The Future Ain’t What it Used to Be

Once upon a time, the future was a grand place. A place where we’d learn that “r” is for “rocket” and that “I” was for “robot”. Where men visited forbidden planetsand final frontiers. They learned that HAL wouldn’t do what you asked, but would at least apologize for it. They saw sunrises in the jungles of Venus and the twlight of Mars. In a present full of war, depressions, the Cold War and the threat of nuclear anihlation, they saw the future as a bright, wonderful place full of the hope and optimism sometimes lacking in the present.

But then things changed. We learned what soylent green was made from, saw that the maniacs had blown it up, found out that Decker was a replicant, and why running is a good idea. We discovered that in space, no one can hear you scream, and that the children of men may not live to see another century.

Suddenly the once bright and wonderful future had a dark cloud covering it, and the future was a place of war, of police states. A place where there was freedom for the elite and none for the masses. A world where pain, suffering and unhappiness was the norm. This during a time of unparalelled acheivement in technology, society, civil rights and world peace.

Why did the future change? Why did it go from a world of hope to a world of fear? When did distopias replace utopias? Why have we lost hope in our future, when we have such a wonderful present? There’s always been a few distopian future works out there, but now they seem to dominate. Try as I might, I can’t think of any non-dark-future science fiction films in the last several years, excluding Star Trek.

Well, I’ll tell you this: the future isn’t going to be a distopia or a uptopia, but it’s gone to be much more wonderful than anyone can imagine. It will be a world where, in the lifetime of a child born today, we’ll have cures for cancer, diabetes, AIDS and all the other great plagues that have troubled us since before we came out of the trees. We might even have cures for ageing, and human imortality could well be on the horizon.

The child born today will likely never know what it is like to face real discrimination on the basis of sex, race, religion, or sexual orientation, and if that poor child is born in a place where those are still the present reality, then likely before the child is old enough to retire, those things will be gone.

By the end of the century, we’ll have more freedoms than you can possibily imagine. Consider that at the start of the 20th century, blacks lived little better than slaves, there was the danger of the Yellow Peril, women couldn’t vote and gays, as far as the world was concerned, didn’t exist. If you were a WASP you were at the top of the food chain. If you were anything else, you were food.

And the technology! Imagine the tech in 2108 versus today! In 1908 airplanes had just been invented, we were still hammering out the whole “radio” thing, and though many people had telephones, they weren’t exactly portable. Even twenty years ago, most of us hadn’t heard of anything like the Internet. MP3’s didn’t exist, nor did DVDs. Laptops were something you might get at Club Chubby, and all TV was non-HDTV.

Religion will likely continue to wither on the vine as it is now. 13% of Americans are atheists. Those are just the ones who admit it. In Europe it’s an even larger number. Both numbers are growing all the time. Imagine no religion? You don’t need to imagine. Just wait.

Some people seem fit to focus on the gloom and doom of global warming, running out of fossil fuels, the spread of terrorism, overreaching by the US government, and other assorted bugaboos. I have great confidence in human nature and I know we’ll fix those problems and any others down the line. We always have before.

The future is an undiscovered country, full of wonder and amazement. Don’t fear it. Embrace it. You haven’t much of a choice, really. After, all, you’ll be living the rest of your life there.