My Personal Mini Essay:
Does the Future Needs Us?

by Christa Benton

 
Does the future need us? Should our species be replaced or should we throw up our hands like Bill Joy? My answer is quite simple, the future needs us badly. Take a look at today's society. Our world is growing more diverse day by day creating an even more chaotic environment. We can't even carry out a traditional election without something going wrong that we later have to correct. As a kid I looked forward to becoming eighteen so I could receive the adult responsibilities that would allow me to get a taste of the real world. With all the responsibilities homo sapiens are given it is seriously granted that the future needs us. Our actions create the "matrixes" and "metaverses" (illusional worlds) we live in today. If we are not accountable for our own acts and realize how our roles effect what's to come in the future, we are putting our own world in jeopardy.

I don't really think that Bill Joy is throwing up his hands about the issue of 21st-century technologies -genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics (GNR) he attacks in his article "Does the Future Need Us." However, I do think that he feels that it is something that he simply can not correct by himself. Establishing this thought, he wrote Does the future need us to inform others about this important issue and to spread it's warning so that together our society can acknowledge the problem and solve it. I'm not totally sure if our species should be replaced, but I do feel that it will some day. As I look back on the species that roamed the earth before our time (dinosaurs,cavemen,etc.), I believe our species is the most intelligent and with our intelligence we will be able to exceed longer than those of the past. Our species does tend to get ahead of it's self at times, and if this flaw continues we will put and end to our generation here on Earth.

While watching movies such as The Matrix and reading novels by Neal Stephenson such as Snow Crash, an  individual can never be too sure of what to think.  These two types of media both strive to prod its audience to believe their views of the world and the universe as it is seen through  there eyes. However one problem derives from this form of persuasion.  Even though the arguments discussed in this book gives the audience a insight on how human civilization has progressed throughout history, these different types of interpretation's could have a serious effect on how society looks at things and question if they are true. While undergoing a study of Western Civilization as a under grad student here at Clemson, there is one common flaw that causes the greatest empires to set afoot on Earth to fall. This significant flaw is ignorance. The thought of one accepting things that are different from what they are accustomed to triggers this form of hate. If this "ignorance flaw" could ever be solved by our species, our stay on Earth could be insured. However, if this flaw gets the best of our race then we are doomed just as those who lived here before us. 

According to Stephenson's novel GNR could be the "metavirus" in our world will pervade the universe directly affecting the world and its inhabitants. In doing this GNR could infect our society with a virus. Stephenson also noted that the world has been infected by the "metavirus" and "health and longevity [are] thing[s] of the past  (Stephenson 397). This deadly virus immunizes homo sapiens by making them vulnerable to the point where they are not able to process the same information in ways they could before.
 

Are we actually living in an illusional world? Is there a "mastermind" who sits at his/her desk to govern our physical and emotional being? Are our lives fated from the start? The questions continue to go on and on in my mind and I'm left to wonder if they will ever be answered and if so how soon will I know? What I do know is that if our society is so intelligent that it can create the advancements in technology it can also work out the bugs generated from these advancements that affect our lives. Our time on earth is precious and each moment counts. We can not preserve what we have and live in the moment, instead we have to make the best out of what we are given for the time we are allotted.