And whoever continues doing business as usual will wither".
Whether through new performance measures such as Progress 8, or by Ebacc diktat, it is inevitable that some creative and technical subjects, crucial to the flourishing of individual character as well as life chances, will wither on the vine.
And without the underlying treasure-hunting archetype, and its attendant excitement, rare book dealing and collecting will wither as a form of life.
Among the pessimists, there are two related strains of thought about productivity: that the gains have been largely limited to the technology industry, and that the improvement will wither as the economy slows.
But despite concerns that the NHS will wither as private medicine booms, Caroline Shaw, of Manchester's Christie hospital, Europe's largest cancer centre, said it would treble its private income from £10m to £30m within a decade after making a deal last month with the biggest private hospital group in the world, HCA.
But these costs will wither as more distribution channels open up and clones gather more assets.
6. Voice recognition is the future, and touch interfaces will wither as the technology advances.
But at the end of the day, his tough talk will wither as Sept. 7th arrives.
The danger is not that fundamentalism will grow, Armstrong's analysis suggests, so much as that modern, secular society will wither.
The danger, of course, is that any novel that starts life as a point of principle will wither and die on the page.
