Will AI take our jobs? Can we achieve sustainability without sacrificing our lifestyle? As hope fades, comfort zones vanish, and ‘normal’ reveals itself as an illusion, here’s the hard truth about what it will take to survive and thrive in the unfolding future.
President Snow: Seneca... why do you think we have a winner? I mean, if we just wanted to intimidate the districts, why not round up 24 of them at random and execute them all at once? Be a lot faster.
Seneca: (stares confused)
President Snow: Hope.
Seneca: Hope?
President Snow: Hope. It is the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective. A lot of hope is dangerous. A spark is fine, as long as it’s contained. So, CONTAIN it.
The illusion of normality and the danger of ignorance
In this scene, two obvious conclusions come to mind. First, life is driven by hope for something better. Without this hope, why would we keep going? If we believed that nothing could change tomorrow, despair would take over, possibly even leading us to give up entirely. Secondly, someone must always manage and balance this hope to benefit from it. We work and produce because our boss encourages us that, by doing better, we might achieve that job, promotion, or award.
What should terrify us is the third less obvious conclusion—Seneca’s confusion. He represents those of us who accept “normal” as unquestionable, failing to realize that normality is just another containment strategy.
Seneca’s ignorance here should concern us.
Why do we have winners? Because we need them. Once we meet our needs in other ways, the concept of “winners” will become irrelevant. What we see as normal will soon be replaced, and the next generation will accept it as their reality until a new Snow challenges it.
AI and the Death of Industrial Lifestyle
Yes, A.I. will take our jobs—not because A.I. is inherently bad, but because we’re asking for it. This is what evolution means. Evolution is the only normal.
And the people who say, “This is never going to happen,” are just containing our hope to keep us going until it inevitably does. It’s similar to retirement: it marks the end of our viability in the market. We know it’s inevitable, yet we move toward it as if it will never actually arrive.
Of course, we fear this change. We build our lives around jobs that sustain our lifestyles. But let’s be honest—the party, as it is, isn’t sustainable anymore.
The taxi industry has a long history, from horse-drawn carriages offering a transport service to hiring drivers, renting carriages, and eventually replacing them with cars. Initially, car ownership was rare, but as the car became more accessible, taxis evolved into a structured profession.
Then Uber arrived, and many taxi drivers protested instead of understanding how their industry could evolve. In some countries, taxi services and Uber reached a compromise, and the industry celebrated, feeling triumphant.
And I was thinking that I don’t know any kid who dreams of becoming taxi-driver. Many of us never dreamed of the jobs we hold; we found them through life’s twists, shaped by decisions made at each fork in the road.
So, why do we cling to our current job structures instead of seeking ways to evolve them?
Because we believe that having a job is “normal”—and that this normal will never change.
Then came driverless cars. Some assume driverless cars will replace taxis, but this limited view makes me question how such narrow thinking has kept us going for so long.
Imagine owning a driverless car: you could send your child to school, attend an appointment, and have the car park itself until you need it again. You wouldn’t need a taxi; your job as a driver wouldn’t be replaced but instead made irrelevant.
We are not losing our jobs because A.I. will replace them but because it will vanish them.
Shoemakers once had the skilled task of making shoes. Then, we created machines for this job, leading to a new need—not for shoemakers, but for people who could operate and maintain those machines.
The concept of jobs as we know them emerged around 150 years ago, driven by factory assembly lines. Schools became mandatory to produce consumers and replaceable workers.
But factories are gone, moved to our backpacks and the citizen lifestyle is no longer necessary or normal. Soon, a set of XR-AI devices will connect us in a Metaverse that the next generation will see as normal.
Being Seneca Isn’t an Option Anymore
I get that you might find these ideas crazy, maybe even infuriating. I do, too—I’m like Seneca sometimes, wondering, “What is this nonsense?” when someone challenges my normality. Evolution is the true constant, yet we resist it to keep our familiar ways.
But today, being like Seneca is not an option, because knowledge is free and accessible to almost everyone. It’s not just because we read articles like this, but because we have the internet and social media. Sure, we may share cute puppies, babies, dances, and perhaps some playful or sexy content, but these things bring us closer and create a sense of intimacy. More importantly, though, we can now bear witness to events like injustice, poverty, climate change, waste, pollution, and social discrimination. We can no longer afford to be confused or ignorant like Seneca.
But change will come. Evolution will happen. Not because of technology but because our way of living is unsustainable. Climate change, social injustice, pandemics, recessions, wars, and poverty—all reflect that our systems no longer work.
New generations, connected globally, question outdated borders and seek to build one inclusive world. They care about sustainability and inclusivity, issues too big to solve within the existing system. Trying to achieve these goals while preserving the current structures simply won’t work.
In the 1920s, people transitioned from horses to cars, not because of technology alone, but because the horse-drawn system was no longer sustainable. In Chicago, 1886, protests erupted as authorities failed to manage manure, pollution, disease, and the overwhelming demands of the horse-drawn industry. Technology was waiting in the wings as an alternative, and as people invested in it, evolution took off.
The pandemic didn’t invent remote work; laptops did that 20 years ago. The pandemic simply forced us to look for alternatives, and technology was ready to help. Our investment in it accelerated evolution.
Time for Action Just Take the Lead
So stop containing hope—it’s not an option anymore, and we all know it. Start acting! Action means no more asking for permission; it’s about taking responsibility. Stop asking for help to get things done; ask for co-working. Don’t ask for a job; ask to collaborate and build something together.
Let go of the old normal. Unplug from the fear of change and embrace evolution. Ask “what if” and connect with others who bring value to change.
Transform from Citizen to Netizen. Instead of orbiting around factories (our physical jobs), we should learn new skills and add value to the limitless networks of people and entities doing the same.
Embrace immersive technologies. Our future isn’t about accumulating products that gather dust; it’s about experiencing life with people worldwide. Play games, learn, and build worlds that avatars can explore.
Take fashion as an example. Fashion ranks second in waste and pollution after the oil industry, with 85% of textiles discarded annually, causing 10% of global carbon emissions. Investment in “sustainable” fashion is often just new ways to create the same items, misleading customers with a new facade for the same products (in short we sell the same crap in different wrap).
Digital fashion and immersive technologies could change the whole industry, vanishing it from the list of environmental culprits, with 0% waste and only 1.3% of global carbon emissions. Imagine design, produce, sell and distribute with zero environmental and social impact.
Why don’t people see this? Because it disrupts the 50-year establishment the fashion industry has built. Retail stores, buyers, trade fairs, and showrooms as we know them would be obsolete. The era of luxury brands relying on exclusivity is fading. While traditional luxury consumers may value exclusivity, younger generations are moving in a different direction. A new generation of luxury consumers is here, wealthy from crypto, dressing avatars in Dress to Impress in Roblox and Runway in Zepeto, influenced by K-Pop and TikTok. They won’t buy from brands that don’t understand their lives. Harsh but true.
Henry Ford famously understood this. When asked why he didn’t make faster horses, he replied, “What people wanted was less horseshit.” He built an alternative.
Seth Godin says, “To enable the impossible, you have to destroy the perfect.” The perfect is the normality we cling to, it makes us feel comfortable and safe even when it’s no longer sustainable. Instead of letting it destroy us, we need to dismantle it first.
Invest in technology. Today’s technology may be young, but with investment, it will evolve to meet our needs. Talk to real investors not to financial managers of VCs and old fashion organizations.
The change we need is foundational. Sustainability and inclusivity should be our new currency. When investors ask, “What’s the return?” we can say, “You’re helping to heal the planet, creating a place worth living in with the money you invest, rather than dying atop piles of cash. You’re helping build equity and connection rather than fueling an endless race.”
I often say, “You can’t change the status quo, but you can ignore it—and as you ignore it, it fades.” But to make this happen, we need collective action.
Yes, thinking this way may seem crazy. But crazy is good—it’s the new black. It’s what we need to shape future societies. We may be crazy but we are not alone. Millions of us are out there, ready to break down the barriers of stereotype and limitation.
We are netizens, valuable nodes in infinite networks. We are free people.
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