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by Clarice Green Just as with everything else, conceptualizations of reality are distorted in the minds of many. The future to some could be the next minute, or the next hour. Every moment left behind now becomes the past, so our perceptions of the future may be distorted. I will say this though, our immediate future does need us. Technological advances have not succeeded to the point where we are no longer needed as a society. What happens then if we allow these advances to take over what we have created for ourselves? Will societal structure as we know it diminish, if not cease to exist? Our future must be governed by not only people who facilitate the world today, but people who can ensure the safety of tomorrow and the future in general. As I've said so many times before, we are the cause of our own demise. If we can prevent what we have predicted to be eternity, the problem or problems will most likely cease to exist. As a society, as a world, we create so many unnecessary problems for ourselves by conforming to preexisting values. Just as documents and other smaller aspects have proven to lose validity through the years, norms and principles that were once deemed acceptable may no longer conform to the times we have today or possibly even tomorrow. My future, my independent future, depends on the present as it is now. If we continuously structure our lives around change as it is now, there will probably be no hope for general survival. When we began this course in August that was the present, before that the past, December then the future. The present, past, and future shift forward simultaneously. As we begin to understand one state of time, it reforms and our perceptions of it change. The future that we are led to understand will probably not take place in the immediate future. Therefore it is our responsibility to ensure that the people of that time can understand our expectations. But as you consider it that way, if THE future is not OUR future, than how should it affect us in any way? Of course some people may have children, and then they in turn have more children. As youth now we can understand that our ideals are definitely not the same as that of our parents. Well, not mine anyway. It is our general responsibility to make sure that OUR future knows about the positive and negative aspects during their decisions of THE future. At this point, I, nevermind humanity am so close to misunderstanding that I stopped being concerned. My independent future has been decided by me, only because I do not like that the fact that things happen outside of my immediate control. Basically as long as each society can learn, understand and accept what can possibly happen, OUR future will be in charge of THE future, which will then become the past. The term “survival of the fittest” is common, but moreso because of the inference of a future. In this case however, there is no other race but humanity itself to compete against. It may be possible that the only thing we are really struggling for is an opportunity to prove that the world we have created can be a role model for history, instead of a downfall as it has commonly proven itself to be. To allow history to repeat itself may have been a good thing years ago, but now the concept is so far gone that to repeat the technological and societal advancements society has made would be ludicrous.
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Wired 8.04:
Why the future doesn't need us.
Wired 8.04: A Tale of Two Botanies
Wired 8.07: Rants & Raves
Executive Bios: Bill Joy
Valley to Bill Joy: 'Zzzzzzz'
Debating Humanity's Demise
Why the future needs Bill Joy
cluebot.com | Why Bill Joy is Elitist, Myopic, and Wrong
Special Focus on Bill Joy's Hi-Tech Warning - The Center for the
Study of Technology
Bill Joy Hopes Reason Prevails
In Search of Cyber Humanity
Oh Joy, Another Futurist Rant
Pop!Tech: Praises and Protests
The Rise of Dot-Communism
Sep/Oct 00: Not by Reason Alone
ZDNet: Printer Friendly - Rage Against The Machine
HotWired: Unabomber's Manifesto: Index
Hans Moravec home page
Peek at new book: ROBOT by Hans Moravec
Background 2: Accidents, Malice, Progress, and Other Topics
The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil The Kurzweil Companies http://www.kurzweiltech.com/companies_static.html
Social Life of Information Home Page
Foresight Institute
Can Robots Rule the World? Not Yet
BBC News | FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT | Robots rule OK?
ABCNEWS.com : WNT: What if Machines Get Too Smart?
Privacy's Yin and Yang
Promise and peril of technology:
The future is already written
Bill Joy, Killjoy? by Robert Wright The Future Needs Us: A Rejoinder to Bill Joy - Terry van der Werff - Global Future Global Future Reportô March 14th, 2000 Dr. Terry van der Werff, CMC Speaker Consultant http://www.globalfuture.com/wired-joy.htm |
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© Copyright 2000 Christine Boese and the students listed above. |
