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No Change Please! We are Human!!
Almost
every science fiction writer worth the name predicted that the life will be different in the future. They predicted that by
the year 2000 we'd all enjoy robot servants, cryogenic sleep, and antigravity transport, as well as the conquest of all forms
of disease. Any number of movies and dramas were written on the theme of future worlds. But the real world never changes as
quickly as the fevered imaginations of writers, futurists, and other visionaries
tell us it will. Progress is, and probably always will be, an incremental business.
Looking 20 years into the future, the likelihood is that our daily home, work, and recreational pursuits will look a great
deal like they do now— just as life today isn't terribly different from
what it was in 1980. And is that so bad?
Pencils. Beginning in 1565, when Swiss physician Conrad Gesner of Zurich first described a pencil as a writing rod held in a wooden case, the pencil underwent a slow development— eraser on the end, paint to forestall splinters, flat sides to retard rolling— that hit a plateau more than
a century ago. Today's pencil is a classic example of evolved engineering,
says Henry Petroski, a Duke University engineering professor and author
of The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance. Pencil sales,
he notes, have remained steady right through the word-processing revolution,
because the old advantages remain: "It can be erased, sharpened with a penknife, requires no batteries, needs no ink supply,
and is cheap." He expects the pencil's shape and sales to remain relatively
fixed through 2020. Children in our schools are still asked to write with a pencil till they reach fifth or sixth class.
Books.
We in India rarely buy books. Unless very necessary we always try to keep away from them. There are a few people who still
swear by their books. They can rest assured that they can continue to do so even in the future. With the evolution of computers
and the e-books there is a genuine doubt about the continuity of the papers books in their present form. E- books may be useful
but never convinient. You cant cuddle with them in bed and read in the cosy privacy as only you like. Traditional books have
500 years of inertia behind them, and no wonder. They are stable, cheap, durable, lightweight, and a hassle to pirate, virtues
that e-books of any kind will be hard-pressed to emulate in a mere 20 years.
Cash. Bank cards are here no doubt. How many of us are using them for
the day to day needs? They remain a status symbol. Hard currency remains popular, and will remain so. A report issued in October
1999 by Retail Banking Research in Great Britain proclaims, "Cash use is set to continue at similar levels to the present
for at least several more decades." Cash appeals to banks. It also changes hands easily, tucks neatly into purses and pockets,
and crosses borders without leaving any traces. Money talks, but in the form of cash,
it can also keep quiet, and that's an appeal that's unlikely to wane.
Traffic congestion.
Traffic jams are there to stay. Flying cars won't get us out of a jam. Cars will still
roll along on the ground, and congestion will be a fact of life.In fact, it will get worse. Hyderabad roads might have become
wider and a little more comfortable than earlier. The number of vehicles also increased beyond imagination. Fly-overs can
not really make you fly in the sky! And how about those who enjoy breaking the rules and confusing all the fellow beings?
As long as such people are there, congestion is sure to continue.
Noise. Innovations in noise isolation, insulation, and cancellation
will do little to ratchet down the incessant hum of mechanized life. We have
not, and will not, be able to abate noise very much. When you talk about more people in tighter environments, noise will be there. Life has become more noisy these days.
Noise sells in the form of music these days. The louder it is the better it is. All kinds of music and other machines add
up to make life more noisy. So go for plugs perhaps!
Religion Freethinkers have predicted the demise of religion. They were, are, and will be wrong. Projections based on United Nations population data indicate that in 2025,
the percentage of the world's people who identify themselves as Christians will
remain virtually unchanged, from 33.4 percent in 2000 to 35.5 percent in 2025.
Percentages of Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Buddhists, atheists, and adherents of various
folk and tribal religions are also predicted to remain substantially similar.
In fact the trend is “ back to basics.” More and more people are drawn to the religion these days. However religion
might have changed it’s stricter shape and rigidity. Best is you can now ridicule god and go free. Can even become a
celebrity. Rememner Adnan and the lift?
Sex. The advent of cloning, genetic manipulation, and extraordinary
advances in joining eggs and sperm in test tubes will no doubt be embraced by
a growing part of the population. But the real deal— with its ancient freight
of risks and rewards— will certainly be the dominant reproductive interface
in 2020 and beyond.
Poverty. A rising tide of world prosperity
won't lift the third world's boats, at least not by 2020. We will still witness
"mass starvation in the third world," You don’t need any expert to certify
this statement. Thay said health for all by 2000. we are now in 2001. Nobody ever talks of the slogan now. There is resistance
to the use of genetically manipulated food. Machines are taking over many works. Population grows in leaps and bounds. Is
there an end to the problem called poverty in sight? Not really!
Death. "We will never conquer death," predicts Dr. Michael Fossel, editor
of the Journal of Anti-Aging Medicine. For starters, getting hit by a bus—
even a fuel-cell-powered one— will still be fatal. And a more typical death— from, say, deteriorating organs— will almost certainly still be around in 2020. But Fossel believes that the ancient threat will at least have begun to ebb. "When people look back from the year 2100, I believe they will pick some date between 2005 and 2015 as the point at which we were first able to
intervene in the aging process in a significant way," he says. On the other hand,
some researchers point out that medicine has a dismal track record when it comes
to curing complex, chronic diseases such as diabetes and hemophilia. And aging
is the ultimate chronic disease.
Dr. K.B.Gopalam
( With thanks to Discover )
