Future Shock

If acceleration is a new social force, transience is its psychological counterpart,

Today the whole world is a fast-breaking story.

I hope, that, unless man quickly learns to control the rate of change in his personal affairs as well as in society at large, we are doomed to a massive adaptational breakdown.

it is more important to be imaginative and insightful than to be one hundred percent “right.”

Without time, change has no meaning. And without change, time would stop.

In our lifetime the boundaries have burst Today the network of social ties is so tightly woven that the consequences of contemporary events radiate instantaneously around the world.

children who at twelve are no longer childlike; adults who at fifty are children of twelve.

“future shock” to describe the shattering stress and disorientation that we induce in individuals by subjecting them to too much change in too short a time.

Prior to 1500, by the most optimistic estimates, Europe was producing books at a rate of 1000 titles per year. This means, give or take a bit, that it would take a full century to produce a library of 100,000 titles. By 1950, four and a half centuries later, the rate had accelerated so sharply that Europe was producing 120,000 titles a year. What o