Spotted this interview on Boing Boing today, an interesting talk with Intel Chief Futurist Brian David Johnson about using science fiction to help imagine future technology.
But the big story here: “Cheif Futurist” is an actual job title. I want that. I mean, “Senior Editorial Producer” is great and all, and I recognize that in this day and age I’m lucky to even be employed. But Chief Futurist sounds so badass.
Perhaps this is not news to you, because apparently Futurology is enough of a thing to have its own Wikipedia page. I always thought “futurist” just referred to the people who made stuff look futuristic in movies like Blade Runner. But there’s even a list of notable futurists. From the Wikipedia, it really sounds like some futurists are smart people dedicated to researching historical patterns and trends to try to predict the future, and others are complete B.S. artists.
I want to fall in with that second group. No disrespect to the folks doing all the trend analysis and probability stuff, but that seems like a lot of work. I’m looking for someone to pay me to just sit around and make up stuff about what might happen in the future, based on nothing all that coherent except my general understanding of how people behave.
Watch, I’m about to break off a little futurism for you: In 42 years we will have live-in robot maids, talking dogs, flying cars, and a bustling space-sprocket industry. We’ll live in giant, disk-shaped apartment complexes in the sky with treadmills for walking our talking dogs and mechanisms that perform all our mundane tasks at the push of a button. And a dreamy rock star will record a hit song called “Eep Opp Ork Ah-Ah.”
And that’s just amateur futurism! Imagine what I could do if you hired me professionally and I really had time to think about it. Just let me know where to send my resume.
Tedquarters 
I’ll bet Brian David Johnson only goes with the serial killer name so people don’t ask him about Angus Young or hitting clutch home runs.
A few years back, a good friend and I decided that the best job title in the world was “Supreme Allied Commander” (e.g. Eisenhower during WWII, if I’m not mistaken). It’s just so… commanding. And how awesome would it be to tell someone who had addressed you by something else to “please only address me as ‘Supreme Allied Commander'” and not have them know whether you’re serious or messing with them?
Yeah, that’s an excellent job title. And I would definitely, definitely make people call me that in all seriousness.
If and when I get a phD, I plan on making everyone call me “Doctor,” including like my wife and family and everything.
Your wife will be a few years ahead of you on that “Doctor” thing.
Except she’s really nice and humble, so she’s not going to make me call her doctor.
With regards to a preferred title and in the spirit of futurism, I’m going to have to go with Intergalactic Chancellor having the best ring to it. Now we just need to create a job description and of course construct some sort of laboratory in the cosmos for the Intergalatic Chancellor to do his bidding.