Tuesday, September 06, 2011

Writing Topic Tuesday – The Futurist Edition

According to Wikipedia futurists are:

scientists and social scientists whose specialty is to attempt to systematically predict the future, whether that of human society in particular or of life on earth in general.
The future

I’ve been reading a lot of near-future science fiction lately and just finished watching Terminator: Salvation (yes, I’m very far behind on my movie watching…) Books like Ready Player One by Ernest Cline and fiction by Cory Doctorow paint an often bleak picture of the world where big business and government has controlled the path of humanity and not always for the better.

I remember watching the Jetsons as a child, and then Star Trek when I was older, and had a very positive outlook on the future. Just waiting for the day when flying cars, servant robots and problems such as warfare and hunger are eradicated.  We are a long way from these outcomes, but I’m hopeful that we’ll somehow find a way to deal with the problems that we create for ourselves, and learn from the past to make the future better. It is slow going, and hard to see at times, but we are slowly stumbling toward a better world.
  • What is your view of the future?
  • What will the world look like in 10 years? 25 years? 100 years?
  • Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future? Why?
  • What are the biggest problems that we need to solve as the human race?
  • What did you think the future would be like when you grew up as a child? How has that changed?
  • What is the role of technology in the future? Will it be something embedded in the culture? Or granted to a chosen few?
  • What are the greatest dangers we face as the human race?
  • What is the key to making ourselves better?
  • What will a child born in 2111 be like? What kind of childhood will they have? What kind of world will they be born into?
  • Write a letter to yourself of 15 years into the future. What do you want you to remember? What hopes do you have for… you?

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