okcpulse
01-09-2007, 08:04 PM
Another terrorist attack. More natural disasters. Famine. Another world war. A major plague. The second coming of Christ. These are all predictions made my people who participated in various polls about what they foresee for the year 2007. What happened to everyone's optimism? Our society, for some reason or another, sees the future as a grim distopia of failures and death. Why is that? Many people feared what would happen in 2000. The year came and went peacefully. Now, go back to 1984 and tell someone that in seventeen years terrorists are going to fly two passenger jets into the World Trade Center in New York, and they will probably feel like their imagination of the 21st Century has been reaffirmed as the scary future all of us like to stick to. But like 2000, 2001 came and went. We bounced back, we recovered. It's now a part of history.
For me, I like to stick to what makes the future so fascinating to begin with. And let's face it, we are IN the future. The virtual digital empire we all imagined is here, and improved in ways we never thought possible. I imagined back in the day that TV sets would be replaced by curved LCD screens, that carried the same dimension as traditional TVs. I thought we'd still call them TV sets. I also envisioned us not using computers that are as powerful as supercomputers of the 1970s, but that our house was the computer. Everything automated and voice activated. Still no flying cars, and that's a good thing. No colonies on the moon or Mars, as of yet. Nope, NASA went the way of sending billion dollar rovers to Mars to send back postcards.
The future arrived full of changes no one ever imagined. For instance, our lingo has changed. We longer have TV sets. We have flat panels in our living room. Our lingo for old components has even changed. We now refer to TV sets as CRTs. Same goes for computers. It's no longer just a monitor. It's a CRT monitor. We don't have telephones any more. We call them land lines, now. Confuses the heck out of great grandma. We call them land lines because we do most of our communication by way of cell phone or Blackberry. The Sony Walkman is gone. We now listen to massive playlists of music on iPod Nannos or the new Zune. We no longer watch shows. We watch shows in HD, or we jump to- not a computer anymore- a Mac or a PC- to watch streaming video. And since our Mac or PC is packed with enough components to entail a fully functional media center, the DVD player in our living room is not a DVD player anymore. It's a standalone DVD player. And we've completely retrograded regarding where we put our flat panels. In the 1950's, people used TV stands. Then in the 1980s and 1990s, everyone moved to entertainment centers. Now we're back to TV stands, though they are actually now called stands. Although you don't have to put your flat panel on a stand. You can now mount it on the wall. And they even come with PC inputs so you can hook your PC or Mac up to your flat panel in the living room, where you now have your e-mail and digital entetainment all on the fly.
We no longer just have hospitals anymore. We now have medical centers flanked by bio-tech campuses that employ thousands of scientists and researchers, or specialty centers that specialize in different conditions. We have cancer treatment centers, women's health centers full of doctors that specialize in maternal care. We no longer just throw down blacktop and call it a road. We now build roads that consist of asphalt, concrete and special rebar made to withstand changes in climate. We no longer wait in rush hour to find out if a wreck occured. LED signs now tell us if there is a wreck, where it is and how long it will take to get to the next freeway.
Now none of this sounds like a future headed for disaster. Will bad things happen? Yes, and they always have since the dawn of time. But things will also get better. We should be thankful that we have the priviledge of being alive to see the things happening today that those before us never got a chance to see. And 2007 will bring us even further. Set aside your fears. Years come and go in a nonchalant manner, and we will still be doing the same things we did ten years ago. Go to work, go on vacation, take care of the shopping, the bills, even move to a new town, go to a game, go to dinner, and most of all, take care of each other.
For me, I like to stick to what makes the future so fascinating to begin with. And let's face it, we are IN the future. The virtual digital empire we all imagined is here, and improved in ways we never thought possible. I imagined back in the day that TV sets would be replaced by curved LCD screens, that carried the same dimension as traditional TVs. I thought we'd still call them TV sets. I also envisioned us not using computers that are as powerful as supercomputers of the 1970s, but that our house was the computer. Everything automated and voice activated. Still no flying cars, and that's a good thing. No colonies on the moon or Mars, as of yet. Nope, NASA went the way of sending billion dollar rovers to Mars to send back postcards.
The future arrived full of changes no one ever imagined. For instance, our lingo has changed. We longer have TV sets. We have flat panels in our living room. Our lingo for old components has even changed. We now refer to TV sets as CRTs. Same goes for computers. It's no longer just a monitor. It's a CRT monitor. We don't have telephones any more. We call them land lines, now. Confuses the heck out of great grandma. We call them land lines because we do most of our communication by way of cell phone or Blackberry. The Sony Walkman is gone. We now listen to massive playlists of music on iPod Nannos or the new Zune. We no longer watch shows. We watch shows in HD, or we jump to- not a computer anymore- a Mac or a PC- to watch streaming video. And since our Mac or PC is packed with enough components to entail a fully functional media center, the DVD player in our living room is not a DVD player anymore. It's a standalone DVD player. And we've completely retrograded regarding where we put our flat panels. In the 1950's, people used TV stands. Then in the 1980s and 1990s, everyone moved to entertainment centers. Now we're back to TV stands, though they are actually now called stands. Although you don't have to put your flat panel on a stand. You can now mount it on the wall. And they even come with PC inputs so you can hook your PC or Mac up to your flat panel in the living room, where you now have your e-mail and digital entetainment all on the fly.
We no longer just have hospitals anymore. We now have medical centers flanked by bio-tech campuses that employ thousands of scientists and researchers, or specialty centers that specialize in different conditions. We have cancer treatment centers, women's health centers full of doctors that specialize in maternal care. We no longer just throw down blacktop and call it a road. We now build roads that consist of asphalt, concrete and special rebar made to withstand changes in climate. We no longer wait in rush hour to find out if a wreck occured. LED signs now tell us if there is a wreck, where it is and how long it will take to get to the next freeway.
Now none of this sounds like a future headed for disaster. Will bad things happen? Yes, and they always have since the dawn of time. But things will also get better. We should be thankful that we have the priviledge of being alive to see the things happening today that those before us never got a chance to see. And 2007 will bring us even further. Set aside your fears. Years come and go in a nonchalant manner, and we will still be doing the same things we did ten years ago. Go to work, go on vacation, take care of the shopping, the bills, even move to a new town, go to a game, go to dinner, and most of all, take care of each other.