Blog » Futile Future Predictions
Posted on 18 Oct 2012 06:25
“What will my tomorrow look like?” This is the question that allows a range of businesses, from psychiatry to politics to education to prosper. This is because in order to ensure that their tomorrow is brighter than their today, the human race knows no bounds. Yet, there is a group that endeavors to ask this question on a wide scale basis. These people, known as futurists, have developed a whole field of intellectual thinking known as future prediction. Future prediction attempts to use current circumstances, surveys, reports as well as historical trends to pain a picture of the world tomorrow.
This field has attracted scholars from a vast array of academic fields but perhaps most prominently from scientists and technologists. Michio Kaku and Eugene Linden are two such renowned scientists. Both of these authors are widely respected and credited. In the later 90s, they each voiced their own perceptions of what tomorrow holds for us and some guideline dates for when these predictions will become reality. While some of these ideas are close to reality other ideas are way off the mark. The outlandish nature of the predictions along with the wrongly proportioned timelines that these authors came up with only leave the reader in disbelief. For example, Kaku created that by 2010, ubiquitous computing and telematics would be an ordinary aspect of life. He expected computers to have the same value as a pack of Duracell batteries, easily bought at the convenience stores and not having much value. He also expected smart cars to roam the highways. Linden on the other hand, focused his predictions on how vastly different the world would be in 2050 because of radical disasters which engulf the planet in the early decades of the 21st century. Well it is now 2012, two years after 2010, the first decade of the century. Computers are not sold in packs at the nearby deli and the creation of smart cars isn’t even in the realm of possibility. There also have not been any major disasters which would force humans too change their perspective on society and the way it is structured.
Yet, if these are the predictions from the most credited intellectuals in the field, then what can even be said about the others in the field? In actuality, the many erroneous predictions call upon future prediction to be questioned as an intellectual field in itself. After all, what are these ‘futurists’ basing their predictions on? Is it the combination of the human species, the environment that we inhabit and the society that we have created? Well, these factors cannot be a valid basis for prediction because they themselves are not solid- they are continuously changing.
The human species is not a definite term. We as a race are the result of thousands of years of natural selection. As the strongest moved on, the gene pool evolved into what it currently is. Even though we are now civilized and there is no longer a daily fight of survival and food, evolutionary psychologists claim that the human species have not finished evolving. Instead, the gene pool is slowly altering. This is not hard to imagine. Humans are now living longer then ever because of medicine and technology. Consider a patient who has heart failure but is able to survive because of a heart transplant. Historically, such an individual would not have survived, and his ‘weak’ genes, which predisposed him to heart disease, would not have been passed on. Yet, because of this procedure, the man is able to live on and have children, passing on these genes. This on a large scale over time could alter the gene pool, causing our descendants to be weaklings. They might need to depend heavily on artificial medicine. This is just one of the many ways that the human species could change. There is no way for us to look forward in time and predict the exact changes that will occur. Thus, predicting what will work for our descendant based what works for us now becomes an impossibility when we don’t even know what characteristics our descendants will entail.
The task of predicting complicates itself further because of the changing environment that we currently, and our descendants in the future will inhabit. This planet and its characteristics are not stationary. Instead they are changing constantly, especially faster at this age in time. Global warming is a threat that constantly looms over every environmental scientist’s mind. As the overall temperature continues do increase, it is going to cause drastic changes in the weather and water cycles. Seasons as we know them might cease to exist as winters get harsher or spring becomes as warm as summer. Furthermore, as the population and consequently the cities continue to grow, the forests and ecosystems of the planet are sacrificed. As more animals then ever are becoming extinct, the delicate balance that maintained the ecosystems is being disrupted. These ecosystems are no longer able to sustain themselves. These changes of course do not account for the direct human changes to the environment. Humans are constantly trying to benefit themselves. This means that animals are constantly being killed for their body parts. Livestock and vegetables are being genetically altered to be aesthetically pleasing and more filling, to support the growing population. At every point, other species of the planet are suffering so that humans can prosper. Hence the changes caused directly and indirectly by human activity leave the question of how the dynamics will be tomorrow unanswered. Furthermore, future descendants will also have to deal with the facts that resources are unlimited. These undefined aspects of how the world will be tomorrow make it difficult to judge how our descendants will interact with their surroundings.
Perhaps the most flimsy and vulnerable to change is the aspect of our lives that isn’t rooted in nature: the society. As times change and people’s mindset along with it, the society changes rapidly. The economy aspect is already unpredictable. Very few people foresaw the current economic downfall and now no one can tell for sure when it will change for the better. International boundaries are also complex. As countries grow stronger in their own views, their relationships with other nations deteriorate. Yet, as more people travel and have an open mindset, cultures are fusing together. Interracial marriage is changing the way families bond as mixes in traditions build new ones. Gay marriage is helping erase the traditional family dynamics. Even today, these lifestyles differ greatly from the lifestyle sixty years ago. There is no longer a family nucleus with a stay at home mom who cooks fresh food. Instead, fast food and take out is on the rise. Families are loosing importance as a work priority society emerges. So much has changed in a short time but no one could have ever predicted it.
The people are changing. The place they are living in is changing. The rules and norms they abide by are changing. So how can we predict how the three will interact based on our lives and experience? We can’t. At least not accurately.
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