked well in 1916 were totally obsolete by 1940. The difference between 1916 and 1940 is obvious to anyone who studies history. It should be equally obvious that the difference between 2016 and 2040 is going to much larger.
This means that whatever strategies you have today are going to be called into question in the next 25 years in radical ways. If you plan on doing the same things for next 25 years, you are planning to be a fool.
The Nazis were not smarter than the rest of Europe, but, as far as warfare went, they were able to out-innovate their competitors in a radical manner. The Nazis were able to invade entire countries in hours… not months or weeks, hours…
Progress is at least an order of magnitude faster in 2016 than it was in 1916… So the difference between 2016 and 2040 is probably going to feel more like the difference between 1916 and 1990.
I am never worried about my kids lacking intelligence, but I am often concerned when I see that they can’t imagine the future being different… If you are unable to imagine the future, how are you going to contribute toward inventing it?