What will this world look like in 10, 30 or 100 years, do you know? The problem in the prediction is that we must use our imaginations based on what we already know. Our past predicts our future and looking backwards, things travelled more slowly.

Travel itself is a very good indicator of the speed of innovation. 5000 years ago, most humans likely did not travel more than a few hundred kilometers in any direction whereas 1000 years ago they went crusading, 500 years ago they crossed oceans regularly in trips that lasted months and then continents over the space of years. Railways cut trips to days and planes to hours. Hyperloops, scramjets, space travel?

It is kind of reminiscent of Moore's law where it is observed that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit, double every two years or so. What this roughly illustrates is how much someone born in these times way travel. Think about all of the technology that has been developed along the pathway to get to where we are today just in regards to travel.

A lot of technology in the past was developed independently of each other with information flow being slow, difficult and hindered by a whole range of hurdles that stood in the way of good communication. Over the last few decades though, the internet has sped information sharing massively which means an increase in the ability for people and ideas to connect, inspire and create faster. What they create will make the next round of innovation more efficient and effective and so on and on until where?

Education may be another area where we could observe the quickening process as 1000 years ago the number of people who could read and right was minuscule, 100 years ago much larger but still limited whereas now, it is the vast majority of the global community. As critical as I am of institutionalised education, this is quite incredible. In the future it is likely that the processes of learning in the past will be fundamentally changed by technological advancement that will super charge potentials.

Where does this all lead?

We spend a lot of time worrying about relatively mundane parts of life that have historically dominated the attention economy such as politics and business but, changes are coming perhaps.

What happens when supercharged minds that can connect near instantaneously to share concepts and findings, combine to create with supercomputers and general intelligence AI, advancements in materials and an exponential ramping up of information and understanding? What problems will they work on? What problems could they solve?

It is very difficult to imagine what the world is going to look like and very difficult to prepare our children to face it. When things move more slowly, it is simpler for parents and society to predict what a child needs to know in order to have a chance of leading a good life as it is not so different than the parent's life. But as things move faster, this can become near impossible.

My great grandfather did not prepare my grandfather for life with everyday cars, and my graddad did not prepare my father for life with everyday planes and my father did not prepare me for life with everyday space travel. It is not far away though perhaps.

When we educate our children we base it on what we know but moving into a future where technology has an increasing reach with a decreasing development time, this becomes redundant very fast. This is actually a large part of the reason I am critical of institutionalised education as they teach what is known whereas I think they should be spending more time teaching what could be known.

Teaching what could be known is of course impossible as it is not yet known but, preparing people for facing the unknown is teachable or at least, able to be encouraged. Rather than tell them to regurgitate what is already known, help them explore how they can be part of the future process. Don't teach them to be like us as what we know is going to be largely irrelevant soon. They need to be better.

My hope is that the burgeoning technological advancements that we are seeing today will help those in the future solve a lot of the problems we have been unable to with our limited knowledge and position. Maybe some kind of informational and collaborative utopia is possible but, we are just too ignorant and uneducated in the right things to see it.

If wonder if anyone is interested in writing an article about how they see the future of our community on this planet. I wonder how many are willing to make predictions 10 years from now, 20 years from now thinking that it may be there for review on the blockchain.

If anyone does want to imagine the future and write a new post, please link it in the comment section below so I can have a read and perhaps add a little vote value to it.

The future is coming whether we like it or not, it is what we do in our present that will shape it. What part will you play?

Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]