"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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