Two Sides of the Future

Society is advancing. There is no doubt that we are moving faster and faster into truly staggering changes. But with every increase in scientific or technological knowledge there is a constructive and destructive potential.

We have run rather furiously at science and technology over the last 50 years and are only now starting to realize that many of the new discoveries and technologies we have espoused have really been out of control. Some of the more obvious examples of this dicotomy are nuclear power or the oil-based economy. While these things have delivered much good, they have also proven to be very destructive.

At the same time we are hearing about technological wonders and paradigm shifts:

'Organ printing' or regrowing body parts? =>
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7354458.stm

The Rise of Cloun Computing - Merger of Google and IBM? =>
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleB...

Gene Sequencing for the Masses
http://www.technologyreview.com/Biotech/20696/

We are also on the verge of self-destructing in many different areas:

A Derivative Bubble? =>
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article4419.html

The Eminent Collapse of Medicare? =>
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2936521220080429

The Collapse of the U.S. as a Superpower? =>
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2007/s1939849.htm

To think that we somehow have all of this advance under control is a pretty naive view. Data centers are becoming the worlds's biggest carbon emitters, the artic waters are desalinizing, the oceans are forming dead zones hundreds of miles across choked with plastics (see video I uploaded on SI), biodiversity is decreasing at an alarming rate, weather patterns are shifting, the balance of power is shifting, whole industries are failing, food shortages are rising, etc.

It will take a fundamental shift in the way we think and behave if we are to face the future with any kind of real success. The modernist values system that advocates success at any price will have to give place to efforts for concomitant good. I think young people today are under the assumption that they will have a life similar to their parents, but I think the chances of this being consistent are negligible. The paradigm is continually shifting and the world of our future is not going to look anything like the world of our past. Our openness to change fundamental ways of thinking and behaving will be the key determinant in whether or not our future is positive or negative.