What happens next? New book points the way

It is always risky to predict the future, as it is so easy to be proven wrong, once that future arrives. It’s not often, though, that a writer hopes to be proven wrong.

In his new book, Future Thinking 2024-2025, Jean-Pierre Murray-Kline harbours just that hope. He says that, because a lot of his scenarios often have unpleasant outcomes, he is happy if they don’t transpire. However, he has no uncertainty about the influences he believes will set the trajectory of business and our society in the coming months.

“Every influence that follows is a certainty,” he writes. “None of them have an equal or greater opposing force, therefore their trajectory will remain on path.”

Murray-Kline’s number one concern is climate change or global warming.

“It is of a magnitude few can fathom. Our homes, offices and communities all need to play a part in mitigating this epic threat to life as we know it. Education and action within the next few (very few) years is imperative. Failure to do so will leave our children and their children resenting our generation more than all the cumulative hate of every previous war, plus slavery, plus all the racism that’s happened in our collective history. I am not being dramatic. That is how bad it can become.”

After climate change, his biggest concerns are cybercrime and e-safety.

_{Jean-Pierre Murray-Kline, author of ‘Future Thinking’}

“Today, there are over 4.8-billion people connected to the internet. Balancing access to the ‘e-world’ and all its benefits with e-rights and e-privacy is an ambitious objective, and if not done correctly, poses tremendous risk of digital inequality and abuse. This particular affair is unravelling right now, and few have the slightest idea about who is actually controlling our e-selves.”

The other influences, or trends, Muray-Kline outlines, include:

• Global fear, ignorance and absurdity, or “Sheepism” and herd mentality
• “The war for resources, energy, security, water, food, technology and economic and political dominance is on the horizon. Not even education will be spared, and it will become a casualty…  One thing is for certain, it will also be fought digitally. The web has been weaponised.”
• “The IoT, i4.0, gadgets, the metaverse, an unprecedented boom in everything ‘e-’ that manages interaction, information and computation… The i-revolution will happen simultaneously with trends like automation, a massive shift in the job market, fundamental changes to decades old methods of retail, trade, commercial practices and marketing techniques.”
• Africa has the greatest untapped potential and, as investments arrive on local soil, we will see a hastened improvement in infrastructure and employment. “Unfortunately, acceleration is far less important than momentum for an economy… Africa needs to maintain its own momentum, and this requires local leadership that understands re-investment and how to control the conditions of trade to favour longterm wealth over a quick buck.”
• “The ‘great migration’ and emigration will be egged on in part by climate change and extreme weather forces, but also trends like urbanisation and automation.”
• “Hungry and thirsty people will run into the hundreds of millions. Domestic price pressures, climate change, global food security concerns, agricultural shock (caused by geopolitical conflicts), high prices for farm inputs (especially fuel and fertilisers), are all red flags to keep an eye on.”
• “Around 41% of Africans (570-million) are online, and like the rest of the world, we need to learn good e-behaviour. Good e-behaviour is something that needs to be prioritised at the office, home and in schools, because the ramifications of how we conduct ourselves online are far reaching. Fake news and those who share it pose a gigantic problem, but they are only the tip of a mammoth iceberg. The implementation and uptake of big data tech, AI, e-privacy and the rolling out of e-law regulations, blockchain, and many other things most of us have never heard … will all put Africans at a handicap because just about every one of these things are controlled from outside our continent, with little to no regard for our social, cultural or political circumstances.”

It’s not all doom and more doom, though.

Murray-Kline says that, with so much change just around the corner, we should “not meet it with fear, but rather reasonable excitement, and a lot of respect”.

“In the next few years, we will be able to track carbon footprints almost in real time, see a shift to cleaner fuels like hydrogen, and energies like solar and hydro, and experience a huge change to retail and manufacturing.”

He urges individuals to take responsibility for the issues that are within their control.

“Each and every one of us needs to identify influences at our home, at our business and in our community that threaten the ethical and sustainable compass of our society. Don’t ignore them. Pick one. Propose a solution and lead by example. That is what being a Future Thinker is all about.”

That line encapsulates the true value of the book: it is not about an armchair critic spouting gloom, but rather a call to action to rescue us from an uncertain future.

• Future Thinkling 2024-2025, by Jean-Pierre Murray-Kline (Obsidian Worlds Publishing), can be purchased at https://www.jeanpierremurraykline.co.za/shop/