The latest Tim Ferriss podcast features Jane McGonigal. I think it a disservice to label her a futurist (a term I’ve learned to dislike), but through her social game development she predicted something like the current pandemic in 2010.
Last summer I took my grandkids down to one of our water retention ponds so they could try out their remote controlled boat. They returned from wandering in the tall grass with a few ticks. I had not heard from any of the myriad dog owners in the community that there was a tick infestation problem.
The point of this aside—McGonigal pointed to a new ”pandemic” in the making. Some people are becoming severely allergic to animal protein. This could be anything from a hamburger to gelatin—something used for anything from gummy candy to medicine capsules. The allergy can cause hospitalization much like severe nut allergy. Your allergy could be aggravated just through smell, such as hanging out at a barbecue. Alpha-GAL comes from bites from the Lone Star tick. Tick populations and human populations are spreading and intersecting each other. What if enough people become infected to change the entire food supply?
I advise listening to the podcast for all the questions she raises. Questions we can all use to determine how we would react to possible future events. And how we could make things better or even change things for the better beforehand.
I began thinking about manufacturing/production/automation.
What if all users become completely locked in by their current supplier?
What if that supplier goes out of business? Or is acquired with the acquiring company forcing customers to change?
What if the power grid fails?
What if we suddenly need a new power source?
What if geo-politics suddenly destroy the supply chain?
What if you suddenly had to change careers? (I’ve done that at least three times. What about you?)
What if…?
