Future Perfect: What next? and other impossible questions

180 Pages·2007·4.98 MB·English

by  Robyn Williams

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FUTURE
PERFECT
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This is the first age that’s ever paid much attention
to the future,which is a little ironic since we may not
have one.
—Arthur C.Clarke
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FUTURE
PERFECT
What next? And other impossible questions
ROBYN WILLIAMS
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First published in 2007
Copyright © Robyn Williams 2007
‘Cities’and ‘Transport’appeared as shorter articles in the magazine
FastThinking and in The Australian respectively.
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National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Williams,Robyn,1944- .
Future perfect :what next? and other impossible questions.
Bibliography.
ISBN 978 1 74175 318 9 (pbk.).
1.Forecasting. 2.Social prediction. 3.Technological
forecasting. I.Title.
003.2
Set in 10.5/13 pt Bembo by Bookhouse,Sydney
Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Contents
Contents
Introduction—Plus ça change! 1
1 The Future of Communication—Beyond
Babel? 9
2 The Future of Science—The White Trash
of the Pacific? 33
3 The Future of God—God’s Only Excuse 53
4 The Future of Transport—2027:
Full Speed Ahead 77
5 The Future of Cities—More Than Half the
World’s Population? 95
6 The Future of Sex—And Why We Do It 111
7 The Future of Innovation—Inventing
the Future? 131
8 The Future of Work—Failing Upwards 139
9 The Future of Us—Our Last Century? 151
Postscript 167
Further reading 169
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For Jonica: there will be life after 40.
And for Taro, Leo,Taidgh and Jade, grandsons all—
for theirs is the future.
And thanks to Richard Walsh (RW1)
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Introduction—Plus ça change!
Introduction
The sun goes up
The sun goes down
The hands on the clock go round and round...
Thinking about the future is not a normal human activity.
This may seem weird. Why would the most intelligent
and imaginative species in the known universe insist on
being stuck in the present, marooned in the past?
It is not so surprising when you look at the
conundrum personally and historically. During the first
200,000 years of human existence not much changed.
Yes, we did nip out from Africa across the globe,
occupying six continents,but that took aeons.The average
lifetime of 30-odd brutish years saw little variation
beyond volcanic eruptions or freak weather.Otherwise,
in a world uniformly hostile to human existence (not
for one moment to be underestimated!) the struggle was
to keep your hairy and heavy-browed self alive and ready
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Future Perfect
for tomorrow’s quest for dinner.Five-minute plans were
occasionally legitimate;five-year plans out of the question.
About 35,000 to 40,000 years ago,in several parts of
the world, something changed. We invented culture. In
both Australia and Europe cave paintings show a new
sophistication, probably linked to the development of
complex language. Leaving aside how this may have
happened at the same moment among people so far
apart,it is interesting that the works reflect a life integrated
with the animals they depict and with landscape. The
only gesture towards a hypothetical future is seen in
religious iconography as we began to wrestle with the
consequences of death and alternatives to oblivion. Life
was still brutish and short, just better decorated. It was
essentially reactive;innovations such as fire and cooking
occurred only too rarely and (according to Professor
Richard Wrangham at Harvard) were more a matter of
improvisation than planning.
Which brings us to the beginnings of agriculture and
civilisation, about 10,000 years ago. One imagines our
clever forebears mucking about in the fields with crops
and creatures,noticing the potential of full-scale farming,
with its greater yield and fixed addresses, and so being
inspired to take appropriate measures,fine-tuning as they
went. Not so. The latest archaeological information
indicates that agriculture was a desperate recourse in the
face of environmental catastrophe.With far fewer berries
to pick and beasts to hunt,our benighted ancestors had
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