“In the thousands of years to come, we will be able to scan a persons' neurones in their heads and build a copy of their life thoughts... basically, to digitize our thoughts and therefore live forever, by dispensing with our biological bodies. But... why am I alive NOW, and not hundreds of years in the future when such technology is possible?Why do I have to *die* without seeing us explore the stars and planets, without seeing where Computers will lead us, and without seeing how far technology can go?”
Vexen's Blogspot Journal:
"Why isn't the world more futuristic?" (2006)
On this page:
1. Predicting the Future
1.1. Cataclysmic Predictions of the Effects of Technology
“[New advances] never quite present the insuperable challenges some doomsayers and dystopians imagine. [...] The most radically transformative technologies have not had the impact we might have expected. The dramatic electronification of everyday life that has taken place over the last few decades has not fundamentally altered the way we relate to each other. Love, jealousy, kindness, anxiety, hatred, ambition, bitterness, joy etc, still seem to have a remarkable family resemblance to the emotions people had in the 1930s. [...]In Victorian times, it was anticipated that going through a dark tunnel in a train at high speed (30 mph) would be such a shocking experience that people would come out the other side irreversibly damaged. In one of his last poems, published in 1850, Wordsworth opined that the infantility of illustrated newspapers - the first tentative steps towards the multimedia of today - would drive us back to "caverned life's first rude career" [...] and he felt that the endless influx of news from daily papers would incite us to a level of unbearable restlessness. [...] Railway journeys and tabloid newspapers have not had the dire effects that were predicted.”
Prof. Raymond Tallis (2007)1
Fear of technological progress blights our development:
“Mankind is afflicted with a psychological weakness: we fear change. Although this instinct may have been useful in our evolutionary past it now holds us back. In an age where we choose to indulge in many risky behaviours such as luxury food, sports, drugs, drink and smoking, it makes no sense for us to continue to shun advanced food GM technology, which undergoes extensive testing and is less risky than (mis)behaviours that we are already familiar with. Other technologies that were widely resisted include centralized time, rather than time being kept on a village-by-village basis (making train timetables an impossibility!), a fear that having daily news available to everyone would spark off a state of stressed panic about the world that would destroy society, and that if soldiers wore camouflaged uniforms in battle, then the public would no longer be protected properly. Hollywood continually produces horrors and science fiction dramas based around technology-gone-wrong. Thankfully there are methods we can employ to spot and prevent neophobic reactions, starting with raising general awareness. There have been untold numbers of proclamations that some new technology (such as cosmetic surgery) will destroy the fabric of society: what all these predictions have in common is that they have all been wrong.”"General Neophobia in Everyday Life: Humankind's Fear of Progress and Change" by Vexen Crabtree (2009)
We cope with substantial physical changes without losing our sense of self. People soldier on through puberty and pregnancy without losing their humanity. "We grow from something about a foot long and weighing about 7 pounds, to something about 6 foot long and weighing about 150 pounds, and for the greater part of that period we feel that we are the same thing. We assimilate these changes into an evolving and continuous sense of our identity"1 says Prof. Tallis. The future is full of amazing possibilities, we just need to embrace change and march onwards with it, rather than fear it.
1.2. Futurology
Predicting the future is not easy. No-one saw the Internet coming, nor were mobile phones particularly foreseen by previous generations. These two technologies have had massive effects upon modern society. Most predictions never come true by the time stated, and all extreme predictions of cataclysm have failed to come to pass. The only types of prediction that come true are those that are vague, or those which predict the downfall of various cities or nations - which if you wait long enough, always comes true.
“Chesterton's hilarious fantasy of the future, Napoleon of Notting Hill [...] begins with these wise words:The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning. [...] The players listen very carefully and respectfully to all that the clever men have to say about what is to happen in the next generation. The players then wait until all the clever men are dad, and bury them nicely. They then go and do something else. That is all. For a race of simple tastes, however, it is great fun.
”"Fads & Fallacies in the Name of Science" by Martin Gardner (1957)2
