1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpp7TGIcIfk&feature=PlayList&p=D3C5550785A898E7&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=65
2. http://architecture.mit.edu/house_n/web/resources/articles/Boston%20Globe%20Online%20-%20Sunday%20%20Focus%20-%20Lost%20in%20space.htm
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FUTUROLOGY Where are the robots, the moon colonies, the domed cities, and automated highways predicted 40 years ago?
Oh, the dazzling modern amenities that were supposed to have arrived by now. Underwater settlements. Domed cities. Space colonies. Automated highways. Hover trains. Endless energy. Smart homes and smarter offices. Robot maids. Even universal health care. Such were the predictions proffered in the last half century for life by the year 2000. And they weren't the pipe dreams of harebrains and crackpots, but the best guesses from supposed specialists: engineers and scientists, futurologists, technologists, and professional trend-watchers. But just as in Michael Crichton's ''Westworld,'' somewhere, something went wrong ... wrong ... wrong. When it comes to forecasting the future, two maladies commonly distort the gaze: too little imagination or too much. A prime example of the former is Charles Duell, who in 1899, as commissioner of the US Office of Patents, opined that ''everything that can be invented has been invented.'' A more common failing, however, is an excess of imaginative power. Futurologists, tingling with a love of technology and a sense of endless possibilities, are particularly susceptible. At the New York World's Fair of 1964-65, the undersea city was one of the promised marvels in General Motors' popular Futurama II. At about the same time, Alister Hardy, an Oxford marine biologist, declared that in 20 years, men would be using aquatic tractors to cultivate crops on the sea floor, while divers would stay for days in permanent undersea habitations. Others looked toward the heavens, found the sky illimitable, and promptly got lost in space. Now predicting is not rocket science - but rocket scientists have long been predictors. We would have a manned station on the moon by 1984, Wernher von Braun foretold in 1964; 50,000 people would live and work in space by 2000, thought Robert Truax, another rocket pioneer. Futurologist Roy Mason figured 1989 was a more accurate date for that, while Timothy Leary, then a professor at Harvard, felt man would begin a massive migration to High Orbital Mini Earths, or HOMES, in 1995, by which time Drew University professor Roger Williams Wescott expected we'd have satellite factories producing goods and bouncing solar power to earth via microwave. Arthur C. Clarke, the science and science-fiction writer, foresaw a manned lunar base by 1995; science writer Trudy Bell predicted the Soviets (remember them?) would colonize the moon by then. A mere moon colony? Why, Gerald Feinberg, a Columbia University physicist, said we'd build an artificial planet by 2000 - and see the birth of the first extraterrestrial tots. How to transport goods to space? Nothing as fanciful as ''Beam me up, Scotty,'' certainly. How about the space elevator, a device that would operate on a cable running, like a giant beanstalk, up through the clouds to a geosynchronous satellite? That was a nostrum Clarke tried to popularize in the 1970s and '80s. ''Clearly, if a satellite can remain poised forever above the same spot on the equator, then, in principle, it should be possible to lower a cable from orbit to Earth, performing an Indian rope trick 36,000 kilometers high,'' he wrote. Cagily vague on the time line, he said it would happen ''50 years after everyone stops laughing.'' One who was not chuckling was inventor and designer Buckminster Fuller, who noted that as early as 1951 he had proposed a man-made space ring encircling the earth above the equator. To travel, one would simply ascend to the ring-bridge, wait for the earth to turn below, and then drop back to the desired location. Fuller's fecund imagination also saw the virtual reinvention of the land-based city under climate-controlling domes. New York City was a likely candidate, he said, as was East St. Louis. That idea caught the fancy of other wool-gatherers, and Robert Kenedi, a Scottish professor of bioengineering, predicted those environmentally controlled towns by 1984. Clarke's time line for future progress, outlined in 1964, gives some idea of the perils of prognostication. A half decade out, he was doing pretty well, missing by only one year with his estimate when he predicted a manned lunar landing by 1970. But what of his fusion delusion: power by combining atom nuclei by 1990? Any number of more cautious soothsayers thought 1995 to 2000 was a likelier date, and Clarke later revised his estimate to that date for commercial application. What to do while we wait for the promise of unlimited power? Enter, stage north, the huge chunks of glacial ice that, futurologists Marvin Cetron and Thomas O'Toole predicted in their 1982 book, ''Encounters with the Future,'' would be towed south to remedy the severe water shortages they foretold for the 1990s. Those icebergs, declared the diving duo, would