Some Time
In The
Future

Available in paperback or Kindle via Amazon

" Yes, thought Dan. Evolution. What a strange force it really was! Especially the evolution of things! And Dan thought back to his own experiences of it, in his own life-time. He could remember when there was physical money – coins, paper notes and the like – before transactions became digital and the banks became virtual. Dan smiled. Yes, he could still remember the hullabaloo when all those bank branches had closed and all those jobs had been lost, and how all the banks had gone virtual, and then been consolidated down into just one on-line bank from Avocado.

And Dan could remember the gradual destruction of the professions, as more and more apps had appeared from Avocado, which had gradually eliminated the need for old-fashioned doctors and architects and engineers, who had been made redundant, and forced to re-train as junior administrators in their own professions; and Dan could remember the great changes as yet more apps from Avocado had taken over the running of the economy; and run it more effectively than when humans had been running the show.

But the funny thing was, that in all these processes no one person had been in charge. There had been no one commanding that all these changes took place; they just did, under a momentum of their own. It was incredible really: iteration after iteration, upgrade after upgrade – and what for? When things were good enough already? And yet the inventions had kept on coming, one after another!

It was astonishing really. It was all due to this power called evolution, or constructive change, a power that you couldn't even see until recently. Another remarkable thing had been man's ability to adapt and to change, and to accept all these new developments, and to take them in his stride. If they led to job losses – no problem! If you lost your job as a journalist or an engineer – well you could take up basket weaving or embroidery; or study for that degree you had never had time to take; or perhaps you would become a barista or a greeter; – but you found something else to do.

And Dan thought more generally, about other changes in the past, which he hadn't witnessed personally; and here again he saw the same processes at work. He thought about the change from steam power to electricity, from horses to automobiles, from transistors to microprocessors; and once again all these changes had happened under a momentum of their own, without anyone being in charge or commanding all this to be so. It was astonishing. It was all due to a power called evolution; and the funny thing was that man couldn't see how it was all going to end. He was too busy concentrating on the here and now to look ahead, too concerned with his day-to-day problems or with bringing out that latest upgrade, that newest app to realise where it would all inevitably lead. "