Future Halo

To the person fully alive, the future is not ominous but a promise;  it surrounds the present like a halo.
—    John Dewey
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On This Day In:
2021	Too Heavy A Burden
	I Don’t Mind At All
2020	Compare, Contrast And Learn
	Some Dreams Do Come True
	Just In Case
2019	Can I Get A Witness?
2018	I’d Still Like To Try It Out
2017	In Every Thing
2016	Future Halo
2015	The Hard Way Every Time
2014	Indispensable Wits
2013	I’d Like To
2012	2012 National League Champions – San Francisco Giants!!
	2nd Viewing – No Change
	Light Shining Out of Darkness
2011	Just Kickin It
	Are These The “Real” Protectors Of America’s Constitution?
2010	Giants Advance To 2010 World Series!!!

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Definitely Not Bell Shaped

Andrew Russell, a professor at Stevens Institute of Technology.  “Every jump in technology draws attention and capital away from existing technologies used by the 99 percent, which therefore undermines equality, and reduces the ability for people to get onto the ‘playing field’ in the first place.”
Russell also reminded me of the famous William Gibson quote, “The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed.”
“I have never been able to understand why anyone would assume that the future would be evenly distributed,” Russell said.  “To put this in a different way:  I have never been able to find any evidence from human history to suggest that the future will be evenly distributed.”
—    Adrienne LaFrance
From his article: “Technology, the Faux Equalizer“
Appearing in:  The Atlantic
31 March 2016
Found at one of the news sites I follow:  http://www.routefifty.com/
The specific link is:  http://www.routefifty.com/2016/03/silicon-valley-inequality-digital-divide/127147/?oref=govexec_today_nl
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On This Day In:
2015	Dreadful Pity
2014	Worse Than Useless
2013	Personal Prisons
2012	So, Not Yet Then
2011	Real Love

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Every Tool And Every Chance

The world we want for our kids — one with opportunity and security for our families;  one with rising standards of living and a sustainable, peaceful planet;  one that’s innovative and inclusive, bold and big-hearted — it’s entirely within our reach.  The only constraints on America’s future are the ones we impose on ourselves.  That’s always been the case with America — our destiny isn’t decided for us, but by us.  And as long as we give our young people every tool and every chance to decide the future for themselves, I have incredible faith in the choices they’ll make.
—    President Barack Obama
From the new section in Time Magazine: Motto – Words To Live By; (and also on the web):  http://motto.time.com/4199637/barack-obama-daughters/
Feb 22-29, 2016 edition
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On This Day In:
2015	Something That You Love
2014	Not Really At All
2013	Listening And Deserving
2012	I’m Still Not Certain
2011	True, False And Useful

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Living There

I am vitally interested in the future, because I am going to spend the rest of my life there.
—    Charles F. Kettering
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On This Day In:
2022	If That’s What You Mean
2021	Awakening The Glow
	I Remember
2020	Golden Eagle
	Like #45: Incompetent Donald
2019	#45: Who Lost By Three Million Votes
2018	Torn Between Two Loves
	A Girl And A Boy
2017	I Think They Are Starting To…
2016	Living There
2015	Bookin’ West
	Beyond My Reach
	You Never Call Anymore…
2014	Winning?
2013	Still Inventing
2012	Motivated
2011	Waiting In Line At Starbuck’s

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I Like Dreaming

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
―    Thomas Jefferson
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On This Day In:
2022	Support For Ukraine Independence
2021	Right Up Until Armed Insurrectionists Attack Congress
	No Time
2020	Sometimes Human Nature Stays The Same
2019	Sometimes Too Subtle
2018	A Lot Like Teaching
2017	Wake Up
2016	I Like Dreaming
2015	Importance
2014	Unearned Humility
2013	Science Is Trial And Error
2012	Franklin’s Creed
2011	First Steps
2010	Home Ill…

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Done What You Could

Finish each day and be done with it.  You have done what you could.  Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in;  forget them as soon as you can.  Tomorrow is a new day.  You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
―    Ralph Waldo Emerson
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On This Day In:
2021	Still Trying To Understand
	V Memories From Saudi Arabia
2020	Sometimes Just Being There Is Enough
	And I Owe It All To You
2019	Or Live For It
2018	Happy Thanksgiving (2018)
2017	Grateful Humility
2016	Obstacles
	Election + 2 Weeks
2015	Done What You Could
2014	Impossible To Other Men
2013	Just In Case
2012	Isn’t This Just Pleasant?
2011	No Void In Sight

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$20 Anyone?

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
—     Eleanor Roosevelt
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On This Day In:
2014	And Yet I Still Study
2013	Use Your Own
2012	Strengthen Freedom
2011	Attrition = A Lack Of Imagination
2010	Mind The Fire, Love
	Just Beyond My Reach…
	Even A Life Of Quiet Desperation!
	Acts Of Courage

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What’s In Your Future?

The greatest danger to our future is apathy.
—   Jane Goodall
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On This Day In:
2014	Light In Darkness
2013	How ‘Bout Just Obeying The Law?
2012	Or Maybe Not
2011	My Interval Is Too Short!