also ''be used as floating islands where the country can locate breeder power reactors, using the melting glacial ice to cool down the reactors while they produce enough electricity to light up entire coast regions.'' Alas, once the breeder went bust and the cold-water-fusion craze of 1989 turned out to be the scientific equivalent of a misplaced Alka Seltzer bubbling away in a beaker, hope for power too cheap to meter receded to more distant days. Nor have we eliminated hurricanes and typhoons, as Roger Revelle, director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, thought we would. And if we're to have complete weather control by 2010, as Clarke thought, science had best get busy in the lab. Futurologists took to the road with their predictions. Automated highways were much in imaginary vogue, and we're not talking a simple ''smart pass'' here, but systems in which drivers would surrender their cars to remote roadway control, and let the central computer set the speed. Worried about malfunctions? No need to be. By 1995 at the latest, Sperry Corp. futurist Earl Joseph said, a new car would have computerized collision-avoidance hardware to keep it ''virtually accidentless throughout its life.'' As for steel wheels on steel rails? Gone the way of the horse and buggy. The hovercraft subway was the wave of the future, with cars that cruised on an air cushion, said Christopher Cockerell. (As inventor of the hovercraft, Cockerell can perhaps be forgiven his self-interested optimism.) And for cross-country travel, there was Rand physicist Robert Salter's ''planetron,'' an underground mag-lev train that would zoom from New York to Los Angeles in about an hour. And there was going to be plenty of time for travel. Life was supposed to become more leisurely, not more hectic. ''There will be shorter workweeks, 32 hours a week by 1990 and 25 hours a week by 2000,'' wrote Cetron and O'Toole. A common idea, the truncated workweek, and the reasons were obvious: computers and robots. As office help, these machines were supposed to be microelectronic Radar O'Reillys. Mention a meeting and a topic, the authors confidently predicted, and your computer would log the appointment, find the address, calculate your travel time, assemble a dossier of relevant information - and remind you when promptness required your departure. Keyboards would become a thing of the past, replaced by ''direct speech communication'' with your machine, predicted computer expert Malcolm Peltu. And technology wasn't just for the workplace. Writing in the 1960s, British engineering specialist Meredith Thring envisioned, within 20 years, a ''robot slave'' that could ''carry out half a dozen or more standard operations (for example, scrubbing, sweeping, and dusting, washing-up, laying tables, making beds). '' In more modern predictions, add shoveling the snow, cutting the grass, cooking meals, and acting as a sympathetic companion to the elderly. (''Please Pro-vide Me With More In-for-ma-tion About Your Lin-e-ar De-scen-dants One Gen-e -ra-tion Re-moved.'') Others thought robots would become so smart they'd teach our children, whip us at Scrabble, and be nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. And, horror of microelectronic horrors, perhaps eventually they would grow so haughty about their obvious superiority that they would subject us to cyber-tude and cyber-snubs. (That's a role Gen X has graciously agreed to assume while we wait upon technology.) Society's past difficulty with prognostication has not discouraged a new crop of futurists. ''Predictions for the Next Millennium,'' a 1998 book surveying some of today's best-known citizens, is full of the same sort of notions: spaceships, robots, orbiting cities, colonies on Mars. But until then, we will have to make do. So if you're living in a not-so-smart home, muddling along without a mechanical maid, and driving a car or taking a subway not so very unlike those of a decade ago to an office where you're endlessly tap-tap-tapping on the same old keys of yore, well, feel free to lament your lost future. And remember the words of Yogi Berra: ''It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future.'' Editor's note: Information for this essay was drawn from a dozen books about the future or futurology, including, prominently, ''The Book of Predictions,''``1984 and Beyond,'' ''Encounters with the Future,'' and ''Futurehype.'' This story ran on page E01 of the Boston Globe on 10/31/99. |
tanding here on the cusp of the new millennium, peering back at the predictions of the last half century, one can't escape an obvious conclusion: Some dastardly time bandit made off with our future.3. http://www.pixelmatic.com.au/2000/
July 22, 1961, Weekend Magazine |
| What sort of life will you be living 39 years from now? Scientists have looked into the future and they can tell you. It looks as if everything will be so easy that people will probably die from sheer boredom. You will be whisked around in monorail vehicles at 200 miles an hour and you will think nothing of taking a fortnight's holiday in outer space. Your house will probably have air walls, and a floating roof, adjustable to the angle of the sun.
You'll have a home control room - an electronics centre, where messages will be recorded when you're away from home. This will play back when you return, and also give you up-to-the minute world news, and transcribe your latest mail. You'll have wall-to-wall global TV, an indoor swimming pool, TV-telephones and room-to-room TV. Press a button and you can change the décor of a room. The status symbol of the year 2000 will be the home computer help, which will help mother tend the children, cook the meals and issue reminders of appointments. Cooking will be in solar ovens with microwave controls. Garbage will be refrigerated, and pressed into fertiliser pellets. Food won't be very different from 1961, but there will be a few new dishes - instant bread, sugar made from sawdust, foodless foods (minus nutritional properties), juice powders and synthetic tea and cocoa. Energy will come in tablet form. At work, Dad will operate on a 24 hour week. The office will be air-conditioned with stimulating scents and extra oxygen - to give a physical and psychological lift. Mail and newspapers will be reproduced instantly anywhere in the world by facsimile. There will be machines doing the work of clerks, shorthand writers and translators. Machines will "talk" to each other. It will be the age of press-button transportation. Rocket belts will increase a man's stride to 30 feet, and bus-type helicopters will travel along crowded air skyways. There will be moving plastic-covered pavements, individual hoppicopters, and 200 m.p.h. monorail trains operating in all large cities. The family car will be soundless, vibrationless and self-propelled thermostatically. The engine will be smaller than a typewriter. Cars will travel overland on an 18 inch air cushion. Railways will have one central dispatcher, who will control a whole nation's traffic. Jet trains will be guided by electronic brains.
By the year 2020, five per cent of the world's population will have emigrated into space. Many will have visited the moon and beyond. Our children will learn from TV, recorders and teaching machines. They will get pills to make them learn faster. We shall be healthier, too. There will be no common colds, cancer, tooth decay or mental illness. Medically induced growth of amputated limbs will be possible. Rejuvenation will be in the middle stages of research, and people will live, healthily, to 85 or 100. There's a lot more besides to make H.G. Wells and George Orwell sound like they're getting left behind. And this isn't science fiction. It's science fact - futuristic ideas, conceived by imaginative young men, whose crazy-sounding schemes have got the nod from the scientists. It's the way they think the world will live in the next century - if there's any world left! ©1999 Pixelmatic | |
4. http://architecture.mit.edu/house_n/web/resources/articles/Boston%20Globe%20Online%20-%20Business%20-%20Growing%20earth
She looks at the telephone on her wrist that can reach her mother anywhere in the world every time she says ''Mom'' and asks with incredulity, ''Couldn't you see the person you were talking to?'' The sound of her voice awakens a visual theater fueled by thousands of cameras and microphones surrounding a concert by the Rolling Stones (yes, they're still around). Instantly, the living room becomes a virtual-reality experience almost as good as the real event. ''What,'' she asks, ''was a television?'' Her father comes in and commands the volume of the Stones concert to drop so he and his colleagues around the world can continue their videoconference. ''You mean you actually went to your office to work, and sometimes you even had to travel to talk with your partners?'' the child says. In the kitchen, the dishwasher is on the blink. But not to worry - the appliance has already consulted with the manufacturer and is busy making adjustments. As the girl tugs you out of that chair for a trip to the playground, there are no worries about traffic. The computer in your vehicle will present pictures from cameras suspended over every possible route, instantly showing which would be the fastest. That's the world of 2025, as seen by researchers at Lucent Technologies' Bell Labs in Murray Hill, N.J. Avun Netravali, its president, says the world of the future will be embraced by a ''meganetwork that will cover the entire planet like a skin.'' ''Just as our skin transmits a constant stream of sensory data to our brains,'' Netravali said, the global skin will use millions of cameras, sensors, microphones, and various measuring devices to collect and transmit data. Gone will be such things as waiting by the phone, surfing the