Looking ahead to 2023... and beyond!
A special offer, and a list of questions to dig into in the year ahead
So far here at 2120 Insights, we’ve spent a lot of time talking about history, especially where it concerns how much time people have typically spent working. While this has been helpful in terms of understanding how much an important piece of everyday life can change over the long run, a question you as a reader might have is when are we going to start exploring the future more? After all, isn’t this newsletter supposed to be about the year 2120?
Modeling out the long-run future seems like a fool’s errand at times, but the chapters I’ve written so far have been a truly helpful exercise in thinking about what sorts of variables are most important to consider over the very long run. It’s easy to get sidetracked by the latest headlines when many stories of human progress sneak under the radar. Here’s a rough outline of what I plan to explore over the next year:
Finishing up my exploration of the history of the workweek by making a tentative prediction about where we’ll be in 2120.
Speculating a bit more about how the nature of work will change. What do the latest developments in the field of AI mean?
Exploring in detail how people use time in general, and what holds us back from spending more time on activities that bring us more satisfaction and joy?
Thinking a little further afield: what sorts of technologies have the highest likelihood of having a dramatic impact on daily life? How might we avoid some of their biggest risks?
I’ve been busy these past few weeks putting together a more robust database for managing the research, insights and ideas I come across, so even though I’m back to working full-time, I expect I’ll be able to write more consistently through 2022— my goal is every two weeks.
A special offer: give the gift of 2120 Insights!
The amount of content at 2120 Insights is fast-approaching the amount you might find in a book, and so is the amount of work that goes into putting it all together. If you appreciate what I’m sharing here, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. I plan to partially paywall a few of the more involved pieces I have coming up, and a book-like price is what I am asking.
Ideally, this would be $21.20 per year, but this is below Substack’s minimum annual subscription price. So I have my price set at $42.40, but consider it a two-for one: if you do subscribe, you can give me the email address of someone else who you think would enjoy my newsletter, and I’ll send them a complimentary full subscription for the year ahead!