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Dawn Is Coming

Yes:  I am a dreamer.  For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.
––    Oscar Wilde
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On This Day In:
2014	Back When I Was A Firebrand
2013	Pen In Hand
	Word Up!
2012	Disturbing
	Trying To Keep Up
2011	Unreliable And Selective
2010	Adult-Onset Athlete

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Future Envy

It often occurs to me to envy the future for what it will know about the past.
—   Bernard Berenson
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On This Day In:
2021	Unnoticed Perfection
	You Just Don’t Realize
2020	Maybe After A Couple Of Hundred Years I Think About It
	Worth The Time I’ve Waited
2019	Courage Facing Temptation
2018	I Can’t Laugh At #45
2017	Release, Harmonize, Illuminate
2016	One Trouble With Television
2015	I Am Lucky And I Am Grateful
2014	Future Envy
2013	We Do Not Want To Learn That
2012	Social Inhibition
2011	Studying Chinese Food
	Are You Bored, Too?
2010	Rant, Pant, Deep Breath – Reality

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Devouring The Present

It is a paradox that in our time of drastic rapid change, when the future is in our midst devouring the present before our eyes, we have never been less certain about what is ahead of us.
—    Eric Hoffer
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On This Day In:
2013	But So Far…
	Twice Moved
2012	Just Like Bubbles
2011	Caring and Driving
	Achieve Greatly
2010	Unwise To Trust
	Attitude
	If The Mind Is Not Tired
	Irrationally Crazy
	2nd Pair – Shoe Review
	Ahnu – Gesundheit!
2009	As for me…
	Health Care Reform Now!!

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Fear Not, Weep Not

Fear not for the future, weep not for the past.
—   Percy Bysshe Shelley
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On This Day In:
2013	Half Way There
2012	Sacrificed Any Lately?
2011	The Value Of One’s Character
2010	Intervals
	On Being Human
	Non-predictive Emergence
	Events
	Bodily Functions
	Standing Thoughts
	Sent Home Is Better Than Fixed

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Closing The Gap?

We will only keep people from fleeing the countryside into urban favelas, villas miseries, shantytowns and squatter villages when the productivity gap is closed between what brute labor on the soil can accomplish and what advanced technology makes possible today – and will make possible tomorrow.
—     Alvin Toffler
From his book:  “Future Shock“
…
The American middle class is shrinking and it’s technology that’s causing it.  It’s not all bad.  The gains in efficiency begotten by automation have been great for productivity.  And productivity means progress.  It always has.  Since the Industrial Revolution began around 1760, new technologies have been stealing jobs, and since 1760, people have responded by finding or inventing new jobs that contemporary technologies couldn’t do.
It’s a good system — in the long term, everyone benefits from technological progress, and while the workers losing their jobs in the interim might feel a bit miffed, people have always found a way to bounce back into an ever-adapting economy.  Besides, if machines can do something better than people can, it would be senseless to ignore such utility and hold back progress for fear of a few temporarily lost jobs.
Unfortunately for today’s average worker, finding or inventing a new job is harder than it once was.  When economists look back, they see that it was around 1999 when something changed.  Productivity kept going up, but where in the past median household income and employment per capita would have also hitched along, they instead diverged.  Median household income is on a steep decline, employment isn’t bouncing back strongly after the Great Recession, and a greater percentage of Americans now identify themselves as “lower class” than at any point in history.
—    Colin Wood
[From the article:  “The Uncertain Future Of Work“
Appearing in the magazine:  “Government Technology“, April 2014.
The article can be found online at:  http://www.govtech.com/products/Robots-Drones-and-the-Uncertain-Future-of-Work.html
And, no, I don’t believe technology is “causing” it (the shrinking of the American middle class).  Greed and an economic system which has corrupted the political system and which is debasing the educational system is the “cause”.  But, hey, I’m just a liberal democrat, so what do I know…  Right?    —    KMAB]
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On This Day In:
2013	On Parenting
2012	What Knowledge Is
2011	The Indefinite Accumulation Of Property

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Children Will Judge

We cannot say whether the emerging world will be mostly “good” or mostly “evil” because the very definitions of these terms will change, and it is not we, but our children and their children who will do the judging, according to their own values.
—     Alvin Toffler
From his book:  “Future Shock“
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On This Day In:
2021	To Trust Providence
	Exactly
2020	I Am Learning
	Plus Plus
2019	Day 2: All Things Considered
	The Path To Reward
2018	Ryan, McConnell & The Republican Controlled Congress
	The Proud Dad
	Day 35: Five(5) Weeks Completed!
2017	Serving Is Proving Harder Than Winning For #DumbDonald
2016	Come Again…
2015	At Five
2014	Touching The Past
	The Supreme Question
2013	Children Will Judge
2012	Liar, n.
2011	Freedom To Doubt

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My Name Is Charles Stein

My name is Charles Stein.  I am a needle worker all my life.  I am seventy-seven years old, and I want to get what I didn’t get in my youth.  I want to know about the future.  I want to die an educated man!
—    Excerpt from the book:  “Future Shock“, written by Alvin Toffler
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On This Day In:
2022	Big And Bad (In A Good Way)
2021	Suggestions…
	Dichotomy
2020	Until November… Then Vote
2019	Start With Health And Friends
	Iterum Vale Tres*
2018	Tweets From The Disrupter-In-Chief
2017	Do We Still Listen To Her Silent Lips?
	Not Now, Not Ever
2016	Why Do You Write/Blog?
2015	Can Your Repeat The Question, Please?
2014	On Faith
2013	My Name Is Charles Stein
2012	Faiths And Sorcery
	Made And Kept Free
2011	Multi-Source Learning

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