Just what is normal? 150 years ago transportation meant a horse, education excluded women, lawns (a new idea) were maintained by homeowners, and we had very few and rather small cities. All that changed in the 21st century. We all find ourselves saying or thinking, “He did what? That just ain’t normal!”But you’re probably thinking about what WAS normal, not what IS normal. In the rapidly evolving 21st century “normal” keeps changing. What is normal? Let’s take a look…
Everything is done by… someone else: A century ago America had traditional homes with traditional families. Mom cleaned the house, mended clothes, and put dinner on the table. Dad mowed the lawn, fixed the house, and drove the family around. Now, these tasks are handled by… someone else. Take-out replaced dinner at home. Homes and cars are too technically sophisticated for Dad or Mom to fix things that break. Even if they had the tools. Computers, air conditioners, and other home equipment require a repairman. Or we just throw out our broken (or maybe just obsolete) stuff. Mow the lawn? Most families hire a service to do yard work. Today’s “normal” is to outsource the America home!
It’s a small world: Since 1900, America’s population grew from 76 to 325 million. Similarly, global population will grow from 7.7 billion today to 11 billion in 2100. Yet, 25 nations have zero population growth or are in decline, and by 2100 most nations will be in decline. This decline results from families having less than 2 children. By 2100 America’s population will grow to 400 million… due to IMMIGRATION! If immigration rates fall, our low birthrate will immediately result in a falling population.
Population decline is a universal feature of developed nations. Poor and undeveloped nations have many children because few live to adulthood. Developed nations have better medicine, so more citizens live to older ages. Fewer young adults mean fewer families that can have children. Young, wealthy, and educated families have access to birth control and choose 2 or fewer children. In America it was “normal” in 1960 for families to have 3.6 children… twice today’s birth rate. Other nations with declining birth rates and limited immigration have declining population. That’s a big problem because there aren’t enough young workers to care for their aging citizens. More on that in just a bit!
Bright lights, big city: Another big change is that population has drained out of little towns and counties and moved into cities. Big Cities have more of the “stuff” we depend on to run our lives. Cities are also where we find highly paid jobs! With everything is just a few blocks away, life is more convenient. By concentrating the population, car services, dry cleaning, restaurants, mass transit, sports, and everything else you may want can be provided more efficiently. That’s why Kosher Italian restaurants, Off-Off Broadway plays, and a host of other niche businesses can thrive in a city but would fail in a small town. Hey, why not move to the Big City?
Robots: Yeah, robots. And artificial intelligence. Robots and computers have been around for decades, but they didn’t look like the ones in science fiction. They were primitive and very limited. In the 21st century, computers (and robots, and AI) are more advanced. Machines can talk and see and are learning to think. Robots are moving out of factories and into our lives. They probably won’t look like some guy wrapped in aluminum foil. Instead, they will look like your car. Or your vacuum cleaner.
“Normal”, before the ATM, meant you could only access your money from 9 AM to 3 PM, Monday through Friday. Robot bankers have already been joined by robot kiosks in supermarkets, big box stores, and restaurants…. including McDonald’s! Robots will replace very large numbers of workers, and quickly too. But it’s not all bad. AI’s in medicine will add years (if not decades) to our lives. IBM’s WATSON has cured cancer patients that stumped merely human doctors. Robot cars will prevent traffic accidents and save the lives of 35,000 American’s every year (and another 1 million plus who are injured). Jobs may be hard to find, but a world ruled by robots might not be so bad!
Employment VS Work: If robots take over, what will people do? What do you do when you’re not working? Take care of the family, help your kids with homework, go back to school for a degree, learn to play the guitar, walk your dog… basically all of the things that we do today. Or would do, if you had the time. As for income, there is something called UBI or Universal Basic Income. The governement will pay everyone a basic stipend, as a right of citizenship. If that doesn’t sound like an “American” solution, you may not know that most Americans today already receive money from the governement.
Social security, Medicaid/Medicare, unemployment, food stamps, agricultural subsidies, free or subsidized schools, guaranteed student loans… the list goes on and on. Recipients of government programs often believe that “their” programs are different, or they just get back the money they paid in. In reality, these programs pay you more than you put in. They redistribute wealth. Just like the UBI. As our population ages, we will need new workers to pay taxes to fund these benefits. Either we need more immigration or faster transition to robots. Which will be the new normal?
