Saturday, July 08, 2006

The future ain't what it used to be...

The FUTURE was for many of us Boomers captured remarkably well by Disney imagineers at EPCOT. No kidding - I bought into the the George Jetson future, flying cars, skin-tight jumpsuits, and of course - a MONORAIL.



You could not have a vision of the future without a monorail.

It turns out that predicting the future is pretty, well, predictable. It seems you fall into one of two camps:
  1. Malthusians: doom, gloom and tomb - mankind eventually destroys the earth and life as we know it through venal short-sighted stupidity and voting Republican
  2. Cornucopians: hi-tech saves the day. Thanks to people in white lab coats and code monkeys in cubicles, Science solves every problem we create just in time.
Allow me to suggest a third alternative vision:

The future will feel much like the present. Only later. It will look really different.

Technology can change our environs and will, but the human condition will be much the same. I think we will be able to understand our own minds better, but will not escape the responsibility for our own happiness.

I also think we will still be trying to find a reason to build a monorail somewhere.

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