In the last half of the twentieth century many of the major social, political and cultural trends in the United States started in California.  The worship of the car and the surrounding car culture, the glorification of suburbia via sitcoms, surfing, music, the drug and counter-culture,  free speech and student protest, progressive public higher education, the Silicon Valley explosion of technological innovation, and of course, right turn on red.  Later the negative issues of traffic gridlock, illegal immigration, brown outs and state budget deficits started first in California.  Now, on one of the most fundamentally important issues of the day …

As a futurist I spend a lot of time looking for patterns — pattern recognition — and forces that may develop into trends.  This is just the way I look at the world, trying to connect the dots into patterns and directions that suggest the future.  However, in some cases it doesn’t take a futurist to spot linkage between certain developments.  Let me take you back a few days to a walk on the beach.

I was in Sarasota, Florida to take care of some stuff regarding  my condo and to do a lot of writing and reading.  As I always …