What the future holds: 

Our leap into an unknown realm.

 

        I've always loved watching movies that had to do with/ take place in the future, Meet the Robinsons, I Robot, Back to the Future 2, WALL-E, Rollerball, the Star Wars series' (yeah i know technically they takes place in the past but you catch my drift) etc. Having insight to a world where anything is possible is something I've loved. My view of the future has always been bright, prosperous, and innovative but over the years i've found that that portrayal may not be entirely correct.

      In my observations, i've found that science is practiced due to three main categories/ ideas, Curiosity and imagination, necessity, and in fear.  Science has always been a something that thrives on curiosity and imagination, and is notorious for morphing fiction into a reality. The ludicrous idea that messages could be sent from New york and received in England through a wire in only a few minutes, or even more simply the long wanting wish for man to fly coming true with the Wright brothers. However science also thrives on necessity and is often used to "better" the lives of man, make things simpler or more care free. If there is a problem with food going bad we create pesticides, preservatives, and GMO's. If we don't have time to clean the house we create an automatic vacuum cleaner, and if we feel sad, tired, sleepy, or to excited we invent a pill to make us feel opposite. Finally science is used when in fear. Fear is a strong force and can drive a man to do anything. Scared of losing a war? invent a bigger bomb. Scared of your company failing? create a computer system that calculates who will be most beneficial to fire. Scared dying? fund the research to download your brain onto a computer. 

      All of these examples are real things, yes even the brain download,   (http://www.popsci.com/article/science/neuroscientist-who-wants-upload-humanity-computer) we've even seen it in movies such as Tron. These examples don't all seem bright but when you look at them, they seem scary. Many science fiction books and movies written about the future, highlight the dangers of science, and have portrayed the future as being a dystopia. Take for example novels like Fahrenheit 451, Do Androids Dream of Electric sheep, The time machine, The Hunger Games. Or movies such as Idiocracy, 12 Monkeys, or Inter stellar. 

     Can our world really end up as bad as some of these works imagine? I believe that it is defiantly a possibility especially in our world today and our push towards progressivism. The movie WALL-E, as pictured above, actually gives us a decent idea as to how this might occur. Today we live a life style that is meant to be as quick and easy as possible, of course you could argue that thats how people always were striving to live, except in this day in age we are closer than ever with the technology we have. Today we do not even need to move to live. We can talk to friends, watch tv, go to work, and keep up with the news on our computers. We can order groceries from the bed and have them put directly into our fridge. We can hire someone or buy something to clean the house or do yard work. The movie highlights all these aspects and puts them into perspective for us. Essentially we could be living a virtual reality, almost the same life that would be lived if we downloaded our brains onto computers. 

      Yes maybe these ideas are far fetched but i believe we are closer to our predecessors idea of the future as ever before. Sometimes Scientists don't know what they are getting into and are, as we speak, pioneering a new realm such as cloning, flirting dangerously with the unknown. But i guess that is the curiosity. We also push towards this future through necessity, in the past necessity looked like the need for a a faster ship, but today necessity looks much different, necessity is our need for super sonic planes, voice activated phones, cheaper 3D printers etc. The science of today is run mostly on necessity. Lastly our future world is being shaped by fear. We fear being over powered and the loss of loved ones so now we "upgrade" to drone warfare. We are scared of the ice caps and losing parts of the world due to flooding so we regulate our carbon footprint and research what it will take to fix it. Science is conducted when in fear. All three of these points merge together as well as staying separate when it comes to our reasons for the execution of science. The future is bright scary and mysterious, but we wont know what it will hold until we get there.