Anti-Expertism

In his essay Default Thinking (.pdf), Scott Jenson touches upon what it means to be a futurist (book, or otherwise):

Legacy Vision is the approach we all take when first considering how to use a new technology: it gives us our initial use. This approach is very understandable: we look backwards at what we are doing, our current legacy, and apply the new technology in a manner to make this existing problem better…These first uses aren’t wrong, only naïve, as they apply the new technology to well known problems. In retrospect, many technologies are disruptive, changing the status quo and often end up being used in far more profound ways. The initial uses are quickly forgotten…It takes time before the full impact of a new technology is understood and applied in a more significant way.

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There were ninety-seven New York advertising men in the hotel, and, the way they were monopolizing the long-distance lines, the girl in 507 had to wait from noon till almost two-thirty to get her call through. She used the time, though. She read an article in a women’s pocket-size magazine, called “Sex Is Fun-or Hell.” She washed her comb and brush. She took the spot out of the skirt of her beige suit. She moved the button on her Saks blouse. She tweezed out two freshly surfaced hairs in her mole. When the operator finally rang her room, she was sitting on the window seat and had almost finished putting lacquer on the nails of her left hand.

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My general axiom: If you can keep them guessing, then you’re doing it right.