No Need to Worry About the Future of Our Planet, But…

We must prepare the younger generation for jobs that don’t exist yet. Here is how.

Erik P.M. Vermeulen, PhD
4 min readMay 26, 2023
Photo courtesy of the author

“Are you kidding me?”

I notice that I say this sentence more and more to myself.

Increasingly, I witness corporate decisions that might have made sense twenty or more years ago, but right now? Less so. Take advertising spend on annoying old-style TV commercials.

The “working from home” versus “returning to the office” discussions drive me up the wall. A conversation about workplace flexibility makes so much more sense. And let’s not talk about adding more corporate processes to the workplace.

Unfortunately, it isn’t any better outside the corporate world. I always get confused when climate activists destroy other people’s property to attract attention. And I am not the only one who has started to dislike the increasing number of clueless experts who state the obvious. For example, “If people spend more money than they earn, they may encounter financial difficulties” or “consuming excessive amounts of sugary foods can lead to weight gain.”

And then, we have the stigmatizing labels we use to define people. Gen-Z is lazy. Millennials feel entitled. Gen-X is a lost generation.

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Erik P.M. Vermeulen, PhD

Prof (law) exploring the collision of life, work, and technology, with a current project in the works - a sci-fi novel.