Dilbert Future: Thriving on Stupidity in the 21st Century
In The Dilbert Future, Scott Adams turns futurist, offering a bold, compelling - and often hysterical - vision of future society. First, the good news: Human nature won't change much; many, if not most of us, will continue to be guided by the immutable principles of stupidity, selfishness, and horniness - much as we are today, but with more advanced technology. But there's more! Drawing on his keen grasp of human nature and social dynamics, Adams daringly predicts key developments in every...
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From Dilbert's shrinking cubicle and to Dogbert's advice for getting ahead to oddball consultants from Elbonia, Adams revisits the development of all that is Dilbert. Publishers Weekly Countless people look forward to the morning paper because it contains a Dilbert comic strip, a fine way to start the day on a cheerful note. But recently, at least as evidenced by this book, Adams's humor has developed into something snide and derogatory. He sees most people as "induhviduals." Perhaps he is boredjust as we all will become, he declares here, when everything is shared, via the Internet and new developments in video technology. Reading his book piecemeal, one catches more of the facetious humor. Among the 65 predictions here, Adams echoes many scholars in forecasting a work force of freelance experts doing contract work. He hits the target again when he dubs telephone marketing "confusopoly" because it serves only to befuddle the customer about price, since all companies provide essentially the same service. But one wonders why he bothers tackling certain areas, as in Prediction 59: "In the future, there will be drive-through pet-care facilities." Much of the work reiterates George W.S. Trow's conclusion that our civilization is growing increasingly trivial. Therefore, Adams's inclusion of a recommendation for making dreams come truewriting down one's wishes 15 times each dayis bizarre, suggestive of Cou's 1920s maxim that "Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better."
Chapter One\ How to Predict the Future\ \ Some people try to predict the future by assuming current trends will continue. This is a bad method. For example, if you applied that forecasting method to a puppy, you'd predict that the puppy would continue growing larger and larger until one day--in a fit of uncontrolled happiness--its wagging tail would destroy a major metropolitan area. But that rarely happens, thanks to the National Guard.\ The future never follows trends, because of three rules I have named after myself in order to puff up my importance.\ Adam's Rule of the Unexpected\ Something unexpected always happens to wreck any good trend. Here are some examples to prove my point:\ Good Trend Unexpected Bad Thing\ Computers allow us to work Computers generate 300\ 100 percent faster percent more work.\ Women get more political power.Women are as dumb as men.\ Popular music continues to get better.I get old.\ Adam's Rule of Self-Defeating Prophecies\ Whenever humans notice a bad trend, they try to change it. The prediction of doom causes people to do things differently and avoid the doom. Any doom that can be predicted won't happen.\ Here are some examples of dooms that people predicted and how the indomitable human spirit rose to the challenge and thwarted the prediction:\ Prediction of Doom Human Response\ Population will grow faster than Scientists realize you can callfood supply.just about anything a "meat patty."\ Petroleum reserves will be Scientists discover oil in their depleted in twenty years.own hair.\ Communism willspread to the All Communists become\ rest of the world.ballerinas and defect.\ I might have some of the details wrong; I'm working from memory here. But the point is that none of those predictions came true once we started worrying about them. That's the way it always works.\ Adam's Rule of Logical Limits\ All trends have logical limits. For example, computers continue to shrink in size, but that trend will stop as soon as you hear this report on CNN:\ This just in. A computer systems administrator sneezed, and his spray destroyed the entire military computing hardware of North America, leading to the conquest of the United States by Haitian bellhops. More on that later, but first our report on the healing powers of herbal tea.\ At that point, we'll say, "Hey, maybe those computers were too small." That will be the end of the shrinking computer trend.\ If all trends end, what can we look at to predict the future? There are some things in life so consistent that they are like immutable laws of human nature. You can predict most of the future by looking at these immutable laws and applying logic.\ Immutable Laws of Human Nature\ \ Stupidity\ Selfishness\ Horniness\ \ Those are the things that will never change, no matter what else does. People don't change their basic nature, they just accumulate more stuff upon which they can apply their stupidity, selfishness, and horniness. From this perspective, the future isn't hard to predict.\ I realize that by telling you my secrets I'm not only opening my kimono, but I'm also doing jumping jacks in front of your picture window, if you catch my visual gist. But I'm not worried about you learning my secrets, because I'll always be one step ahead of you.\ Prediction Two\ In the future, you will wish I had never put the image in your head of me doing jumping jacks in an open kimono. The Dilbert Future. Copyright © by Scott Adams. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
\ Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly\ Countless people look forward to the morning paper because it contains a Dilbert comic strip, a fine way to start the day on a cheerful note. But recently, at least as evidenced by this book, Adams's humor has developed into something snide and derogatory. He sees most people as "induhviduals." Perhaps he is boredjust as we all will become, he declares here, when everything is shared, via the Internet and new developments in video technology. Reading his book piecemeal, one catches more of the facetious humor. Among the 65 predictions here, Adams echoes many scholars in forecasting a work force of freelance experts doing contract work. He hits the target again when he dubs telephone marketing "confusopoly" because it serves only to befuddle the customer about price, since all companies provide essentially the same service. But one wonders why he bothers tackling certain areas, as in Prediction 59: "In the future, there will be drive-through pet-care facilities." Much of the work reiterates George W.S. Trow's conclusion that our civilization is growing increasingly trivial. Therefore, Adams's inclusion of a recommendation for making dreams come truewriting down one's wishes 15 times each dayis bizarre, suggestive of Cou's 1920s maxim that "Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better."\ \
