I love sci-fi, yes, it is almost cool to admit it these days and I have to say for credibility sake that I love it all from Star Wars to Star Trek and everything in-between.
The reason I love sci-fi is that, in amongst all the cool future technology, action and jaw dropping visuals is a truly human story. It is a story of themes that have been with us since the beginning: it is our base emotions, our hopes, our dreams and our fears. I have always been fascinated by the peculiar theme of prescience. Prescience (the etymology is literally PRE-Science) is knowing something beforehand.
Picture this: Luke Skywalker in the “The Empire Strikes Back” is training with Yoda, tapping into “the Force” to move stones around.
Yoda: ““Through the Force, things you will see. Other places. The future…the past. Old friends long gone.”
That is when Luke sees his friends in danger: Darth Vader has them hostage in the city of clouds! Imagine a power such as that, in this case it is hard to know whether it is a good thing or a bad thing as it is Luke’s fate to confront Darth Vader and learn the terrible truth about his father.
Now picture this from my all-time favourite sci-fi novel “Dune” by Frank Herbert. Paul “Muad’Dib” Atreides, the protagonist of the story culminates into the transformation as the prophesised “Kwisatz Haderach”, meaning “one who shortens the way”. The spice of Dune makes him super-human, he can see where no one else can and you can see him change, he is resigned to his fate: his fate to carve a terrible jihad across the galaxy changing the destiny of humanity.
Paul ponders: “Prophecy and prescience … how much is the prophet shaping the future to fit the prophecy? What of the harmonics inherent in the act of prophecy? Does the prophet see the future or does he see a line of weakness, a fault or cleavage that he may shatter with words or decisions as a diamond-cutter shatters his gem with a blow of a knife?”
Do you notice the theme here? Its sci-fi but the ability of prescience is innately human driven, it is emotional, the stakes are high and sometimes you wish you did not know what you know.
So how about fintech? We love talking about the future, as that is what good financial planning is and more and more so, it is technology driven. We can tell you how your future looks by projecting your investments forward though we always give you the caveat that the past is a poor predictor of the future. Why? Because we are not prophets, nor is fintech going to make us prophets, what we are is human, and much like prescience in sci-fi there is emotion, hopes and fears. Luke Skywalker failed even though he saw the future; Paul Atreides failed because he did not know if he was in control of his actions any more than if he knew what was going to happen anyway.
Knowing the future does not prepare you for it, you still need that guidance and preparation, we need our Yoda’s.
I will leave you with an interaction between Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Luke: “But I can help them! I feel the Force.”
Obi-Wan: “But you cannot control it. This is a dangerous time for you…”