BUGS: THE FUTURE IS OUR BUSINESS | 2008-05-30
A commenter mentioned in passing modesty, "I am not a futurologist." Well, those of you who have read my stuff carefully may have noticed that I have just a little tendency TO look down on "experts." My immediate reaction was to say that, precisely because of this lack of qualifications, the commenter wouldn't make the dumbass mistakes futurology is famous for.
But since then I have deeply impressed by the discussion about the future between our commenters. The joy of a good professor's life is to get things to the point where the discussion rolls on without him. Of course, good professors are a practically extinct species.
The reason futurology is such a fake is that no futurologist gives a damn about the future. Like every other "expert," his job is to get grants and tenure NOW, not fifty years from now.
BUGS is precisely the opposite. Our ONLY concern is what the future will actually be like. THE FUTURE IS OUR BUSINESS.
The establishment gives grants and university money. You do not get money from them by saying that something awful might happen to them, or that they will be forgotten in times to come as other establishments have been.