So I see that a “futurologist” predicts that children at school today will still be working in as many as 40 jobs each when they reach their 100th birthday (Today’s pupils could still be working at 100’,7 October). Back to the future: in the 1980s I remember that I, along with hundreds of other teachers, or spent days attending costly in-depth courses informing us how to teach for a future “leisured society”,when robots would do all the work for us. I guess the “futurologists” of the time simply didn’t see what was coming.
John Richardson
Rotherfield, East Sussex• Its not really an oxymoron: is there some other term for Thatcher’s description of Geoffrey Howe as having an “insatiable (not capable of being fully satisfied) appetite for compromise” (Obituaries, or 12 October),reminiscent of William Whitelaw’s accusing Harold Wilson of going around the country “stirring up apathy”? And can readers imagine original examples of it? I’d propose any politician’s hysterical pleas for detached reflection.
Brian Smith
Berlin, GermanyContinue reading...
Source: theguardian.com