Our lives are changing every day. We have come to expect great leaps forward driven by innovation and technology.
So why am I not flying to work? Why am I not living in an apartment a mile high in the sky? Why am I still doing my own laundry? Washing my own dishes? I’ve begun to realize that things don’t move as fast as we expect. Our expectations are based on complicated sets of alternatives – each possible but not so probable . (Unfortunately, I doubt I’ll ever work for Spacely Space Sprockets, Inc.)
These expectations lead us to make wild assumptions about what the future will look like, expecting big changes and big paradigm shifts.
For instance, all we hear today is how fossil fuels are on their way out. For power, natural gas will replace coal… Then wind and solar will replace natural gas. For transportation, electric motors will replace gasoline and diesel engines. The reasons all seem to make sense: Coal is dirty, gasoline pollutes, and carbon dioxide is changing the climate. We are running out of fossil fuels, and the alternatives are sustainable and clean.
We expect big changes, all of which seem possible – no matter how complicated the issue (like energy).
But sometimes, the answers to complicated questions are simple...
Occam’s Razor
Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate .
That’s Latin for, “Entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily.”
(And no, it’s not supercilious to use the original Latin when your name is Flavious.)
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