As humanity tiptoes further and further into the second millennium, I find myself frequently asking: what’s in store for us, the millennials? What are the next generation-defining discoveries we’re going to make? We’re rapidly approaching that age where we get over the initial growing pains of entering adulthood and settle into our true purposes. So what will we accomplish once we’re firing on all cylinders?
We live in an exciting time, there’s no doubt about that. Look back at the past one hundred years, and consider how much our technology has evolved. It’s astonishing, when you really think about it. It took us no more than three generations to evolve from horse and buggy to being able to strike a piece of plastic on a desk and have a letter manifest itself on a digital, electronic screen. Isn’t that amazing? Think about that. Can you even begin to understand how difficult it must have been to innovate the ability to create something that lets you type on a keyboard and make itself appear on a monitor? I sure can’t. Not only did they have to figure out how to make the signal travel from keyboard to monitor, but they also had to figure out how to make the little black lines show up on the screen in the first place. I have an indescribable amount of respect for the people who sat around and figured this kind of stuff out.
But that’s kind of my point here. So what’s next? Here we are – we’ve got the internet. We’ve got cell phones. We’ve got next day delivery. We’ve got pretty much anything a human could ask for in terms of convenience. What’s the next big project we’ll think of? It seems like we’re always surprising ourselves with our constant ingenuity and creativity as a species. Which is good! The progression of technology is important in any civilization’s quest to persevere.
After thinking about this for a while, I did a little research into it and came across an article that listed 10 big inventions we’re all just waiting to happen. It lists some pretty cool stuff. Most of it is the obvious – things like flying/driver-less cars, robot maids, and colonizing Mars. But there were some other things I hadn’t thought of, like underwater cities, food in a pill, and air-conditioned suits. Of all of these, I think the most useful would be underwater cities. That would at least solve an enormous population growth issue we’re facing here on Earth, giving us a whole new environment to settle into. We would just need to be mindful of not upsetting the ecosystem. In any case, it all sounds crazy at first glance, but I bet if you told someone 200 years ago that their grandchildren would be wheeling around in gas-powered boxes, they’d think you’re nuts.
The only concern I would voice is that I hope we maintain our humanity when all of these things come to pass. Technology has such a strange ability to make our lives easier, yet make us detached at the same time. And as we get more and more advanced, our children lose all context of where we, their ancestors, came from – making it all too easy to take things for granted. So I think we need to be mindful of this as we move forward.
Regardless of where we go technologically, the most important thing to be aware of is that we must make it a priority to keep our social and political ideologies in check. If we don’t maintain an open environment that promotes innovation and forward thinking, we’ll be shooting ourselves in the foot. This is going to become harder and harder to do if we continue to feed the media-driven divisiveness that’s been created as of late. Keeping this in mind and staying united is the only way to enter a new age with the hope of making the world a better place. Keep fighting the good fight.
Here is the article I referenced above: http://www.geniusstuff.com/blog/list/10-future-inventions-everyones-been-waiting-for/
How the World Should Work 