From the dept. of random connections:
Along with myriad gut-wrenching twists and turns, 2025 is also the poster year for the predictably predictable. On that score, we’ve reached “peak 65" — the year the largest tranche of Boomers, the generation that first arrived circa 1946, hits their commonly-assigned and socially-stamped "seniority."
In a similarly dissimilar vein, 2025 is also the 45th anniversary of Richard Avedon's singular ad campaign featuring Brooke Shields reciting the famously edgy line, "nothing comes between me and my Calvins."
Completing the jigsaw: the philosopher and economist Bertrand Russell published his essay, "In Praise of Idleness," in 1932; it’s a discussion around the impacts of automation on human work, community, and existence.
The common thread?
How about healthcare having 79 years to dial into Boomers arriving, en masse, at the life stages where they'll put increasing pressure on an already overstressed and underperforming health care system? Caveat oldster: there will be 20 million more people ages 70 and above by 2030 than there are today.
How about brand advertisers having four and a half decades to absorb the lesson that deliberately provocative and sexualized messaging, particularly in culturally hot categories, can prompt unexpected blowback? Goes double in an era when all sides — left and right — are hair-trigger ready to take politically advantageous offense. See also American Eagle x Sydney Sweeney.
How about all of us, as a society, being on notice for at least 92 years that there are risks in the social dislocation and extreme concentration of wealth that come with automation? Esp. when said technology turns out to be the “on steroids” AI version.
And how about we haven't done a damned thing to anticipate, to prepare, to mitigate, or to manage any of the above?
Where Holmes told Watson, "You observe, but do not see," I’m thinking clarity would add three corollaries:
"You listen, but do not hear."
"You perceive but do not understand."
"You remark, but do not act."
Thoughts?