The future

What will the future be like? Many people imagine a land full of gigantic, futuristic cities built in the air, where everybody drives flying cars, where the problems of war and poverty and global warming have been solved, where we can control the weather, and where we do not have to do anything.

All of these developments, however, are very unlikely to be made in the future. These thoughts came mainly from old movies. This is why none of that is very likely to be what the future will look like:

Land full of gigantic, futuristic cities
Most cities are very unlikely to grow much larger than they already are, and that is because the population is falling in Japan, China, and most of Europe. The birth rate is falling from 2.5 in Australia, the entire Americas, and most of Asia. The only continent with a steadily increasing population left is Africa, and its population will just start to drop by 2050. As for futuristic? Most buildings people are making are still stacks of little boxes. The buildings may become more beautiful later, but the old buildings are still much nicer than the new ones.

Built in the air
How the heck could you elevate cities in the air? I think there is a way, but it would be very expensive. It would be easier to make cities that orbit around the earth in space, or are built on the moon.

Where everybody drives...
Nobody will have to drive anything in the future, not even in the near future. Cars that drive themselves are already being used. A problem is, a car that drives itself would be very expensive. A solution to the the problem is taxis that drive themselves. Wouldn't that be great! No parking lots and narrower lanes would mean there would be room for other things, such as parks, cycleways (People may be biking more in the future!) and buildings.

...Flying cars
Why need a flying car when small airplanes are much better? It should be "airplanes that drive on roads."

Where the problems of war and poverty and global warming have been solved
It may sound depressing, but there has always been a problem with the world, and there will always be.

Where we can control the weather
 The weather is a very complex thing, and a terribly powerful one, too. It makes no sense to even think about controlling it for another two or three hundred years. And, when we finally do manage to control the clouds, imagine what a bad job we would do of it. Everybody always wants a blue sky and perfect heat, day after day. The plants would wither away. If we try and solve this problem and add rain, well, as I already mentioned, weather is a very complex thing. We would interfere with weather elsewhere, with more bad circumstances, and generate a negative spiral. The world would fall into chaos. Best to leave the weather untampered with.

The truth is that we are already controlling the weather, and the weather is on a due course for chaos in fifty years if nobody does anything quickly. How can we manage the world with much more power?

And where we do not have to do anything
All mechanical jobs will be replaced by robots, but most other jobs will not. For example, a robot can tell somebody information, but I do not think a robot would be a good teacher. People will still do science. Tours will not be taken over by robots, and that is good for me because I want to be a tour guide when I grow up. Robots are good for many other jobs, though, so watch out if you plan to work in a car factory!

The path of history has been a long, windy route, and there have been significant bends in the route, first at the beginning of agriculture, next in the discovery of bronze, then iron. The most recent bend has been the sharpest, at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. There have been large forks in the path since, including the world wars and the cold war. At both forks, we went the right way. I wonder: Why, since the industrial revolution, have we been constantly in the fear of the world being destroyed? Anyway, the next fork in the path is very important. In World War II, it was not so extreme. Hitler was about to take over half the world, but, if he had succeeded, there would be more war that would rip the empire apart, so the only change would be in country borders. Even in the Cold War, it was not so extreme. This time, there will be a change in the way we live, no matter what we do. The problem is climate change.

The good news is, we are on the right path, if only we are given a nudge the right way. In future problems, we might not be so lucky. Along with more control over the earth, will come worse problems with more dire conditions if we go the wrong way. Mark my words, humans will destroy themselves sooner or later, if this row of problems continues. However, there is nothing one person can do, so the best thing to do for now about this is nothing. All we can do right now is avoid the problems that come in our way. Currently, this happens to be climate change, which should be one of the easier problems to solve, because we are causing it ourselves.