Predicting The Year 3000
I was wasting time on Plastic.com, and I came across a great little write-up and commentary on this article on Closertotruth.com.
Can We Imagine the Far Future–Year 3000?
Well, of course we can! That’s what we writers do! But more specifically, they asked a panel of ‘futurists’ including EDWARD: de Bono (wierd name!), Dr. Bart Kosko, Graham Molitor, Dr. Bruce Murray, and Dr. Gregory Stock.
ROBERT: Graham, you’re the chief spokesperson for the World Future Society and the author of an upcoming book on the next thousand years. Considering the unimaginable advances in the last hundred years, how can you be presumptuous enough to predict the next thousand years?
GRAHAM: The answer is simple. All of the recorded history of humankind–and even prehistory–is nothing more than an evolutionary, step-by-step march down a path of progress, and the ideas that shape tomorrow cast long shadows and leave lots of footprints in the sands of time. The path may meander, but it has a certain sequence through which it passes and which is easy to discern. There are many ways of conceiving, tracking, and timing trends that are inevitable but not foreordained.
ROBERT: Aren’t you ignoring discontinuities?
GRAHAM: Discontinuities simply indicate that people haven’t done their homework.
Sidenote: A lot of these gents seem to be of the post-meat crowd (in favor of giving up bodies for ‘more efficient’ chips). While I’m enthralled by the stories that have us jumping in and out of bodies according to need, I’m not sure I am ready to toss mine in the recycling bin, how bout you?