One of the things that people say of the original Star Trek is that it predicted modern technology. Things like the communicators, the computer tablets. Of course we don’t yet have warp drive, phasers or teleport (outside Area 51 that is).
Of course the communicators have missed one important feature – none of them come with built in cameras. You don’t see Spock taking a selfie. In fact one Star Trek offshoot has them checking if one of their scanning devices has the ability to capture images.
One of the things I like to look at in old science fiction is the things they didn’t see changing. I just saw a futuristic prediction where they still used Betamax video tapes. This comes from people that are straining to imagine the future.
And who would have imagined where we would be today (unless you watched the film Contagion – which predicted it all pretty accurately down to the anti-vaxers trying to make money out of it).
So where will the future go for us – what things do we find it hard imagining being made obsolete. Maybe the travel to business meetings will become a thing of the past – and I am not talking about Zoom meetings – think VR meetings. Some of the current technology is well on the way to making it real.
One thing I can see possibly hanging dramatically is the world wide web. The www is not the internet. Think of the internet as the road network, the www is just one type of vehicle on it. I can see direct connection through apps becoming more important, I can see consolidators becoming more important. One thing I know is that change will happen.
I see the USA struggling to prevent the change of global leadership to China. Sorry guys, the British Empire has been there – it is going to happen.
It can be nice sitting back in comfortable clothes, with comfortable slippers in a comfortable chair doing things we find comfortable. It can be annoying when those slippers wear out and we need to break in a new pair. But we need to break in those slippers or put up with miserable cold feet.
Of course this isn’t a new concept.
Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who that it’s namin’
For the loser now will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside and it is ragin’
It’ll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin’
And the first one now will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’