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How do you imagine the Future?
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October 20th, 2009
The idea of the future as being significantly different from the past is of relatively recent origin. There are still a few places where people worship ancestors and look to elders as guardians of tradition.
It seems that it is even more recent that people have been able to imagine the future as a time that is worse than the present. I think it is only starting in the 19th century with H G Wells’s Time Machine that the future was not imagined as being rosy, and it is only very recently that a significant portion of the population has stopped believing in the future. Remember the Jetsons?
Is there cause for optimism? The previous stories of nuclear holocaust have given way to stories of societal collapse and wars with cyborgs. The word unsustainable is commonly used. Is there a happy alternative? I like to think of a mass turning away from the complexities of life leading to an implosion of consumer culture, but I don’t know that this is a very realistic vision. How do you imagine the future?
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