"How young people see the future?"


Tuesday, 25 August 1998

Our generation could easily be called the generation of dreamers. Many of us think that the word 'impossible' should not exist. We can do anything. Fifty years ago, if I told someone that in 1969 Man would land on the Moon, he would have thought that I was crazy. A few years ago cloning was only a domain of science fiction writers, but now it is a matter of fact. I could give here many other examples, but it is not a topic of this project.
Lets think about, how our generation consider the future. In my opinion we have here two absolutely different ideas: one group of pessimists and another group of optimists. The first one describes the future comparing it to Hell. Their future is flooded by nuclear wars, plagues and another terrible disasters. The second one sees it absolutely differently. They are dreaming about Peace, about great scientific revolution, space exploration, about Utopia. I don't agree with the first group, but my opinion is a bit more radical than the opinion of the second group.
I hope that people learnt something from The Second World War and it won't be repeated again. In spite of this we must know that there are such people like Saddam Hussein or Kaddafi, who can be a great danger for whole humanity. Nuclear, biological and chemical weapons are getting much simpler to build than they were before. But, as somebody said, probably it was ......................, a stronger weapon is more difficult to use, not because it is more complicated, but because of the results.
In one of his books, the great visionary A. C. Clarke presented his idea of Mars colonisation and terraforming this hostile planet to normal conditions. Many people think that it will be soon possible. A few months ago Lunar Prospector probe, which was sent on an orbit of the Moon, confirmed that there is water on the permanently dark sides of meteoric craters. It would be essential for future Moonbases. In November 1998 the project of building the international space station Alpha starts. It will be built with the co-operation of USA, Canada, Soviet Union, Japan, France, UK and Germany. In my opinion the most important thing is to start to consider us as one race - the human race. It ought to be irrelevant if you are black or white, Christian or Muslim the future world should be based on tolerance else we will never be able to explore The Universe, "to boldly go when no man has gone before".
Another thing is the Earth and her resources. They are not unlimited. The newest forecasts are that about the great the year 2050 all resources of coal, gas and oil will be depleted. It seems to be impossible, but it is true. And then what? Total chaos. Nowadays we still don't have an alternative source of energy. Nuclear reactors are too dangerous and expensive, the solar, wind and water-plants can't produce enough energy to provide our needs. Many people see the answer in fusion-reactors, but they haven't been developed yet and studies on nuclear fusion have already been aborted.
Now electronics is the most profitable and the fastest developing branch of industry. On average ones a year the new technology is being developed. It causes the rapid fall of prises. The first microchip, which was produced in ....., contained about ....... transistors and could process ....... "information" per second. Now the fastest microchips contain about 10 millions transistors and can process about 10 billions "information" per second. Actually many scientist suspect that now we are standing before a great revolution in electronics.
The biology, chemistry, medicine and electronics are going to connect in one big branch of science. Also a nanotechnology, the latest innovation, will make our life easier. Such an illness as cancer, AIDS or heart attacks won't exist. A few weeks ago the complete genome of one of the most common bacteria was discovered. With the help of genetic engineering, scientists will be able to make us immune to most today's' diseases. New kinds of drugs and also artificial body implants may make our lives longer.
Finally I want only to ask if we can really predict our future and if we can, is this future good? The human, being will prevail, but at a high price. Although he gets rid of 'the natural life', he mustn't forget his roots and origin.

Autor: JOJO


Utworzono w dniu: 05 listopad 2000
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