Have you ever imagined how life would be in another 1000 years? I have and I have thought about it a lot. When ever something like this interferes my train of thoughts, I come across some interesting piece of literature or media that speaks about the future. There are 2 types of visionaries that have a view of the future. One of them think that the future will be apocalyptic while the other type of visionaries think of future in a more optimistic manner. I am of the latter category. I believe that the future holds much more surprises for us.
One of my favourite futurist is non other than Elon Musk. I have been an avid follower of his works. The introduction of electrical vehicles, mass solar power generation, cheap space travel and last not least, Colonization of Mars. He gave us a glimpse of the possible future. But my question is how will our lives be in another 1000 years. There are many theorists suggestion about a mass extinction similar to the ones that ended the Jurassic period. Read on to view the answers in my perspective.
We are advancing with technology at an alarming rate. like Dan Brown’s latest book suggests, we will be fusing ourselves with technology to create a better and a much more fit species. This has already begun and we can see them in our day-to-day life. It is considered prosthetic for differently-abled personnel but in future, it will become apart of our day-to-day life. Everyone will be utilizing prosthetic to enhance their hearings, vision, functionalities of the body and etc. For example we may have hearing aids that could help us hear noises beyond our normal hearing frequency. Or have contact lenses that help us see light that is usually not visible to the naked eye. That is only a very narrow view of what is to come in the future. The future may hold the key to curing blindness, deafness, dumbness and other born with problems.
There are many other medical developments to be expected in the future too. Genetic modification has started to bloom in the last decade. within another 1000 years we will be able to genetically cure terminal diseases like cancer and AIDS. We will also be able to detect diseases early on through genetic scanning where it is possible to for-see any diseases that are embedded in the DNA and provide treatment even before they start to act on the victim. Or for the better, provide immunity to possible diseases through genetic modifications in the early stage of birth. There has been a recent incidence in Nairobi where over 43 prostitutes have shown to contain HIV virus within their system but have not shown any signs of AIDS. This may be a possible immunity developed against AIDS. This is a proof that we are still evolving and are finding ways to evolve ourselves to fight diseases. Like wise, may be in future we may become resistant to these diseases automatically rather than being given medications. So isn’t it a possible optimistic future???
The other subject that is always talked about in conjuncture with future is flying cars. Dude cars are meant to be driven on the ground. If it is meant to fly, it is a plane. Would you call a submarine a swimming bus? So I think it is a no for flying cars. I mean there would be cheaper and faster ways of flying but still, there would also be road transportation as present today. Lets say you want to go to the grocery, would it be sensible to fly from your house to the shop a few blocks away? That’s when cars and motorcycles would be needed. But things would be faster thanks to much more organised roads, autonomous vehicles, and specially hyper loop. Hyper loop is the new ultra fast tunnel system being built by the Boring company owned by Elon Musk. This tunnel allows faster transportation of vehicles and passengers over a long distance. Elon Musk claims it to be faster than current air travel. And when talking about Elon Musk, we also have to talk about his Tesla. Cars that run purely on electricity and has much more performance when compared to its fuel counterparts. It is also cheaper to own and it is made easier and cheaper to recharge through solar-powered charging points all over the world which would be implemented as a part of his plan. So i think we will have ambiguous vehicles which are capable of operating on land, air and water and which is off the fuel diet and with zero emission.
Mars colonization has been a common talk with SpaceX working very hard to make it a reality. The possibility of such a happening is very high and as to Elon Musk, colonization would begin within another 20 years. So we will start living on Mars and our lives will dramatically change. As the atmosphere on Mars is very different to the ones we have on earth. Sunlight is low, and gravity is also low compared to earth. This would give us bigger eyes to adapt to the low light while increasing our height due to low gravity. Once human population starts moving to Mars, the population growth on earth would reduce to a manageable rate. This would reduce pollution and the strain on the environment which would help earth regain its lost greenery and also the reduction in the usage of fossil fuel will help reduce the green house effect which eventually controls global warming.
Rather than being pessimistic about the future, let’s have an optimistic view and I hope they find a way to reverse aging or even a way for immortality which would keep me alive to witness the marvels of the future.
Best,
Jathu
BLOG OF AN INTELLECTUAL GHOST 