RISK TAKERS, ALCHEMISTS OF TOMORROW  

History is replete with stories of the alchemists of yesterday, those explorers of the chemical and plant world who tried to mix, merge, blend and sort the many new minerals, plants and elements man was just starting to discover. Their main claims to fame were their various attempts to create gold out of common lead. That never worked but with today's technology many things impossible a few years ago, never mind during the Middle Ages, are now classified as probable.

In an age of chaos, the break-up of any old order brings forth and re-aligns things, cultures, technologies, learnings and politics. This gives rise to greater promise -- the promise of a new alchemy. Perhaps, not turning lead into gold, although even that is remotely feasible via molecular transfer, but not yet, profitable. But the alchemy of culture, technology, learning and politics possibly mixing and forming into new modes of thinking, living, learning and working together is exciting.

The pressures of the times, including AIDS and the rapidly accelerating information flow, may be pushing some of us into a new consciousness. The idea of information overload is not one I subscribe to. There is probably plenty of brain capacity that we have not yet learned to use. The time may be now.

Every piece of newly developed technology disturbs some previously firmly entrenched process. That in turn disrupts some social system, fixture or institution. After technological disruption nothing can return to its previous dominance. A new technology may quickly merge with another piece of only slightly older technology. A synergetic effect makes the two technologies stronger and more dynamic than either innovation operating alone. Larger social disruptions occur. New technologies may be developed to bring stability back to the original condition. Often it does just the opposite.

The wooden plow displaced the stick. The musket shot aside the bow and arrow. The cavalry replaced many infantry. The car and tank, the horse. The train, the carriage; the airplane, the train. Moveable type replaced the scribe; the newspaper, the town crier. TV has eclipsed radio and news is now reported as it happens not after it is over.

Moving up fast is the TV merging with the computer screen. Gutenberg print is being transferred to CD-ROMs. Movies, long the ruler of epic scenes, are giving way to upstart virtual reality and a cyberspace larger and more indelible than imagination.

What can go beyond all this? It has been said that when a child born today reaches his 80th birthday, 97 percent of all knowledge will have been produced during his lifetime. Compare this to that of the most intellectual individual alive in the 16th century: the greatest total of knowledge that existed then, hence all one could acquire in an entire lifetime was just about that contained today in one weekday issue of the New York Times. Today a student or an adult who has access to a computer, a phone line and a modem has access, in one evening, to more information than both his parents had in an entire lifetime. A new learner fortunate enough to also have access to a satellite dish can access more information in one evening than all his forebearers in history.

This cannot happen over a prolonged period without producing a new species. These are evolutionary as well as revolutionary times.

In times of little or no change, as during the Agricultural Age, "playing it safe" was sound strategy. Even during the early days of the Industrial Age conservatism paid off. However, as that age increased velocity, the risktaker started to move up in prominence as newer fields of endeavor paid off in much richer fashion than conventional work. The early risk takers of the 20th century became the barons of oil, rail, lumber, mining, fishing, retailing and finance. Today those industries are declining, as new thrones of power develop in such fields as computing, communications and the hospitality industry.

The risktaker of tomorrow, may amass wealth enough to make Midas weep.

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