Future Shock

Professor J,

What a fun exercise! I have a feeling we could play this game for ages, although I doubt that imagining the future is something humans do very well. Please refer to Toynbee and Gibbon as you see fit. ;)

Add my own to this list? Pray tell, Sir what is it that you think you've missed? Female fashion, perhaps. I'm all for the chic Star Trek unisex unitard but not until we have resolved obesity and healthcare. Have you ever noticed there are no obese people in Sci-Fi movies? Even though all the physical work is taken care of by technology and we don't see people exercising, Hollywood seems to suggest at some point we've made an end run around obesity (well, perhaps not a run LOL).

I wonder if you aren't asking the wrong question. I wonder if a better predictor of what we may or may not still be thinking and arguing about are the same things that universally and historically plague mankind versus those that change greatly depending on cultural morays and tradition. Sadly, I doubt this culture or any other is going to be free of things like war, poverty, misinformation/disinformation (propaganda). I'd also have to place spirituality and religion along with consumerism (a nice word for greed) here.  All of these things seem to have much to do with the heart of man. Entangled there we find a lust for power and control coupled with greed but we seem always looking for something else to temper our foolishness.

Another list might include social and political ideas (who is responsible for whom and who is going to pay for it?). Education, healthcare, social security, poverty can go in this list as well, and infrastructure along with immigration.We could put species extinction here, since a concerted effort involving countries, organizations, and corporations would be needed to completely solve the problem.

Now we come to the things that are based on complex and intertwined --actually it all is but I'm trying to simplify here--systems. I'd group immigration, environmental impact, weapon regulation (you didn't specify if you were talking about individually owned weapons or weapons of war amassed by nations), corporations, deficit and debt, energy independence, food and water supply, jobs, plight of the middle class, and partisanship together for this one.

The last list is one where we are trying to find balance between individual rights, personal morality and what benefits society as a whole. Which brings us to (personal) weapon regulation, obesity, drugs, and overpopulation.

And finally, marriage equality. That's the only thing on the list I don't think will still be a problem. In fact I think we may all feel quite ridiculous.

So of the five categories I've created here, I only see one as being put to rest as soon as 50 years from now. Look how long the war on smoking has been going on and while progress is made as far as protecting we nonsmokers from the effects, the problem still exists. And let's not forget that history can turn on a dime, unpredictably, often within hours as a result of an unforeseen human act or natural disaster. And for the most part change is S-L-O-W. There is a lot of steady persistent pushing and pushing, leaning heavily into a problem before a tipping point is reached.