Few journalists know the halls of power so well, the miseries of politics and transformations of Spanish society as Fernando Jáuregui (Santander, 1950). With more than five decades of experience, he has signed more than 12,000 articles and 15 books, witnesses of the great national fluctuations. In The change in 100 words (Ed. Plaza & Janés), momentarily abandons the political analysis to draw a populated report of experts who look forward: What will the year 2050 be? And the society that will form generation Z? What challenges will bring to the future era of Leonor I? Do we like the world that our children and our grandchildren inherit …? Jáuregui wonders what will be of our lives after suffering that “change” that he writes with capital letters. A new era of technological, social, economic, educational, food transformation … that we have not all assumed.
He says that young people are formed, but they do not find out “about the Mass the average.” Do you really see a structural disconnection between technological knowledge and critical thinking?
I have never seen as much distance between generations as now. And that relationships between parents and children are closer than in my time. I admit that, thinking that last generations show little commitment, I can sin of a certain paternalism. Like others they can sin of age. Or I can, of course, be wrong, although I have taught in many universities checking the low involvement of young people in today’s problems, including change in so many facets … Yes there is a disconnection between technological knowledge and, at least, humanism. He Homo sapiens From now on it has to be a mixture of technological wisdom and humanism. Difficult to get it, I think, but that’s …
Account that for research prior to this book tested 3D printed meat and visited satellite factories. Have you ever thought “We are going out of hand”?
Many. In fact, things such as dataism, genetic manipulation, the frivolous use of AI that is going from us. My book invites, precisely, to reconsider free citizens to continue to be, and not slaves of the screens and who handle algorithms and data. But there is a message of hope in him. I do not believe in the “everything is lost” of the Harari, the Byung-Chul Han or the Acemoglu. The AI will help us to regenerate ideas, to advance in the “new reality” that goes beyond the real. But the “new reality” can be an opportunity if we know how to understand it, not just fear it. Who most denigrate her less understand her.
In the book it emphasizes that change is not only inevitable, but brutal. What kind of resistance – social, political or moral – seems more dangerous: the denial of change or its uncritical acceptance?
Interesting question. Both positions are dangerous, as always happens with the extremes. To deny the change is absurd, because it is there and will stay, accelerating every day. But assuming it in an acritic way, without wondering if the machine will end up surpassing the human, it is a chimera that can lead us to a certain degree of madness. Criticism is necessary in all aspects and stages of life; The denial in principle is not very constructive. The important thing is to know how to ride change, not that the tiger of change devounces us.
Is Spain prepared?
Spanish society is very plural, but I would say that some alienation that resides in the welfare state predominates. How long will it last? The changes will dictate the move: in the population pyramid, in the environment, on the geostrategic map and in the economic structure … the current status quo It will not last long, because the world is currently subject to the action of crazy characters and without moral barriers.
Who designs the future?
They are designing it since too many places that are not Spain. Brussels, Davos, Silicon Valley … and here we continue, thinking about the next electoral cycle. We have a government, some governments, which always think of other things, closer to their temporary and immediate ambitions. A revolution in minds is essential, which places governments and oppositions in other parameters, farther from their personal interests.
I want an ambitious government, capable of dominating the change and making the whole country participate in it. Do we have it? Of course not. Although sometimes I have felt proud when our rulers have known, RARE Avdetach themselves from majority positions in universal power, when they have known how to criticize the Elon Musk on duty; To a unleashed Trump, a Netanyahu eager for blood, a genocidal Putin. All of them, fortunately, will happen, and a new world will be born. Who will replace them? Ah, big question. But surely they will be better, worse cannot be.
Defines the current political debate in Spain and the world as “disgusting.” Kill politicians … or citizens?
We are winning the political and economic immorality, the lack of patriotism of our representatives and laziness for undertaking reforms that, as the constitutional, are essential for the modernization and march of the country towards the future. The debate we live, for example, in parliamentary control sessions is of such a low quality that sometimes ashamed. Democracy cannot benefit from so much ambition, cynicism and short -term. Where are the people who think about generating a prospective change by 2050 or for later, when so many things and will have changed? Of course, the world of Leonor I, which I suppose will reign, will be completely different from that of Felipe VI. And we have to prepare for it. But we are letting too many opportunities.
Do we have the most mediocre political class in 50 years?
We are in a world that has made too many concessions. What has been called “political class” and in many other aspects, including, I fear, journalism. That our main leaders have done nothing but ascend in politics is significant. They have made too many concessions. They are not patriots. They are not patriots, but seekers of the influence of influence. Of course, the political class of the transition, so denied now by some, was different. Better. Because it put the interests of the homeland before its own.
Is there a place for journalism between grants and censorship?
No idea what journalism will be, let’s put, in 2050. For me, there are basic ideas that we cannot get to, such as news is everything that someone does not want to be published. We are losing, because of our bad economic situation, important bastions of rebellion, of freedom, of value. But record that in the revelation of some recent things, a group of admirable companions has played a decisive role. Without them, many things would never be known.
I believe that young people will control AI, magnificent invention in bad hands, much better than us, that we have thrown ourselves to their jaws without precautions. No, AI is not going to leave armies of ‘useless’ unemployed, as Harari says. It will enhance those middle classes that strive to make a better world for their children. But it is necessary that we repeat it one and a thousand times: we have to face change and changes with a critical spirit, not with accommodation mood. It is the war, and we must face it with some comfort, because here there are no bayonets or Hitler Bigotitos, but waves on the network. We have to unite all the generations that we are on the set to win that war.
What would you say to the young reader?
That young people will control AI much better than us, that we have thrown ourselves to their jaws without precautions. And no, AI is not going to leave “armies of useless unemployed” as Harari says, it will enhance the middle classes. But it is necessary that we repeat it one and a thousand times: we have to face change and changes with a critical spirit, not with accommodation mood. There is a war that is fought on the network, and we have to unite all the generations to win it.
Is there a space for citizen sovereignty?
If we win it based on rebellion and protest. Rebelling, rebeling, rebelling, as Churchill said, is the slogan in front of those who try to reproduce the “happy world” Aldous Huxley. Or a 1984 Sophisticated Orwell. But we have to organize, civil society, which is something that our representatives try to weaken. and minimize because we seem dangerous, united, for their interests.
And what interests have those “musk”?
I mean that an elite, who invests, dedicates his time to it, is prepared and thinks, is dominating us. They, and call them as we want, Musk or with many other names, have the purpose of mastering the world and other parallel worlds. They have guaranteed a parallel, metavérsica reality, which we love and of which we are imprisoned. That, precisely that is the rebellion that I would like: that of those who rise against those who are designing what Douglas Rushkoff called “the survival of the richest.” Preaching the revolution of equality now seems to me the most interesting for the survival of what is called “middle classes.” And yes, we will get to Mars in a few years, and many other things that a five -year is unthinkable. But those advances have to see them all, not the richest and most powerful.
What do we play?
Give all the instruments to those who abominate equality. Health will be in the hands of the rich, as well as the geriatric and genetic “design” of future generations. Inequality will be the saint and sign of the society of the future if we do not know how to endow the democratic schemes that make us essential. Technology is everyone’s heritage, or should be at least. That is the fight we have to undertake: we have the right to participate in the benefits of that galloping technology, which escapes us between our fingers.
What past error are we repeating with our eyes closed?
The Bismarck Foreign Minister already said that the Spaniards are the strongest people in the world, because we have been trying to end each other and, so far, we have not succeeded. A great national pact is necessary.