Want to glimpse a exhibit of futurism worthy of Epcot Center? Take a trip to your local supermarket :
We are living in the future and we find it boring. The best place to gather evidence for this claim is the supermarket. To begin with, try and have a fresh look at the word: Supermarket , it is such an utterly futuristic word, yet we use it mindlessly. If only the supermarket wasn’t such a mundane part of our life, we would realize how exceptional this environment really is.As an experiment, imagine we would take a caveman – the hunter-gatherer type that lived 40.000 years ago – and put him in a time machine with the final destination: the supermarket around the corner of the street where you live. Surely our friend the cavemen would be astonished after opening the capsule.
Overwhelmed by the hi-res environment of saturated colors he would likely assume he was no longer on Earth. The vast majority of objects in the shop would not make sense whatsoever. Body lotion? Shaving cream? Washing powder? No thank you. Except for the fruit department – which is merely stunning by its huge variety – the majority of the food products would not even be recognized as food. Coke bottles? Cereals? Toast? Milk from carton packages? Powdered soup? Sausages? All mysteries.
While I have you, can I ask you something? I’ll be quick.
Twenty-five thousand people subscribe to First Things. Why can’t that be fifty thousand? Three million people read First Things online like you are right now. Why can’t that be four million?
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