2040: The Future I Want to Live, Work & Play In

Singapore’s 75th National day just passed again.

You awake, celebrating your country’s renewed year of independence. You stop to think for a bit: "What does national independence really mean in today’s decentralised world?"

Over the last two decades, the world has gone through such an upheaval of cultural, and economical beliefs.

From a Global Economy which relied heavily on capitalism and globalisation as a reform of democracy and free trade, to a regionalised level of protectionism with the Europe, China and US regions squabbling for localised forms of their own versions of globalisation.

In recent years where people have become sick of those walls and barriers, they have transitioned to that of decentralised power, equity and stakeholders which put the interests of individuals over the nation, and the state.

“People are finally making decisions for themselves, not relying on some greater power to make decisions for them”

You thought to yourself, as the words scribbled over the top part of your field of vision started noting down in a split second.

You hit the ‘save’ button using a moment of focus, which interacts with your memory bank which stores the latest thoughts, musings of the day so you can revisit over thousands of thoughts which float for brevity across your headspace.

A push notification came into the field of vision which stated how the latest version of the brain computer interface tool you just bought last weekend had updated, needless to say, while you were sleeping.

The numbers in the global currency market flashed across in you headspace.

You opened your memory bank and winced over at the dashboard for my points, numbers which stated how your assets - investments, savings, spending and liabilities were doing.

Indeed, last night’s dinner at the nicest restaurant in town didn’t do too well for your global currency credit.

The kids are awake, fresh from the latest vitamins which were induced overnight using fresh bio-scents providing the best of sleep, an accomplished mix of Melatonin and Serotonin.

They were after all recommended by a community of bio-hacking enthusiasts on decentralised social networks, who have shown that this mix does provide a stronger immune response, and level of alertness as the world goes through another series of viruses and bio-hazards which has been a key focus for the world to collectively repair after a multi-year decline.

They proceed to the front door, while drinking a mix of organic protein grown in the lab.

You pause to chuckle at the word ‘organic’ as this word does not really mean anything anymore in today’s world, when everything seems to be grown in a lab.

It has become the norm in the last 5 years when heavy investment in making the world a greener place has somehow also meant that humans started to subsist on self made creations.

The self-driving electric vehicle hums along to the front porch, with that familiar sound of a battery run front-wheel axle.

You sheperon them into their seats, as you marvel at the level in which you entrust them to the lives of some remote decentralised software algorithm which brings them to a learning hub to begin their day of learning different communication languages, and decision-making life skills.

The education world has gone beyond the fundamentals of physics, mathematics, chemistry and science.

Decentralised education communities have recently put out whitepapers and reforms around how the future of work is focused around purely decision making, where data is presented in front of individuals using a multitude of decisioning models.

Humans are paid to make decisions.

All the human has to do is to focus on making the decision with the varying sets of probabilities and outcomes in front of them. And live by the responsibility of those decisions. Think of it as a decision making premium.

Nothing else in the earlier parts of the information gathering process really matters anymore, where either it has been automated or gotten rid of in view of efficiency maximalism.

You strap yourself into your ergonomic working arrangement in a work room where you find your spouse also engaging in her work. You sit down with a freshly brewed organic and ethically sourced coffee, the only thing that was reminiscent of the good old days.

You are working 4 jobs which you take on, each for 2 hours of the day.

Hence, your workday is no longer constrained to just one job, instead it’s project based, supporting and contributing to communities in which you believe the mission aligns with your own. Stakeholder maps flash up in your headspace, as you engage in quick 5-minute decision making calls, with other humans, sometimes algorithms which already make decisions for you to simply hit ‘commit’.

By evening, you’d realise that it has been at the end of the day and being in a state of flow. You simply only had time to ingest two cups of carefully balanced protein meals. Oh yes, the bio-hacking communities have also suggested that humans need not have 3 meals a day anymore, so it created a movement to just focus on two key meals. Consumer spending has not gone down, but instead shifted from lower cost meals, to higher nutrient based meals which also meant more credits to be spent.

The rally against the 1% who skew the GINI coeifficient.

You receive the kids at the learning hub and they share with you that the lessons they learnt was about how the global world order was, and the failure of the old economic model which resulted in one of the worst divides between the have and the have-nots, one of the largest GINI coefficients the world has ever experienced in the mid 2020s.

And most importantly, how all those had unraveled at the push of decentralised communities coming together to rally against the 1% in peaceful, more equitable, mission driven approaches.

You step outside to breathe the natural air of the Swiss alps.

And turn around to see the neon lights which attempt to bring back the familiar feeling of colloquial Singlish verbs thrown around.

Singapore truly looks so different today. It’s no longer an island-state, it’s more like a state of mind of beliefs and culture.

You wake up in the Metaverse.