tl;dr: The next big thing may be bigger than we imagined and in ways we can’t imagine.

One of the famous lines from The Graduate (though not the most famous scene) is when young Ben, played by Dustin Hoffman, is taken aside and given career advice.

“Just one word…are you listening? One word. ….Plastics.”

Well, it turns out the advice was spot on. There was a great future in plastics.

There was also a not so great future in plastics.

And now we have organizations like 4Ocean with its “Pull a Pound of Plastic” initiative to try and dig us out of the plastic hole we are in.

I just bought two recycled plastic bracelets.

Self-Loathing the Plastic-Centric Lifestyle

I look around my own house and I feel anger and self-loathing.

The amount of plastic we consume is, well, offensive. And then I think about all of the houses on my block, in my neighborhood, and beyond.

I’m fairly conscientious about recycling, but I am not 100% and it pains me to think about what is happening globally in places with far less advanced recycling capabilities.

I don’t have to think about it. I’ve seen it.

I wasn’t alive when The Graduate was released, but I would bet dollars to donuts (bitcoins to bagels?) that no one filming that movie would ever have imagined that we would end up where we are today as it relates to plastic.

It’s the Law of Unintended Consequences.

What Would the Advice to Ben be Today?

So that got me thinking….if I were to pull aside a recent graduate and offer my “sage” wisdom, what would I say?

Here are some ideas:

• programming
• cryptoeconomics
• token engineering
• data science
• artificial intelligence
• neuroscience
• quantum physics
• robotics

Now, here’s the tough part.

Even if I’m right, what will be the unintended consequences of these fields in 50 years?