Once again I am inspired by a question from the great book "The Book of questions" by Gregory Stock.
Do you think that the world will be a better or worse place 100 years from now?
(www.pixabay)
Exciting question! I wonder what people would have answered a hundred years ago if asked this question. It's pretty hard to develop a concrete future vision for such a long time and who can look 100 years into the future, unless you're Ray Kurzweil ;-)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictions_made_by_Ray_Kurzweil
In retrospect, you can probably say that the world is better today than it was 100 years ago. Better medical care, technical progress, greater mobility and a high availability of information.
All this seems to be better than the world 100 years ago.
But what is “better” from an objective point of view? With technological advances pollution increases, greater mobility and availability of information does not generally make people happier, it also brings stress and can even lead to more dissatisfaction.
What matters here is again what the individual perceives as better or worse.
Personal hopes and fears play an important role.
When you think of the world in 100 years, you are guided by current fears and hopes. Whether these fears and hopes in 100 years are still justified, no one knows.
If we start with the trends that are currently developing, then it is always the case that the greatest hopes also have the greatest potential to cause problems.
How do we deal with the fact that robots and intelligent algorithms are taking over more and more work from us, perhaps even taking over our lives?
How do we decide for ourselves personally when the progress of medicine continues to lengthen life and eventually bring us an inexhaustibly long life span, in case we can afford it?
How do we define our right to privacy in a society of total surveillance?
Is individuality a high priority for us, or do we feel subordinated to the well-being of society as a whole?How will we solve the big problems of environmental destruction? Or has this problem already overwhelmed us in 100 years?
How well will we deal with the threat of new weapons and the nuclear, biological and chemical threats? Will there ever be a solution outside the massive arms race?
Will we master all areas of life with technology or will we be slaves to our technology, and above all, will that make us happy?
Which values will we follow? Do we define the values for us, or will there be objective, algorithmically calculated values to which we submit ourselves?
Will the world be better? The answer is unclear. On the one hand: yes, on the other: no.
It’s weird how people always think the world is better as time progresses, they look back to the 70’s and see a world without technology like cell phones and Colorado tv and see it like the dark ages. In many ways life was better back then, slower less stressful and even more colourful. I think in 100 years we will have 0% privacy, it’s getting like that already, the transparency will have its positive side but will also make many people feel they need to perform for the cameras and will lose the ability to ‘be themselves’.
If in 100 years the leaders of the world have learned to really care for this planet and not put development first as it is today and has been for ever.we will not solve the environmental issues until this stance is adopted globally🙏😊😊
@enjoycompany I totally agree.
It is so important to constantly be aware of what really matters in life and what values should be a priority. Only then we may be able to approach a state which we could actually call a better world in the objective sense. Until then, however, there still seems to be a long way to go with many errors. I think, evolutionary humannkind is still not on the level to understand that.
I gave up watching TV news long ago because I couldn’t handle all the bullshit they feed us and now I concentrate on my small community volunteering for wildlife rescue and lobbying to stop water mining, fracking and other evils developers have introduced into our area. As the small fry’s we can do our bit locally and hope it makes a difference in the long run.
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