Saturday, October 18, 2008

9794: The futuristic perspective

I've been thinking about how influential science fiction is. When someone writes about the future, they speculate and imagine what we will be able to do and hopes to get a realistic interpretation.

By putting a vision on the table, it's shared and as a human race, we typically look at what we think is possible and we try to make it possible. Some people say William Shatner changed the world with Star Trek.

cell phones, touch screen monitors, other technological advancements which were first perceived by the creators of the show, and are now a reality.

It's interesting to think about. Here's a group of people trying to predict the future. With their images, they inspired inventors to make it happen.

If they didn't make the show, would these things have been invented?

Another interesting aspect about the old star trek was it's positive view on our future. (Any sci-fi about human's surviving passed the point where we can live off this planet is positive in itself). But Star Trek went beyond that. There was no racism whatsoever, it wasn't an issue.

I was thinking about this. It's a fact that any animal wants to protect and spread it's gene pool. Our family's are the closest to us. Apart from that are our friends, and from a scientific viewpoint, we pack together to protect ourselves from other dangers.

I think as a people, we've evolved from having a smaller pack to a bigger and bigger one.

United States of America has almost 10 million square kilometers of fairly dense population. That's a pretty big pack.

Racism is simply evolutionary junk, from a time where our pack consisted of nothing but our own race and anyone outside was considered a threat.

You can see how our relationship with animals has become one where instead of defending any animal that is not our species, we've evolved to one where we have a co-existence with many species. Or perhaps a better description is where one species realized the other wasn't competition anymore, they've found a co-existence.

hmmm. Now I'm thinking, the human species is the human species, the fact that we fight amongst each other when other animals of the same species seem to co-exist just fine would seem that we're progressing backwards.

Unless... A species competes among other species to get ahead, and once it's the leader of all the species, essentially, since there's no competition, the species naturally competes among each other to get ahead.

Which is a good thing I suppose, but racism in this context is still a very bad thing. It's like one member of a bigger pack begrudgingly not accepting new members to the pack.

So, what would it take for our human species to quit fighting amongst each other to get ahead?

Hypothetically, what if we could have world peace? Who would we compete against? Evolution is essentially about survival. If we don't feel threatened, we don't really need to change anything.

Competition like a space race, sports and things like that are good, but if they're not about survival, it's not in the same category.

You would think that the only way we could work together as one would be if the whole world was threatened.

Maybe climate change will start to be more obvious and we'll see countries all agree to drop military funding to avert a crisis.

It would be great to see the Americans decrease military funding in favor of revitalizing their economy.

They already have the biggest military in the world, maybe it's time to set an example and at least lower the rifles a little bit.

I've always said that if the new world wants to take terrorism seriously, it's not about how many bombs you drop and terrorists you kill, it's about changing the global image.

If the United States put more effort in to helping countries in the world, using military to help people and show it through the internet and television, people might not assume America's the great devil.

Instead of holding on to evolutionary junk, maybe the politicians shouldn't be telling people things like "we have to protect ourselves from countries that don't like us very much" and spreading fear of terrorism, and recreating that paradigm of the all-American hero.

Here's how you do it. Americans, take note, this is an awesome idea. You invest in a team of high-tech soldiers, take the best and brightest. Pick the people that you want to represent your country. Send them to places like Darfur with camera's all over the place, get it all on tape, and make a show of it.

This should all be in the name of protecting the innocent.

Say for example, the viewers watch as a uav kills a ragtag group of terrorists that refused to surrender. And then it shows an effort to help the community that was attacked, where a group of people are taught how to build schools, make greenhouses, windmills, and give them internet so they can have access to the wealth of knowledge available.

I'd watch it. And then hopefully other nations will see that America is the worlds boy scout always helping out. Perhaps the notion will spread.

I know it's hard to imagine but imagining it is just the first step.

No comments: