Society

First Take

My advice: look forward to next Saturday but hold the frenzy. And approach the future with both hope and humility.

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First Take
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In the early ‘50s, the renowned British philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote after a visit to the Soviet Union, "I have seen the future-and it works." Even in his lifetime that prophetic vision was turning into a barbaric nightmare.

As Planet Earth readies for not just a new year but for a new millennium, sage, breathless and confident voices predict the birth of a dazzling era. Technology, scientific discovery, ingenuity, the computer, particularly the computer, will change existence in a way Galileo, Fleming, Caxton could never have imagined. A defining moment in the evolution of the species has been reached. Things, as the cliche goes, will never be the same again.

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We have, no doubt, caught a glimpse of the brave, new world which beckons mankind. But for some, along with the excitement, mystery, expectation and sense of wondrous things possible, lurks a degree of terror and confusion. Have we been here before? Has not every new century, not to mention millennium, promised to reorganise and reinvent the human condition? Is the Internet as momentous an invention as sliced bread?

Prodding the scientists and futurologists to more extravagant claims is a huge industry made up of businessmen, fly-by-night entrepreneurs and transparent con-men who have a vested interest in hyping up the 21st century. There is money to be made in the future. The bigger the hype, the bigger the profits.

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Middle-of-the-roaders like your reporter who till yesterday swore by the logic of C.P. Snow’s Two Cultures are naturally hesitant and sceptical. Perhaps they are destined to be left behind, they will miss the Great Party where the weekend holiday option involves choosing between Mars and Mussoorie. He would be a brave, indeed foolish, person who makes bold to suggest that our lives will certainly change but, perhaps, not at the breakneck speed envisaged by ‘specialists’ as disparate as Time magazine and Murli Manohar Joshi. That kind of blasphemy, in the eyes of the future peddlers, deserve nothing less than the firing squad.

Take e-commerce which, one understands, is poised to revolutionise our buying mode. Places selling goods, we are engagingly told, will become obsolete as more and more reach for their personal computer to purchase everything from cars to clothes. Personally, I doubt whether e-com is such a hot idea. For instance, if I want to buy a coat, I want to get inside a shop, I want to physically see the design, cut, styling, colour; I want to feel the fabric with my fingers, I want to try it on and see how it looks. Can I access this experience on my PC?

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My advice: look forward to next Saturday but hold the frenzy. And approach the future with both hope and humility.

It has taken Outlook over three months to assemble this Millennium Double issue. We pay obeisance to the next one thousand years with the help of Abdul Kalam, Arthur C. Clarke, Rajat Gupta, Noam Chomsky and a galaxy of other distinguished names. Our purpose is to celebrate, project, examine, analyse, amplify, explain how our lives will change (for better or for worse) beginning January 1, 2000.

For a mere ten rupees that’s a millennium bargain!

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We wish our readers a Happy New Year. We take a week’s break and will be back with the issue dated January 17, 2000

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