Davos Wants You To Know the Future Will Be As Stupid As Possible
If you couldn’t make it out to the Swiss resort town of Davos to attend the World Economic Forum’s annual gathering of rich people and the politicians that serve them—or if you were there but decided instead to hit the slopes—there is still some good news: The WEF made a series of image macros that allow you to experience Davos’ unique brand of terrifying futuristic delusion from a hemisphere away.
You can tell that these images mean to connote boldness and authority, but instead their incoherent emphasis on certain words and phrases only highlights the disconnected worldview of the conference’s false prophets while at the same time making actual knowledgable people saying agreeable things sound like fools of equal measure.
Here is a quote from Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund, in which a broadly admirable point of view is rendered into a mishmash of self-parodic buzzwords.
36 best quotes from Davos 2016 https://t.co/q47LORpKQO pic.twitter.com/y62Ug8sjEa
— World Economic Forum (@Davos) January 23, 2016
Of course, she’s in great company. Here’s part-time hologram will.i.am saying perhaps the most openly ridiculous thing you could imagine will.i.am saying at Davos:
From Davos: https://t.co/tNuBsLNylL puts on not only optimism goggles, but his hat of triumph and scarf of destiny pic.twitter.com/HUgav1Bk3q
— Joshua Howgego (@jdhowgego) January 26, 2016
Nita Farahany is a law and philosophy professor at Duke. Here’s a quote from what seems like an interesting panel on neuroscience and the justice system rendered like something a cop would say in a show USA cancelled after one season:
"There are no legal protections from having your mind involuntarily read." @NitaFarahany at #Davos2016. #neuroethics pic.twitter.com/kpCkFbUz3V
— Neuroethics Society (@NeuroethicsInfo) January 26, 2016
Oh, hey, it’s Kevin Spacey saying something very obvious about one of the world’s most important fields: acting.
Politics should be about people coming together to accomplish amazing things" @KevinSpacey https://t.co/hfw4Hk6itm pic.twitter.com/Amiuxwbk6r
— World Economic Forum (@wef) January 24, 2016
But those are the generally sympathetic ones—smart people being boiled down to word soup and the celebrities far out of their intellectual depth attempting to say things that sound profound. Mostly though, Davos is where the drivers of capitalist exceptionalism spin airport self-help mantras with the sort of seriousness normally reserved for the Dalai Lama.
Is this what the future of #business looks like? https://t.co/86u7uEWsVp #newjobs #wef pic.twitter.com/QO4rZ0a6Rp
— World Economic Forum (@Davos) January 18, 2016
Today's #leadershipquote is courtesy of @MegWhitman's session on The Digital Transformation of Industries #WEF16 pic.twitter.com/iSfVYYnaIh
— Keith Krach (@KeithJKrach) January 22, 2016
Agree! @Benioff @wef pic.twitter.com/DB6pbgOyS4
— Andrea Stroppa (@Andst7) January 26, 2016
I can’t wait.
Also, this guy was there:
"The key to [noun] is despair." pic.twitter.com/hz8jczsCpZ
— Ned Resnikoff (@resnikoff) January 26, 2016