This may be the first time you read a serious description of what the future could be like if we humans make the right decisions.
What I'm about to say may seem radical, but if the future is not radically different than today, then we will have missed our great opportunity.
If you are under the age of forty, I believe there is a small but significant chance that we will discover a cure for aging in your lifetime. If you are under twenty, I believe that it is likely that we will discover a cure for aging in your lifetime.
I want you to pause for a moment here and think about this: Even if you think I'm wrong, just think of the fact that I might be right!
If you are twenty, let's assume that you will live to be 90 years old. That means that you have another 70 years assuming no advances in technology (people live to be ninety already).
Let's look back 70 years. The year is 1925. Computers have not yet been invented. Neither has TV. Science fiction has suggested space travel, but most people believe that it will never happen. Airplanes and cars exist, but not for the general public.
Let's face it, in 1925 it was simply impossible to predict what the world would be like 70 years later. Do we now think that we know what the world will be like in the year 2065? The Sixties?
What we must do is take a wild guess at what the future might be like, and then think about how we would have gotten there! Here is a list of things that will be happening in the 2060's if we do the right things now:
1) There are space colonies being built as fast as new houses.
2) Computers are based on biological circuits, and have the ability to generate photo-realistic virtual reality on the fly. These computers have also assisted in finding cures for viruses, cancer, heart disease, and many other diseases.
3) Fusion is now the primary source of power. As a result, power is now an unlimited resource.
4) Robots have reached the point where most manual tasks can be performed without human intervention. These robots are also able to manufacture more robots, so they are very cheap.
Now, if you think this is nuts, remember that 20 years ago, micro-computers came with 1k of RAM. They now come with 16,000 times more than that. Human progress can go slowly, quickly, or not at all.
But make no mistake about it, your life depends on it!
Imagine if we lived in a world where everyone died at age 25, and we suddenly discovered we could live to be 75! We would learn that everyone had been dying before they had the opportunity to become truly mature!
That is what is happening now. We may one day live to be two and three hundred years old! Imagine the wisdom and knowledge a life that long can bring.
So, it is high time that we begin to behave as though the future mattered. We may be the first generation in human history to have this opportunity,
how sad it will be if we lazily pass the opportunity on to the next generation, and our whole generation dies needlessly!
That seems extreme, but if you think about this at length, you may realize that your own life is really at stake here!
Note that the changes mentioned above will bring with them social upheaval and radical change to the nature of society. But no one said it would be easy!|
