why do people say the "future is now"? Isn't that technically wrong?

Question

why do people say the "future is now"? Isn't that technically wrong?

Answer 1

They're referring to a future that was imagined in the past that is happening today. The dreams of the present taking place today. The future is now.



Or, it's a saying that is meant to motivate. Someone might say "I can do that sometime in the future" to which someone might respond "...why wait? The future is now."



Technically, there is only a present. The past did exist and the future will exist, but only the present exists.

Answer 2

The Future Is Now Quote

Answer 3

The philosophical implications aside, the phrase itself, "the future is now", picked up a lot of cultural currency in the early 1970s as part of a Metropolitan Life Insurance Company ad campaign. Though I can't find any internet traces of it, there was a well-received commercial that showed the life and business progression of two brothers using static photos as they went from boyhood entrepreneurs to grocery store owners to large company store owners. In the background, the jingle played (sung by a large chorus of voices) which went along the lines of "We're helping more than 40 million people, more than 40 million people, who know the future is now. At metropolitan Life..." and so on. The future is now tag lived on in some of the Peanuts commercials as well although I don't know if it still a part of the pitch. Also, about the time of the original commercial (1972 or 73), then coach of the Washington Redskins, George Allen made a tagline of the phrase also for his team by trading away future draft choices for veteran players in order to become competitive for the Super Bowl. this led to Washington's first appearance there in what I believe was January 1973. The phrase may well have been in the air prior to this time but I can vouch for this much.

Answer 4

Technically speaking yes. The future can be a minute from now or even a second from now, but the present is this very moment. Just as the past is just a minute or a second ago.



But I have heard the phrase "the future is now." I just honestly haven't had the ambition to try to figure out what it means. Maybe you could think about what it means to you in your opinion.

Answer 5

To a younger person it's technically wrong. To an older person, we are living in the future now. I remember when we thought there would be flying cars in the skies everywhere by 2010. For years we imagined what this time would be like, and we got used to viewing this time as the future. Now we are living in it, the future is now.

Answer 6

I think it can mean two things:



"Today is the Tomorrow you were thinking about Yesterday." So, what used to seem like the future is always happening now. So don't worry about the future it's coming very fast, seize hold of right now.



or



What you doing now affects the future. So, for example, littering today, creates huge dirty landfills in the future. So what you choose today changes your future.



It seems rather contradictory, but think about how the person is saying it, and what they are talking about and it might give you a clue about which meaning they are using

Answer 7

I believe it began as an art statement for the Avant-garde: the future is perceivable like a work of art, In the now, Of the now, For the now, a kind of statement about the futility of the future, it is actually more real for the future to exist now, as though Now is the self, and Future is a work of art in the middle of the room; other things are more serious, but they are not more urgent, somehow they are not definitive



I agree with a lot the previous posts on the meaning.



It can be explained in terms of Anticipation, Action, and Need, as though resources are located only in the future, but also as though the present is "ever-reaching", it is poetic based, it "seeks for answers" and it "finds problems". Action is travel, translation, communication, a state of flux. It is as though the communicator is in the future.



Avant-gardists keep finding their statements stated or situated like that: The communicator is in the future, the art is before us, techniques are members of judgment, or something, it gets sort of crazy, its like an addictive drug.



But that aside, it is an interesting approach valued for not being very blind about ideas.

Answer 8

Simply put - Your actions today ( now ) can help form a hopefully better tomorrow ( future )



Or your lack of actions now can also form not so bright future.

Answer 9

What i think it means is, typically when people think of the future they think of advancement and improve ment and saying that the future is now is saying we already made the advancements.

Answer 10

Dunno we have advance things like the



Iphone

Touch screens Phones

Phones did get smaller

HD TV

HD 3D TV

INSTANT FREE SOURCE OF THE INTERNET

Advance gaming systems like the PS3 Xbox360and the Wii

Advance satellites

Advance communications

We even have sneakers that can talk to you

We finally mobilized Computers into LAPTOPS

We have cars that run in Battery powered electrified Rechargeable batteries





back in the 80's/90's they had nothing like that

Answer 11

It would be worse if they said the future is so last year. That would be factually incorrect. The future is what happens because of what happens right now.

Answer 12

No its right because what you do or do NOT do now directly effects the future. It is a bit of a paradox.

Answer 13

Maybe what they mean is "what you once perceived to be possible only in the future is here right now right in front of you!"

Answer 14

its not something said LITERALLY, its more metaphorically.



it means that you only have NOW, you can make plans for the future but all you REALLY have is NOW. you influence the future by what you do now.

Answer 15

i think they mean there will be achange in near future, near future can be the next minute. hence it iis right in a sense.

Answer 16

Thankyou for the answers everyone xx

Answer 17

I guess it's implying that "what may have not have been possible, is now a reality" or" what was only a theory, is now actual" or something like that. * Think of it as saying ""It's now possible"

Answer 18

No, what they mean is that what we do now warps what we do in the future,

Answer 19

Yes. Just like "the past came back to haunt us".