Net, and traveling to business meetings. Predicting the future is always hazardous, though. Current trends surely set the stage for many developments, but what is unknown remains, well, unknown. Who would have thought just a decade ago that the Internet would become so mainstream? But when Ma Bell speaks, people listen. These are, after all, some of the same people who brought us the transistor. Here's what they are basing their ''millennium predictions'' on: Communications. That long wait for information over the Internet will become a thing of the past, due to increased bandwidth. Bell says it's doubling the capacity of optical fibers every nine months, and recently announced that it had transmitted data at 1 trillion bits (a ''terabit'') per second. That's enough to transmit 500,000 movies simultaneously. Miniaturization. Electronics are getting so small - a camera on a chip, for example - that it will be possible to put them everywhere. That should permit instantaneous monitoring of everything from pollution to rising flood waters. Bell predicts high-resolution monitors the size of an eyeglass lens, and wireless phones the size of a quarter. Software. Programmers are creating software that can take the drudgery out of research by monitoring your work on a personal level. The personal computer of the future should know you well enough to anticipate your needs, and it will travel with you wherever you go. All of that could have a downside, of course. Sociologists worry we will retreat into our electronic caves like so many hermits. And how many remote cameras do we really need? Every time you scratch an itch, will a million people see it? What about privacy? And the toughest question: Once we get all that information, what will we do with it? Technology alone won't solve all of our problems. But it will certainly change the way we deal with most of them. Lee Dye can be reached by e-mail at leedyeptialaska.net. This story ran on page C04 of the Boston Globe on 12/15/99. |
Extending our newspaper services to the web | of The Globe Online | ||
5. http://www.alittlehistory.com/future.htm
Life In The Future (2010 and beyond)
| ContentsLife in the Future |
Maintained from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Major revisions in 2001 and 2002;
then minor revisions from 2006 to 2009.
Latest minor revisions made September 18, 2009.
First posted to alittlehistory.com on Jan. 10, 2001.
Applet complements of javafile.com; when
I last looked they were still free.
Most of this Web
site is about the dead,
about people who lived in the past.
[For the most part,
history is the
study of dead
people.]
But, this file looks at
THE FUTURE
and makes suggestions
so we (the living) can make
better choices about our future.
Life in the Future
a not too serious look at life in 2010 and beyond
In 1964 I attempted to take a serious look into the future. That was a time when most people assumed that everything would keep getting better, and that future generations would enjoy life in a much better world. At that time, I read a few books which made detailed predictions about the positive impact of increased mechanization. Many of those predictions eventually proved to be false. This taught me not to take predictions of the future too seriously. It also taught me that with the important issues of today, like climate change, health, and violence, we can't afford to sit back and assume that our lives will automatically get better; nor should we assume that the leaders we elect will automatically take us in a direction that is best for us. |
The Dead Can Live Again: | ||
|---|---|---|
About 50 years from now, it will be possible to use virtual reality to bring the dead back to life. People will drag out their old and boring home movies and choose a relative to bring back to life. The visual will be combined with records about that person to create a virtual relative. | Then the family can have a chat with that relative, keep it running, and live with it. The experience will be like living with a ghost. People who died long ago will be resurrected so they can take on new roles. In 2030 the great people of the 20th Century will be brought back alive virtually and be presented on television. | The world will look on in awe as they watch the famous interact at a party. They will watch Richard Nixon make out with Margaret Thatcher, the Three Stooges try to pick a fight with Hulk Hogan, Elvis (the king) Presley trying to impress Queen Elizabeth, and Albert Einstein exploring reality with Marilyn Monroe. |