An electrifying future: The 20th century was the age of steel and oil. The 21st century is becoming the age of renewable power and electric vehicles. Most developed nations have committed to a ban on gasoline and diesel vehicles by 2040, and car manufacturers will retire petroleum powered vehicles by 2030 (0r sooner). Also, the traditional sedan will disappear. SUV’s and pickups have become the most common type of new vehicles.
Cars won’t just be electric, they will be self-driving, and this will revolutionize transportation. Computers DON’T don’t get distracted (or angry) and DO communicate with each other. Car accidents will go virtually disappear. Without accidents, car insurance, car repair, hospital emergency rooms, tens of thousands of lawyers, hundreds of thousands of lawsuits… will all go away.
Groundhog day: Waterfront property is usually the most desirable, and expensive. Climate change, however, is making these areas very problematic as storm after storm destroys waterfront communities. In 2017 Houston flooded, Peurto Rico flooded, Tampa flooded (narrowly avoiding even worse damage). This happens every year, yet houses keep being built in these flood zones. Because flood insurance is federally subsidized, this annual craziness of flooded houses, rebuilding, and flooding again has become the new normal for far too many property owners.
Subsidy funding would have ended by September 2018, but Congress quietly reauthorized it for another 4 months to avoid any political consequences in the coming elections. If the subsidy is killed, the future of some of America’s largest cities (especially in Florida, Texas, and California).
Fakeness: “Fake” is the new “real” in 2018. President Trump’s Administration didn’t create the term “fake news” but they did more than anyone else before in America to popularize the term. And the practice. They didn’t just point to news they don’t like and declare it was fake, they introduced “alternative facts”, ignored Russian election tampering, and just made up facts. The mainstream media has created untrue stories and frequently exaggerates stories, but America has entered a new age of “opinions as facts”. If we wish hard enough, our beliefs become facts… at least on Facebook!
But more than news is fake. That great deal on an iPhone may be because it is a fake! Food is fake. Half of the fish is sushi restaurants is a different (cheaper) fish than what you ordered. Even real food is fake.. or fake-ish. Is genetically modified food fake? How many preservatives, fillers, and chemicals are in your hot dogs? Has Captain Crunch lied to us all these years and a bowl of sugar is NOT a part of your complete balanced breakfast? Consumers are in revolt and want natural products. The new normal is to label everything “pure”, “natural”, and without “additives”. It has also become normal to not believe what we read on labels.
Plasticity: Plastic used to mean “artificial” or fake. Now the world is drowning in plastic. A new “vegan leather” jacket is really… plastic. There is so much plastic waste plastic can be detected in our food and water. There is more plastic than fish in the oceans. Still, there has been some progress, and a number of rivers are visibly cleaner than in the late 20th century. However, for the last 30 years, America and Europe have sold plastic waste to China, where it is recycled as packing.
However, in early 2018 China put new standards in place for imported plastic recyclables and only a fraction of our trash can meet this standard. Trash is piling up around America. Without Chinese payments, America’s $100 billion recycling industry will collapse. If your trash cannot be sold, municipal recycling programs will shut down. Of course, we could all ask President Trump to increase funding for the Environmental Protection Agency to fix the problem. Oh, yeah. I forgot. If Trump is part of the new normal, the EPA may not have much time left.
Immortality: Since 1900, life expectancies have grown from 47 to 78 years. That’s nearly a whole extra life. But that’s just the beginning. Bible thumpers often point to the story of Lazarus as the only time a human being has been brought back from the dead. They usually forget about the tens of thousands who die and are brought back to life in hospitals, and sometimes on the streets of America when a paramedic uses electric paddles to restart someone’s heart.
Of course, some dismiss these examples as “not quite dead enough.” Fair enough. What about the 2,000 heart transplants performed very year in America? Here, your heart is stopped and then… RIPPED OUT OF YOUR CHEST! Then, your new heart is placed into the gaping hole in your chest. Is that dead enough for you? Yet virtually every heart transplant patient lives (lives again?) to go home. No wonder zombies are so hot in media today… deep in our hearts, we’ve always known that great-grampa is a zombie!
Things are a-changing! In America and around the world, 20th century normal doesn’t mean much anymore. All of our current day weirdness is becoming the 21st-century norm. And if you think we’ve become strange, just think about what normal will look like in the 22nd century!