What I Got Right in 2007 — My George Mason Graduate School Commencement Address

yes for our parents generation the future is this place that looked nothing like reality a world delivered Utopia by scientific Marvels I speak with members of the baby boom generation and many of them are disappointed that the future has not fulfilled its promise I get things like hey you Mr futurist Mr future man where’s my rocket pack you’re a little angry about this but do you know what the future is it’s not flying cars and it’s not rocket packs and it’s not meals of Hill the future is about aging populations clean water and coal the future is in learning to provide Health to our citizens without going bankrupt in making ecological , 6 secondssustainability profitable for industry in healing the burgeoning rich poor Gap around the world managing Global , 13 secondseconomies preparing for disruptive Technologies and no small task creating peace on Earth and you thought your , 20 secondsdissertations were a lot of work so what else can we create a lot of this is going to revolve around Health getting , 28 secondsolder ultimately involves certain amount of creaky knes and failing outside medical technology has given us thousands of ways to extend life but it , 36 secondsdoesn’t necessarily improve it what about ways to age with Grace and wisdom we put a considerable portion of our , 45 secondsHealthcare resources into the very end of life when Machinery can sometimes take the place of humanity the challenge , 52 secondsahead also lies to learn as a culture how to die with dignity sure we will need sence and medicine but it is also , 1 secondour Explorations the humanities the social sciences The Art of Living that will help us create a better future for , 13 secondsaging which is a good segue into our next challenge another minor task we’ve got ahead of us uh we need to figure out , 20 secondshow to make people healthy young and old poor and rich in the 21st century one of our main challenges will be to create , 28 secondsHealth not healthare not pay for prescription drugs and surgery but actually help people to be healthy many forecasts around the future , 36 secondsof Health suggest something here is out of balance diabetes heart disease chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder these lifestyle diseases are increasing , 44 secondsin prevalence all throughout the developed World despite our trillions of dollars a year in expenditure so what are our plans for , 52 secondsthe future billions in pharmaceutical research unlocking the human genome absolutely no question forging forth to the New Frontiers of science will play a role but there’s something more I recently shared a panel on the future of biotechnology and Healthcare at the bio , 9 secondsit Coalition and you think the topic of discussion would have been all about nanoscale surgery devices automatically unclogging the the Kentucky Fried , 18 secondsChicken from your arteries or maybe pharmacog genomically designed drugs that work perfect for you the first time with minimal side effects , 27 secondsbut between a cancer researcher pediat olist a cardiac surgeon and a healthare policy expert you know what got , 34 secondsdiscussed a system to take Grandma to the hospital and make sure she gets decent meals making sure that planed , 42 secondscommunities involve sidewalks so people can walk their dogs for the first time data has shown that areas without side without sidewalks have a higher , 51 secondsprevalence of diabetes we talk about making sure that doctors can transmit patient data wherever it’s needed without having to remember 14 different passwords on , 59 secondssystems want more examples uh Goldman Sachs the money guys up in Wall Street they say it’s a bad investment to put money into a company that doesn’t have a , 8 secondsplan to mitigate global climate change this is not the college environmental Union this is the Gordon Deco greed is , 16 secondsgood you can never have enough Yachts to water SK behind CRA this movement this new movement is not about everybody acting like Saints , 24 secondsit’s about a system that rewards the harmonization of Industry within ecological limits lots of companies are taking their , 31 secondsenvironmental product offerings from being just Public Relation stunts or what they call greenwashing to actually being the profit drivers of The Next , 39 secondsCentury here’s here’s another data point Japan uh you know crowded lots of concrete huge skycrapers bad pop music , 47 secondsthousands of factories they get twice as much Energy Efficiency per cap as the US and that’s , 56 secondsnot because they all live in TVs and and ands and all the time to take the bike to work that’s the , 4 secondsNetherlands but because they design their systems to conserve energy you see they don’t have a Taxas in Japan with , 12 secondsits own oil so they value conservation out of a sense of self-preservation because their values lead their technology they’re getting , 21 secondsmore business and cash and goods and services out of the same fossil Fields so to sum up tonight just like to , 30 secondstalk for a minute about about our generation do you know who we are they call us Generation X some of us I call , 38 secondsus generation fix you and I are getting ready to inherit the most complex global economy , 45 secondsin human history and guess what it’s kind of a fixer up opportunity put in old gran countertop , 54 secondsre Backle the system needs a bit of work done whether creating a world where you can age gracefully where our communities , 3 secondssupport Health where the really big money is made through repairing ecological damage we have ample , 10 secondsopportunities to apply our creativity we are going to fix things and we’re going to make them better , 17 secondsthrough the Art and Science of living there are lessons that we can learn from the past but no analog from history that , 25 secondswill tell us the right thing to do now there are there are th uh well I’d like to leave you with a quote from the , 33 secondsfellow futures of mine John John M Richardson actually teaches up at ameran University who tells us when it comes to the Future there are three kinds of , 41 secondspeople those who let it happen those who make it happen and those who wonder what , 50 secondshappened and that’s why the story needs you needs leaders like you who have continued your studies in depth so that , 58 secondsyou can share your master with the world I’m I’m honored to be a member of your generation and I look forward to the , 5 secondsworld that you’re going to go and create thank you very much for having me tonight I really appreciate it