Permanent People: | We will then be able to create a machine duplicate of ourselves so we will appear to be alive long after we are dead. Maybe a few decades later, a way will be found to transfer our spirit (including our memories and thoughts) to the new body. Then we can choose to live for as long as we want. | It might be expensive. Maybe it will cost you an arm and a leg. |
Duplicated People (maybe by 2070): | |
|---|---|
Once one of you is duplicated, you will just have to press control "D" and you will have two of you, unless you have placed yourself on a clipboard, then press control "V". If you want 500, select 500. Naturally, when duplicates are running around all over the place, there will be a food problem. Modifications will have to be made with how you eat. Your duplicates will have to combine vitamins with something we have in abundance. | The most practical choice would be garbage. Your modified duplicate will be designed to eat garbage like a goat. But don't worry, your taste buds and sense of smell will be modified so you will really enjoy it. You will want to eat lots of garbage. When it becomes possible to do a spirit transfer, they will figure out how to do them with a push of a button. So you will be able to reside within whichever duplicate you want, whenever you want and as long as you want. Skip the duplicate that is in the middle of doing a jigsaw puzzle and choose one that is just completing one. After enjoying putting in the last few pieces, switch to another duplicate that is eating garbage, then to the one that is playing in a raging rock concert, then to the one that is scoring the winning goal. You will be so busy enjoying so many things that it could drive you crazy. When it is predicted that things will be better in the future, it doesn't necessarily mean that things will be easier. |
From Couch Potatoes to Blobs: | ||
|---|---|---|
After television became popular we soon had the couch potato. In recent decades advertising has helped us appreciate addictive junk food, and to enjoy fast food restaurants where we can become totally stuffed. In addition, we have gradually increased our appreciation for the growing selection of packaged food which can be irresistible. But then, for a break, we still need to go back and satisfy our craving for more junk food. | There is currently a battle going on which will determine the future shape of the human race. The food industry (that wants people to be fat) is up against the fashion industry (that wants people to be skinny) and the porn industry (that wants people to be lumpy). At this time, it is easy to see that the food industry is going to be the clear winner. As well, our preferred activity has become sitting: sitting in front of the TV or computer. Even children prefer to sit rather than to play. It is not surprising that obesity and its complications have become a major problem. | As we spend more time sitting and eating, forget what our real needs are, and so lose control of our lives, many of us will become not much more than a blob. |
Using Nanobots: It will be set up like a video game, so you can control the exploring and the selection of images. Then you can replay the video to help a doctor diagnose your problem, or to prove to your employer that you really were sick. | Oct. 25/06: |
Nanobots will be used in the material of a party dress: In addition, the dress will be designed to offer protection. When the wearer responds in fear, the material of the dress will become rigid so it will act like a bullet proof vest as it gives off a loud alarm and a bad smell. In this way, the dress will look after a woman from the beginning till the end of the party, so she will automatically respond properly to the hunk, the creep, and the potential rapist. Unfortunately, it probably won't be until about 2050 when the new and improved "nano-dress" will include a BS detector. This will limit the effects of a manipulative hustler. Women will start wearing the dress to work, and BS detector suits will be made for men. Finally we will have a solution to the bad salesmen, the fraud artists, the big time bankers and CEO's who take wild risks that the taxpayer winds up paying for, the people who preach less government regulation (because this will allow them to take advantage of the weak and vulnerable), and executives who receive million dollar bonuses when their company is losing money. People who work long and hard need to be rewarded. However, if a friend gives them entitlements simply because they are a friend, it doesn't mean they are automatically entitled to their entitlements. So, the BS detector will bring a new standard of morality to all levels of society. |
AND NOW:
Daring Predictions For 2010 and 2011 !
