A possible future
How many times have we studied during our school days about the different inventions and discoveries that have shaped the world? How many times have we heard our parents blame technology for keeping us away from our academics? Amidst all this, have you ever wondered where technology will take the world a hundred years from today?
The present generation can neither hope to witness nor promise to mold the distant future. However, observing the rate at which science and technology is advancing, it is possible to guess the changes that will affect society. Life, having attained very high standards of comfort, will become much simpler. All earthlings would have become docile servants of technology.
Within the next couple of years, there would be underwater channels connecting almost every country in this world to one another. It will just be a matter of seconds before a person from say, India, reaches the United States with the help of hypersonic trains plying between the two nations. Those channels would be transparent and there would be special coaches plying to and fro which would stop at regular sight-seeing stations where people can enjoy the beauty and enhance their knowledge of life beneath the sea. Imagine leaving home in the morning to go to work in the US and returning back by evening. Wouldn’t it be amazing?
Apart from transportation, another field which would gain prominence in the years to come would be genetic engineering. Genetically engineered babies would be present in every family resulting in several Angelina Jolies, Tom Cruises, Sachin Tendulkars and maybe even Bill Gates dotting the globe. Though this idea of altering the genes of the fetus while still in the mother’s womb would appeal to many couples, I feel that the joy of seeing a part of you grow up, watching the baby imbibing your characteristics and feeling your childhood come alive again is a different joy altogether. While it may prove beneficial for children at risk of acquiring genetic defects, it would also result in the dawn of an era of fashionable babies.
[Source- https://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/t/tailor_made_babies.asp]
Every household would be equipped with 3D printers and there would be absolutely no need to leave the comfort of one’s home to buy anything. Wouldn’t it be a dream come true to input your own design for clothes, shoes or bags into a printing device and have it printed out then and there in front of your own eyes?
Robots would dominate every field, right from performing surgeries to serving in restaurants to doing menial tasks. Due to great progress in the field of science, not only will more efficient robots be manufactured but they will also be affordable. As every individual would be educated or at least have the necessary education to find a job of decent standing in society, robots would mostly be put to use in the everyday household chores. Who knows, these robots might have the ability to diagnose their master’s disease and even suggest preliminary medicines for it, thus reducing the rush outside doctor’s chambers!
Telepathic communication, towards the achievement of which steps have already been taken, would prove to be a reality. People would just have to think about the person they want to talk to and their thoughts would be received by their counterparts. Just like gramophones and telephones with cords, mobile phones would then be a thing of the past making its presence felt only in antique shops.
Space too would not be saved from the clutches of this rapid advancement. Surely some signs of life will be found on Mars or on some other planet. Although, it may not turn out to be the aliens we are accustomed to seeing in sci-fi films, we would definitely be enlightened by the fact that living, moving creatures also exist elsewhere.
The rate at which industrialization is taking place today, it is bound to create scarcity of land in the near future. People would soon start shifting to the Moon where just like the air-conditioned apartments of today, there would be oxygen-conditioned apartments. Man would create a miniature Earth on the Moon by artificially filling certain areas with oxygen whose supply would be replenished at regular intervals. US, London, Paris and other such places which top the list of holiday destinations of today’s children would soon get replaced by Mars and the Moon.
Coming back to the present, we have to be content with going for work to an office at an hour’s distance from our place in overcrowded buses, using mobile phones and familiarizing ourselves with low battery and network problems and waiting in long queues outside doctor’s chambers.
But, now, how many of you would seriously consider living for a hundred years more to see many of our everyday trials and tribulations becoming non-existent? Or at least be reborn a hundred years later to witness a whole new way of life ? Or better still, be reborn into a whole new civilization superior to the one we are a part of? Will life actually become as simple and luxurious as we expect it to be? Or will all the luxuries come with a cost? Only time will tell!
Feature image source- http://anthillonline.com/new-report-reveals-robots-will-take-australias-workforce-20-years/]
– Shwetha Kumar
Bio –
Engineer in the making. An occasional blogger who loves science and nature.
