OVER THE EDGE, FINALLY
Any “revolution” begins with a first step. I’ve repeatedly posted my opinion that COVID-19 is merely the spark that lit the powder keg of infrastructure problems that account for a significant portion of the financial damage due to the pandemic. I even began posting on how that outdated infrastructure within various sectors like government, transportation, education, health care and others might be advanced so that we don’t continue to suffer at the next pandemic or crisis (and surely there will be another after COVID-19). Today I read an article in NPR News that takes the first, albeit conventional baby step in this direction in regard to business and “offices.”
The idea of the article is to address common root problems with offices that would cause health problems during any future pandemic. The article calls for more collaboration between better trained environmental engineers and public health officials. Essentially, more open ventilation, more sanitizing stations, more spacing considerations.
While an admirable first step, I don’t for a moment believe this will adequately address the “office” infrastructure problem. In essence, I believe the “office” as we experienced it pre-COVID-19 is now extinct, if not for the difficulties in redesign, retrofitting and general move from cities back to distributed, individual, distance, country dispersion. While businesses (including schools, colleges and universities) may retain a “business facade” to promote and maintain the prestigious “big look” of yesteryear, most, if not all actual work will be done outside offices. The infrastructure that’s needed then, is not once of “office space” but socially-relevant communication.
In my book, THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020), education is done via interactive holography where instructors and learners from “home,” interact with each other holographically in a virtual shared “grassy knoll” outdoor classroom. Cities build “above-the-clouds” higher and “beneath the ground-and-ocean” lower to escape the problems of urbanization, freeing up cities to become people instead of automobile friendly. “Roads and highway riparian zones will become citizen-maintained walking and pedaling recreational corridors. Advertising will be less intrusive, “whispering” in passersby’ ears specifically-targeted information on products in which the person is known to have an interest. I could go on and on, but it’s much better, I think, to simply read the book and experience these innovations as if they were already here. That’s the difference between science fiction and what I’m calling SCI-FU — science-based futuring. Even novels (like this innovative one) will become recreational entertainment “mirrors” of what a future world could be, allowing readers to experience them and choose to rework the world’s infrastructure as they need, want and desire.
Available though 30 September 2020 as a Kindle eBook for the special price of $2.99 (regular price $7.95)
The Edge of Madness
The idea of the article is to address common root problems with offices that would cause health problems during any future pandemic. The article calls for more collaboration between better trained environmental engineers and public health officials. Essentially, more open ventilation, more sanitizing stations, more spacing considerations.
While an admirable first step, I don’t for a moment believe this will adequately address the “office” infrastructure problem. In essence, I believe the “office” as we experienced it pre-COVID-19 is now extinct, if not for the difficulties in redesign, retrofitting and general move from cities back to distributed, individual, distance, country dispersion. While businesses (including schools, colleges and universities) may retain a “business facade” to promote and maintain the prestigious “big look” of yesteryear, most, if not all actual work will be done outside offices. The infrastructure that’s needed then, is not once of “office space” but socially-relevant communication.
In my book, THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020), education is done via interactive holography where instructors and learners from “home,” interact with each other holographically in a virtual shared “grassy knoll” outdoor classroom. Cities build “above-the-clouds” higher and “beneath the ground-and-ocean” lower to escape the problems of urbanization, freeing up cities to become people instead of automobile friendly. “Roads and highway riparian zones will become citizen-maintained walking and pedaling recreational corridors. Advertising will be less intrusive, “whispering” in passersby’ ears specifically-targeted information on products in which the person is known to have an interest. I could go on and on, but it’s much better, I think, to simply read the book and experience these innovations as if they were already here. That’s the difference between science fiction and what I’m calling SCI-FU — science-based futuring. Even novels (like this innovative one) will become recreational entertainment “mirrors” of what a future world could be, allowing readers to experience them and choose to rework the world’s infrastructure as they need, want and desire.
Available though 30 September 2020 as a Kindle eBook for the special price of $2.99 (regular price $7.95)
The Edge of Madness
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