Last week I spoke at a conference in Madrid called “No Money”. It was hosted by Spain’s leading newspaper El Pais and was literally about the transition to a cashless society. Foregoing cash in the near future is no far-fetched idea since entire countries are starting to consider getting rid of it. A senior vice…
One of the obligatory yearly conferences a professional futurist should attend is the one set up by World Future Society. I feel particularly obliged to attend since I am representing the Central Texas Chapter of the WFS in Austin as vice president. But alas, I haven’t attended since being a student in 2002 when I…
Here’s something that’s going to make you feel instantly old: The oldest X’ers are turning 50 in 2014. In a time when all the buzz is about aging Boomers and flailing Generation Y and Millennials (the youngest adult generation is so mythologized that it has two names!), Generation X is so quickly blending in with…
What can Barack Obama and Miley Cyrus learn from Karl Marx this past week? Maybe they should take to heart a famous quote where he says that the second time a tragedy comes around, it comes as a farce*. That’s true whether you’re following the footsteps of Madonna or George W Bush. Were anybody seriously…
I want to see The Great Gatsby. And then I hope Hollywood will churn out ‘Grapes of Wrath’ and ‘Death of a Salesman’ soon after. History rhymes, and once again we’re at this junction in time when the younger generations are reexamining the validity of the American Dream. The millennials were taught to believe in…
Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend a speech by legendary, mother-of-all feminists Gloria Steinem at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center here in Austin. As a mother of three daughters I am anxious to learn if feminism is an ongoing movement that will continue to grow roots into the younger generations or if…
For a child born today, what will the world look like in 2100? This is the topic of a special section of The Futurist, September- October issue. Via scenarios and forecasts from some of the leading expert within foresight, we get a glimpse into what it will mean to be 88 at the dawn of…
“Kids nowadays! Hmpf!” Whether you’re 5 or 85, at some point you might unwittingly have been dragged into a generational comparison in which your age cohort is made out to look ruder, lazier or more spoiled than the bygone youth of the spokesperson. The statement is often followed up with a sentence that starts with “In…
In Growing up with Princess Inc earlier this year I wrote about growing gender polarization. In the post I discussed the idea that shifts between androgynous and more overtly gendered fashion trends and body ideals are linked to social and economic fluctuations. Generational experts Strauss and Howe explained in The Fourth Turning that in eras when society struggles…
Inspired by a string of generational reports from the PEW research center, NPR has recently focused on generational differences in politics and economics. All the stories in their “Generational Politics” segment follow the four generations that currently constitute the voting population. The series looks at typical economic situations given the economic downturn, political leanings, value…
