Science Fiction, Fintech and Your Future II
In January 2018 I wrote about Science Fiction, Fintech and Your Future and would like to as all good sci-fi is want to do, follow up with a sequel (thank you Back to the Future II, The Empire Strikes Back and so forth…)
Prescience was the theme of the day, the ability to know (and prepare?) the future. How appropriate then when I came across the Ted-Ed talk: The “End of History” Illusion – Bence Nanay
Working in financial planning, it is all about planning for the future; you point to your goals and objectives like owning your own home, retiring comfortably, protecting all your hard-earned assets and then you make a financial plan to see it come true, simple right? Let us see some of the points from the video:
- “Time and time again, we’ve failed to predict that the technologies of the present will change the future.”
- When comparing what participants said when asked about how much they think they will change versus actual changes that happened, estimates always came up short (for example most thought they would enjoy the same foods, have the same friends but preferences changed, and people drifted apart)
- Older people changed less but they still underestimated total change
- This leads to people over-investing in the present even if the future is not certain
- This factor is usually both a cause for comfort a much as it is for cause concern
So, in essence, we cannot know everything about the future, in fact what we think we know best (ourselves) we often underestimate how much that will change. Knowing this, would you leave your financial plans alone and not check in with a Financial Planner every now and then?