After the relentless explosion of creativity in the 20th century, in every possible field, the last 2 decades seemed to have slowed down. From the early 90’s, it has primarily been marginal improvements & refinements rather than spectacular breakthroughs…with the possible exception of the Internet and Mobile Telephony, and of course our amazing ability to make movies even better. We spin a good yarn:)
While arms & armaments have developed, we still are a long way off from Robots and RoboCop. Medicine has made advances, but nothing yet to touch an entire population. Where are the flying cars, the commercial use of nuclear power, renewable energy, space travel, moon colonization, underwater cities, space-station cities, the retinal identifications, the robots, the completely replaceable body parts, artificial intelligence, even aliens and the threat of an attack from outer space ? When do we become like the Jetsons ?
At a mass level, nothing has really changed in the last 20 years. Obviously, for the developing world, even catching up with the more advanced West is progress – but at a global level, innovation has slowed.
From the 60’s, bought up on a steady diet of movies and tv series, we assume the future will be One Earth – in all sic-fi movies, the crew is always multi-racial, no specific religion, often with a woman in charge! This IS going to be the reality in the 22nd Century…but it will take us another 90 years to get there. And the journey to that eventual destination must overcome religion, energy and nationalistic differences – with war & natural disaster thrown in for good measure.
The problem is that while the 3rd world is catching up with the advanced world, the advanced world is stagnating. A fridge is a fridge. A car is a car. It still runs on petrol. A television is a television. A plane is a plane. The air hostess still comes and tells you to fasten your seat belt, the seat still reclines, you still get sad airline meals. So what’s new ?
Between the late 1850’s to about 1990, there was rapid invention and innovation. Even between 1970 and 1990.we were startled with the rapidly changing world. But 20 years from there-on, apart from the Internet, almost everything else is as is. Static.
1990 saw the end of the Cold War…and with the elevation of the US as the sole super power, it almost stopped “inventing”…it was happy to just export what it has already invented to the rest of the world. It was a decision based on quarterly results rather any grand strategic vision. We didn’t go to the moon, not because we couldn’t but because we didn’t need to…
So what will the next 90 years be like…There will be Water Wars because we haven’t yet figured how to harvest the Earth’s inbuilt ecosystem to produce fresh water. There will be Oil Wars because we are still dependent on fossil fuels and haven’t yet created a credible commercial nuclear alternative. There will be Food Wars because as the developing world catches up, we will need more food to feed all the billions. There will be Metal & Mineral Wars because we will exhaust Earth’s resources and we haven’t yet explored Space or found any new souces.
What we need to do, and we will do – is to desperately invent & innovate, and to actively integrate humankind into Global Citizenry. No more countries, JUST ONE EARTH. Thankfully, there is already enough talk of Global Villages and Flat Earths.
We will relocate peoples (Chinese to Africa, Indians to Australia), maximize use of Earth’s resources, link rivers, harvest rain, build new super cities,…We will rapidly commence space exploration, develop commercial nuclear power, colonize the Moon and the Stars.
We will make our Movies, Reality! And amazingly, all this will happen – either because of us, or inspite of us.
SAMEER NAIR 