Book Review: Future Files

A History of the Next 50 Years

By Richard Watson¹
Published by Scribe Publications²
Reviewed by Peter Jensen

For those with sufficient confidence to write about the future, the results tend to be caricatures of the present, emphasizing either a species of impending dystopia or (more rarely) the advent of utopia.  For the former, think of Ridley Scott’s seminal, Bladerunner, with its street level mélange of Eastern markets overseen by masterminds lounging in oversized ziggurats.  For the latter, think of art deco wonderlands of Walt Disney or perhaps George Lucas, replete with luminescent control panels activated by the gracious sweeping of fingertips. 

What is often missing is any imagining of the everyday actuality of daily life.  Future Files provides a compelling exception. Richard Watson is focused on the possibilities of us as consumers.  The book is a business guide for those who wish to second guess the trajectory of desire.  Forget that so many ventures fail after the first few years, a Delphic business plan might be just the thing.

Future Files is focused upon shopping as the principal issue.  Watson, to his credit, frequently references the anxieties that lie ahead in the contemplation of the overfilled virtual shopping trolley.  Our brains, he suggests, may seize up while we attempt to sift through the cornucopia of demographically targeted products, a phalanx of disposable trash aimed squarely at “you” and your guilty pleasures.  Outside the virtual Mall, larger scale issues may loom: global warming, third world poverty and resource management disasters but Watson shows no concern. Even the sheer vacuity that underpins compulsive consumption is brushed aside with sanguine indecency. For Watson, global warming is merely a fad. The earth, he tells us, will survive anything we can throw at it. To think otherwise is vanity.

His message goes on. The decline and fall of faith in churches, banks and politicians is the consequence of our cynicism, and nothing more. Forget the existence of a polity that seeks heightened accountability. Forget the revelations of the horrendous practices that permeate institutions that require trust in exchange for control. Forget that populations may shrivel up while we selfishly eye the next stepping stone rather than listen for the patter of little feet. 

What saves the book from reading like a cranky middle of the road sermon is the sheer brio of its speculative inventiveness.  Like the ranting of an over caffeinated employee at Dick Smith, Mr Watson regales us with tales of robo-goats finding earthquake victims; the demonization of lettuce because it uses too much water to grow; smart bullets that follow criminals around corners; and DNA technology that sifts out the bad guys before they can even attempt a get away.

Creativity will be unnecessary. Children’s toys will be so intelligent that their imagining will be done for them, assuming, of course, that any children remain as we ascend the ziggurats of success. And for the ultimate, futuristic insight: Watson concludes we will take longer baths as an antidote to the hurly burly! 

In the end, it came out as all good fun even if the author’s repeated insistence on future anxieties generated by too many choices pushed me in the direction of irritability. Are we not already, I thought, sufficiently disoriented? Are we not already embracing incense burning and launching bath bombs whenever possible?  And if lettuce becomes vege non grata, would that not have implications for how long we will be permitted to soak? 

Anxiety, after all, has always been an essential component of consumption.  Is it not already directed to filling the void that lies within each one of us? The sight of shoppers at post Christmas sales running lemming like to fight over a discounted jaffle iron says it all, at least to this reviewer. Does not everyone know that such items are only used once, if that? 

Future Files is enjoyable for a quick read. It is in parts stimulating and in parts, just plain silly. It will be, no doubt, a good book for starting arguments. At its best, it explores the implications of the mundane.³

It might even stimulate speculation as to what might happen after the future.

Peter Jensen

Footnotes

1. The author appears to make a living advising corporations about the future. His personal web site is at http://www.futuretrendsbook.com/author/.
2. http://www.scribepublications.com.au
3. The publisher’s web page for the book is at http://www.scribepublications.com.au/book/futurefiles1. The recommended retail price is $29.95. It may be purchased online.