Adapting To Global Warming By Building a Huge Resort On the Arctic Ocean: |
They will soon fast track a new resort at Tuktoyaktuk, on the Arctic Ocean. It will be extremely popular, mainly because it will be the only beach resort left where people can enjoy a nice cool swim. A six lane highway will be built so people from across North America can easily access the resort with their SUV's and Winnebagos. By 2011 parts of the southern States will be abandoned due to the heat and the extreme weather. Much of Los Vegas and Phoenix will be moved to Tuktoyaktuk. | Immediately next to the Tuktoyaktuk beach they will place a huge iceberg, made out of non-glare white plastic. Penguins and pandas, by popular demand, will be positioned on the top; and elephants and giraffes will be imported to run around on a platform at the base of the iceberg. Unfortunately the plastic, of course, will soon damage the feet of the animals, so they will all have to be outfitted with pink booties. So, as all the animals proudly prance around in their booties, all the Americans will agree that, although Tuktoyaktuk isn't a Disneyland or a Los Vegas, it certainly is a nice cool place. | In July, tourists in Tuktoyaktuk will love to suntan for 20 hours a day in real sunshine (which will be mostly smog free, as long as the wind blows from the north). In the winter, Tuktoyaktuk will be even busier. It will attract people from around the globe who want to adapt to global warming by escaping. The escape will last all night long; and in Tuktoyaktuk in December, that means the party goes on for 24 hours. At the end of the night, as the party comes to an end, everyone will have a chance to pause and relax, momentarily, then they can plunge into the next night's party. The coliseum they will import from Phoenix will be used for a drunk tank. Tuktoyaktuk will be the most popular resort on the planet. |
Adding a month of summer by voting for "Summer Savings Time ! " |
In 2010, parts of our world will still deny the facts of global warming. In response to a cool summer, those same people will vote to adopt "Summer Savings Time!" | So on February 1st, they will spring ahead one month, and on August 1st, they will fall back one month. | In this way they will completely eliminate one month of winter, and joyfully add one full month of beautiful summer. |
A Ring Tone Cadillac |
In 2010, people will eagerly buy the new battery powered Cadillac (or the new Volt) which will run in silence. But the owners will soon complain about the lack of noise. Nobody hears them take off and nobody hears them drive by. People stop noticing their car. Thousands of owners will complain that it just doesn't feel like they own a REAL car. | The designers will respond by adding loud noises to the 2011 model. So, the driver can punch a button to get noise, like a ring tone. They can select:
|
But the good people who buy this environmentally friendly car will be considerate. They will willingly drive like a gurgling brook, most of the time. However, when they really get the urge to cut loose, they will head for the country. So in remote areas of the country, every few days the people there will have to tolerate the noise of a herd of elephants running through the countryside. |
Genetic Engineering: | Also, genetic engineering will allow us to mix plants and animals. So, should we allow a female researcher to cross a man with a tree? She would then have something much more stable and dependable, and he wouldn't run around as much. But who would want to be a tree? There will be a need for some government regulation, especially if profits can be made, so progress is done within reason. |
The Future Selection of the Most Powerful Leader in the Entire World: | ||
|---|---|---|
George W. Bush appeared to have the right image. He could memorize things, would roll up his sleeves and do real work (for a photo op), and looked like the kind of guy you can have a beer with. But were these reasons enough to vote for him, to make him the most powerful person in the world? Being President of the United States is a complex and demanding job. [the qualities he or she needs are: to have a proven record, education, knowledge, understanding of complex issues, the ability to make things work, the ability to effectively listen, relevant experience, honesty, integrity, etc.] Hindsight says, George Bush didn't have much to offer. Being able to memorize things doesn't mean he has tons of talent. Yes, it helps if he is likeable, and if he knows how to duck shoes, but this is only a small part of the job. It would be far better if he would have made the right decisions, so people wouldn't have to throw shoes at him. | Insight can be gained by comparing Joe Biden with Sarah Palin. Joe Biden has successful experience, talent, insight, education, etc. (Although he certainly isn't the George W. type, and he probably isn't much good at ducking shoes.) As for Sarah Palin, can she get men to vote for her by wearing heels and a leather skirt? You betcha. Does she speak with conviction, and get people's attention? You betcha. Can she hang out of a helicopter while shooting a moose? You betcha. She can [attempt to] do almost everything. But is she really qualified to take on the challenges of the most powerful person in the world? Since she wants to become President in 2012, I'm sure she would give her usual answer, "You betcha!" - - - Not only that, instead of just ducking shoes, this feisty girl would throw them back. Instead of getting the job done, every week, after her shopping is done, she will waste many hours engaged in shoe fights. Why is it that some people believe that this girl should be elected to become the most powerful person in the world? | |
