[chailatte]

A world that is aging, where half the young are unemployed and the old demands to be paid to live to 98

A world lead by visionless, spineless leaders, employed by multinationals to kill anything that threatens their existence

A world that is feminized, where men are taught to grovel for a women's affection, and to earn their attention with gucci and prada, paid by their mcjob

A world ruled by bankers, where the mindless middle class are the sharecroppers. Bankers don't dream about flying cars. They dream about the rent paid next month.

A world brainwashed by advertising, training its citizens to love sequels and brands. Transformers 15. Call of duty 14. Starbucks everyday.

A world that no longer needs you, the passionate, explorative, imaginative, thinking you.

[Cushman]

From the 1960s through the 1990s, venture capital was an excellent way to pursue these twin interests. From 1999 through the present, the industry has posted negative mean and median returns, with only a handful of funds having done very well. What happened?

That's the first paragraph of the article. That is to say... What are you talking about?

[dualogy]

"Starbucks everyday." ... said the guy named chailatte :D

"A world that no longer needs you, the passionate, explorative, imaginative, thinking you." AS IF any passionate, imaginative, thinking blob ever cared about how much "the world" (wth is that supposed to mean) needs her/him or not...

[airlabam]

It's one thing to be cynical, it's another thing to reflect that into a normative statement about how a broad group of talented people act. Awfully contentious, that. I suppose Martin Luther King did what he did for the sheer rush of it all, yes?

[rjbond3rd]

Fascinating post, and I mostly agree except for this one:

> A world that is feminized, where men are taught to grovel for a women's affection, and to earn their attention with gucci and prada, paid by their mcjob

Any man fitting that description has only himself to blame. Women don't want metros, they want real men (real man == doesn't care what others think, lives by his own rules.)

Anyway, great post, possibly the greatest post.

[tomjen3]

I feed that way too sometimes.

But then I remember that it doesn't matter what the world says or does, that our leaders are not only visionless and spineless but also ineffective playboys with a weak ego. That the multinationals have repeatably refused to change, even when we were screaming the necessity of that choice to them for a decade.

I remember that the bankers are a joke, that the middle class doesn't matter (make the product cool enough then they will buy it anyway); I remember that the dream that matters isn't theirs, but mine.

I remember that no matter how many sequels are made, how many WWII shooters are created, how many man years are given to graphics that is almost better than the real world, the creator of Minecraft is a millionaire.

I remember that the world needs the passionate, explorative, imaginative and the thinking more than it ever has, even if it does everything it possible can to deny it.

I remember that the critics, the negatives, the deniers and the naysayers don't matter as long as the men of action don't listen to them.

[VladRussian]

well, one of the way the situation may developed further is bifurcation of the human species into 2 species. One would continue into the ant colony style civilization and another is space bound. One of the natural dividers emerging now is "either one is an accessory to the computer(and all its consumer oriented entertainment) or the computer is an accessory(i.e. tool for further exploration and development) to the one", and that would become even more pronounced with further development of even more effective (ie. direct connection) human(brain) to machine interfaces.

[ImprovedSilence]

The webpage doesnt show on my mobile, but i got an inda where its goingfrom that first post, but I think society as a whole has always been like this, but there is always those curious, oddball, weird, nerdy, or interested types who keep innovation alive and drag technology and society forward, kicking and screaming...