Some pressing questions on my mind right now. In a world of fast paced technological advancement, in the face of said advancement, are we leaving some important things behind? Current or past systems that were in place offered something more than just what the raw numbers suggest. Some experiences that can’t or weren’t quantified in terms of statistics.
In our relentless quest towards moving “Upwards and Onward”, “Above and Beyond”, sometimes like race horses with blinders on, perhaps we are ignoring or disregarding all the other directions?
Research needs to be focused in order to get some sort of tangible and significant development, apparently. If it isn’t focused on something, it apparently isn’t worth going for.
Maybe I’m just looking at things with rose-tinted glasses. Of course, the human tendency towards romanticizing bygone eras and ways of life is well known. However, the opposite is also possible. “The future” is more alluring to some, and to reach it, they would abandon every single system, every artifact, every thought of the past and present. Futurists sometimes build extremely bizarre and extravagant visions for the future. Of course, realistically there are a lot more factors involved, which makes the actual future much more messy.
Just think about the visions of the future depicted in movies and popular culture just a few decades ago. They would have us travel in fast cars, wear outlandish clothes, abolish lawyers and what not. Granted that was all fiction and fantasy, and exaggeration is an important part of appealing to an audience when it comes to such creative endeavors.
On the other end of the spectrum there are the scores of people who paint a dystopian vision of the future. Nuclear Holocausts, cataclysms, et cetera.
Thinking of and discussing the future always takes a meandering path, but it always begins with “maybe it won’t be as bizarre as they think”. Either our minds will accept those now seemingly bizarre things as the norm. Or the current status quo in terms of society, economics and culture will remain the same. It also all depends upon how far into the future we are willing to think about.
No matter what happens, I’ll always say,
“The more things change, the more people change, the more they stay the same.”
ShriViews 
Dear Dushyant,
It is always a challenging task to try and predict future, and even more so, trying to dissect the predictions thus made based on the premises of the present. I think that all the predictions made about future suffer from a tinge of extremism. Be it rosy or black. It is probably due to linear thinking that we humans are saddled with. Actually, the nature is “Self Correcting” in itself. For example, severe increase in green house gases will lead to rise in atmospheric temperature. But that would lead to more evaporation of water, more rain and drop in temperature. I think that the movie made by Al Gore also acknowledged such corrections in their predictions.
I feel like quoting a sanskrit verse..
Kalohyayam niravadir vipulach pruthvi ..
Loosely translated, it means Time is infinite, and Earth is abundant !
cheers, and keep on writing …
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