A facebook friend, a Russian poet who lives in Massachusetts, posted: Just because it’s ugly doesn’t mean it’s the future.
I totally agree, but every statement includes it’s opposite, and just because it’s beautiful doesn’t mean it’s the future either.
I do not believe in God. Therefore I do not believe in fate, predetermination or inevitability.
We have a choice
We have billions and billions and billions of different possible futures, ranging all the way from contrived dystopias such as The Hunger Games, or The Postman, or Soylent Green, or Blade Runner, or Logan’s Run, or Water World, or 1984, or Planet of the Apes, to a golden world where there is no poverty, pollution, hunger or war.
The reason we have so many films of dystopian futures is partly to warn us of the possibilities, of what could happen if we make the wrong choices now. The other reason is because they make for a much more interesting film than a positive, normal future would. Can you imagine a romantic comedy set in the 24th century? How lame would that be?
And yet, despite the fact that we don’t really want to see it in films, that nice, boring future where all of our major problems have been solved is the one we should want, if we are at all sane. In a sense, it is the Star Trek universe. Earth is at peace, Earth is one world and its problems are basically solved which is why they have to go out and explore the universe, looking for trouble.
I’m getting away from the point I wanted to make. We have billions and billions of possible futures, considering the number of people in the world and the number of small choices each one of us makes in any given day. They are lined up in front of us like doors, and which door we go through will change everything. The thing is, these doors are even labeled, although not always very clearly. With a little bit of thought, and a second and a third look, we should be able to figure out which doors have ‘danger’ written on them and which ones have ‘extreme danger, do not open unless you are insane and want everyone in the world to die.’
Which of these trillions of possible futures we choose will be an aggregate of the choices of everyone alive today. We have the technology. The struggle is within ourselves.
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