Shaping Who We Are: Our system has controlled our way of life, and will continue to control it for decades to come. The advertising and marketing strategies in our profit driven system have a big impact on what we want in life, what we tolerate, and what we value. It has had an impact on the desire of people to smoke, to become overweight, to use prescription drugs excessively, to accept an unhealthy lifestyle, and to believe we must continually buy things in order to enjoy life. In addition, television ads pick on the vulnerable. They manipulate children, control the types of toys they want, and make them want breakfast cereal that isn't much better than candy. | So, instead of getting what we want, we wind up with the way of life that our system has created for us. Most people are willing to accept a garbage lifestyle, because that's what they're used to, that's what their friends do, and that's what advertising messages subtly pressure everyone to do. Can we change our system? Our system won't get better if we tear things apart. In spite of major flaws, our system has proven to be better than other systems. We can improve things by working within the system. We need to take the situation seriously, face the negative information, decide what needs to be done, and then actually do something about it. It's a difficult task, so my hope is that you will find things in this file which are helpful. |
World War lll (?): | ||
|---|---|---|
By 2010 people will finally wake up to the horrors of the late 1900's. They will see that the cigarette companies got away with mass murder (statistically speaking). | The cigarette companies have used seductive advertising to increase their impact on the entire world. They deliberately added poison to their cigarettes. History will record that we unknowingly fought World War lll against the cigarette companies. | It is estimated that five million people die annually from the effects of smoking. So, in just one decade, the same number of people died of cigarette smoke as what died in World War 11. A 20 country study on the impact of smoking policies warns that "tobacco is the number one killer in the world." |
What is Real About Smoke?: | |
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Most smokers will admit that they are addicted. But many fail to realize that most addicts have a strong bias and deny many facts in an effort to feel comfortable with their addiction. One biased belief is that second hand smoke is not a big deal. This is reinforced by non-smokers who tend to tell smokers that it doesn't bother them (so they take on the role of an enabler). For more than five decades I tolerated second hand smoke and told smokers I didn't mind. But this misled smokers and served to encourage them to believe that second hand smoke is not a problem. Although I still don't feel free to complain, I need to change my tune. | Most of us know that scientific tests prove that second hand smoke does have a real impact on people's health. Most people know that the real problem is not the smell, but that it is toxic. As a group, smokers can shorten a non-smokers life by 6 days, 6 months, or is it 6 years? Regardless of how long, do you realize how serious this is? THE CANADIAN PRESS reported on March 18, 2009 that in Ontario, drivers caught smoking in a vehicle with a minor presently face fines up to $255. About half of Canada's provinces have similar laws. So I must ask the reader? Would you consider smoking indoors in the presence of others to be (a) impolite, (b) bad manors (c) obnoxious (d) potentially criminal behavior or (e) both c and d ? |
As we now look at more negative, we need to use detached awareness, so the negative nature of the negative doesn't become our greatest problem. Try not to take my serious comments too seriously. Remember that important, rational change can happen as long as we elect leaders like Barack Obama who are seriously committed to making changes. There was a 1958 Disney documentary about lemmings that caught people's attention. It showed that millions of lemmings marched off to a cliff where they committed suicide. Their stupidity was astounding. If we assume that that is true, we can estimate that, on average, the lemmings lost 50% off the llength of their lives. We can also estimate that, on average, intelligent human beings are now losing 25 - 30% of their lives. This can be prevented. We just need to face the facts and then choose to get onto a better path. (Some people struggle with life, and don't take care of themselves, so they lose far more than 30%.) Health updates in the news suggest that we can add roughly ten years to our lives through painless exercise and healthy eating. Meanwhile, we can avoid losing ten years or more from our lives by avoiding toxic chemicals that we put on our bodies, that are indoors, that are in our food, that are in air polution, and that are in smoke. So combining both, we can choose to add at least 20 years to our lives (which is more than 25% of our life expectancy of about 80 years). | Also, there is growing recognition that the key to cancer (and other modern diseases) is not only to find a cure, but to exercise and promoteprevention. Most politicians prefer to just respond to what the voter wants. So when the voter is in denial, politicians choose denial. They prefer to avoid even minor and inexpensive changes ( Eg. proper and easy to understand labeling so we can judge a product at a glance, and so we know which products that we use daily have toxins in them). Instead, politicians choose industry friendly policies which make it easier for their party to raise money, and then get reelected. So, while more people die off, the politicians who make the decisions choose to ignore what they know, sit back, and twiddle their thumbs. Very little gets done. | A Jan. 3/07 Canadian Government Report tells us it is time to worry about our own personal chemical soup: That Report Says: that four members of our parliament had themselves tested for chemicals, and it was found that each had between 49 and 55 pollutants in their blood. The conclusion drawn in this report by the Environmental Defense's Toxic Nation