There's an old saying that, if you give man a fish, you feed him for a day, but if you teach him to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. Unfortunately, we as a culture do not value the activity of fishing, the ability to fish, or any of the other precursors to the satisfied feeling of a full stomach. Given the chance, we would trade all of the things enabling us to achieve an effect in the future for the promise of that effect now. That shortsightedness causes us to dismantle sustainably profitable companies for an immediate payout. It keeps us from saving and investing; going to the gym; and cooking our own food. It tells us that we should outsource jobs and sell off the machinery we once used to make things, giving us a payout today but making inventing and making new things harder in the coming years. It tells us that it's better to enjoy the oil while it's cheap than to do something about climate change. We remove features and inspectability and hackability from our products because consumers just want something that "just works" now, even if that ethos stunts their abilities in the future.

We have collectively decided that the future is a sucker's bet and that the only thing that matters is the here and now.