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Wired предсказывает нам близкое будущее:
Fast-forward to 2020. After two decades of ultraprosperity, the average American household's income is $150,000, but milk still costs only about $2.50 a gallon. Web-enabled TVs are free if you commit to watching them, but camping permits for Yellowstone cost $1,000. Almost everyone working has signed up for a job that does not exist (at the moment); most workers have more than one business card, more than one source of income. Hard-hat workers are paid as much as Web designers, and plumbers charge more for house calls than doctors. For the educated, the income gap narrows. Indeed, labor is in such short supply that corporations "hire" high school grads, and then pay for their four-year college educations before they begin work.
What the rich have in the year 2000, the rest have in 2020: personal chefs, stay-at-home moms, six-month sabbaticals. The personal private foundation has become the status symbol of wealth. People magazine features its annual list of the world's most charitable donors. Although tax rates have lowered, the amount of money flowing into state and federal budgets is awesome. Social Security has ample funds, and hundreds of thousands of schools, hospitals, and libraries have newly opened. Ambitious, large-scale public works are all the rage; there's a scandal over whose corporate logos appear on the space suits of the first manned mission to Mars. The majority of Americans are heavily invested in the stock market, so market quotes are as ubiquitous as pop music. The abundance of cheap appliances and gadgets has devalued possessions. The most affluent consumers boast of having less of this or that, but in the end they spend a larger percentage of their income on services and products that attempt to define their identity. In the age of ultraprosperity, it's easy to make a dollar, but hard to make a difference.
Indeed, money gets dull quickly, and that becomes the greatest challenge in the age of ultraprosperity - to make money mean something, or to find meaning outside of money.
Лично я с нетерпением жду моего персонального шефа и шестимесячный отпуск. Всего-то годик остался.
Fast-forward to 2020. After two decades of ultraprosperity, the average American household's income is $150,000, but milk still costs only about $2.50 a gallon. Web-enabled TVs are free if you commit to watching them, but camping permits for Yellowstone cost $1,000. Almost everyone working has signed up for a job that does not exist (at the moment); most workers have more than one business card, more than one source of income. Hard-hat workers are paid as much as Web designers, and plumbers charge more for house calls than doctors. For the educated, the income gap narrows. Indeed, labor is in such short supply that corporations "hire" high school grads, and then pay for their four-year college educations before they begin work.
What the rich have in the year 2000, the rest have in 2020: personal chefs, stay-at-home moms, six-month sabbaticals. The personal private foundation has become the status symbol of wealth. People magazine features its annual list of the world's most charitable donors. Although tax rates have lowered, the amount of money flowing into state and federal budgets is awesome. Social Security has ample funds, and hundreds of thousands of schools, hospitals, and libraries have newly opened. Ambitious, large-scale public works are all the rage; there's a scandal over whose corporate logos appear on the space suits of the first manned mission to Mars. The majority of Americans are heavily invested in the stock market, so market quotes are as ubiquitous as pop music. The abundance of cheap appliances and gadgets has devalued possessions. The most affluent consumers boast of having less of this or that, but in the end they spend a larger percentage of their income on services and products that attempt to define their identity. In the age of ultraprosperity, it's easy to make a dollar, but hard to make a difference.
Indeed, money gets dull quickly, and that becomes the greatest challenge in the age of ultraprosperity - to make money mean something, or to find meaning outside of money.
Лично я с нетерпением жду моего персонального шефа и шестимесячный отпуск. Всего-то годик остался.
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Прогноз из 99-ого
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KEVIN KELLY 09.01.99 12:00 PM
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