campaign was that pollution affects everyone, regardless of where they live. All these chemicals mix together, creating a chemical soup in our body. So minor exposure to one chemical may not harm any of us individually (unless you are pregnant), but it is unknown what effect all the combined chemicals have, and of course we are uncertain about their impact on future generations. The chemicals that were found in the blood of the four MP's include: stain repellents, pesticides, flame retardants, heavy metals, PCBs, and air pollutants. The report notes that these pollutants are associated with cancer, developmental problems, respiratory illnesses, damage to the nervous system, and hormone disruption. So, while more testing is done, the Canadian government has BEGUN working with companies to eliminate these chemicals from their products. So have they made progress? Why didn't they start this twenty years ago? What are other countries doing about this? This report was posted at CTV.ca and newswire.ca in January of 2007. |
Two more concerns that will impact our future: As we witness more extreme weather, we become more aware of the need to deal with global warming, to decrease the deterioration. It is unfortunate that when huge changes are required, instead of beginning the process, many people prefer to deny the problem and to minimize what is real. It is unfortunate that some radio talk programs work at turning people into fanatics. In addition, many of us live in a culture of violence, so violence is becoming more acceptable. Most people feed their minds with garbage: with movies, television programs, and computer games that make every part of their being know that shooting and violence is fun and exciting (and therefore, it becomes a more acceptable way of behaving). For many, it is their first impulse. Our society has gradually moved from proper fist fights to fights with guns and knives in which there is a good chance that at least one person will die. Are we moving in the right direction? Could it be that we need to make better choices? | It is easy to respond to all of this negative information with denial, or by minimizing, or by simply criticizing the system. After writing this, it impressed me so much that I was off to the local Organic food store to buy some healthy junk food. So, I bought a"Cosmic Power Cookie." It was a good start; quite painless. Many of the changes that are needed probably won't hurt as much as we think. |
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Dealing with future wars: Maybe if we had a different way of looking at our leaders, conflicts, and war, then we could more successfully avoid having history repeat itself. When we look back, we could say that many wars were optional, unnecessary, or avoidable. However, human history has been full of angry people who, instead of taking an anger management course, decided that war was the answer. They failed to reach the point where they could properly understand the opposition, and failed to realize the obvious; that things need to be fair for both sides. Both sides need to develop a mindset of compromise. Although both sides will find giving in to be an irritating, disturbing, and maddening process, they need to face reality, and then get serious about dealing with their emotions. It is their extreme emotions that are the problem. After that, instead of suffering in a long term painful lose lose situation, they can enjoy the benefits the rest of the world enjoys in a win win situation. It is tragic that some extremists don't respond to understanding and fairness. Instead, some extremists create their own set of beliefs. Even though those beliefs are based on flawed information, are irrational, emotional, and potentially destructive, many times, history has shown that millions of people are willing to ignore common sense and share their emotions. When they all feel the same, they sense they must be right; so they follow their leaders like sheep. Hitler is the best example. He was able to develop a tremendous amount of support, and what they did was sickening. Although Hitler was stopped in 1945, he still caused hundreds of millions to suffer; and | By 2015, it will be widely accepted that quality schools, pre-schools, and daycares have an extremely important role to play in the future of our world. They will be given the added role of monitoring and influencing parents, to prevent abuse and neglect. They are in the best position to ensure that children in all families are emotionally healthy, so they don't grow up to become another Hitler, a fanatical leader, an abuser, a bully, or a mass murderer. We need to keep in mind that changing the bad behavior of a child is far easier and far less costly than attempting to change the behavior of a damaged adult. Damaged adults cause problems wherever they go, require increased policing, jails, judicial system use, treatment programs, etc. All of this costs "Big Bucks" and gets limited results. It is unfortunate that narrow minded decision makers find it easy to give low priority to this issue, so only small steps are taken. (Our priorities are a little mixed up. While an auto maker receives $57 an hour (it used to be $76) and gets subsidies, daycare workers make roughly $10 a hour; and they must pay taxes which are used to help subsidize the auto industry.) George W. Bush should have spent time in a quality daycare. That is where he could have learned how to respect other children, especially those who are younger, weaker, and not as well developed. When George was 4 years old, he could have learned how to respond to a 3 year old who whacks him over the head from behind, then runs and hides. It doesn't make sense to respond by making up lies as an excuse, then attacking a different group of 3 year olds. So when George was 4 years old, a quality daycare could have taught him how to use common sense, and how to be a good person. While they were at it, they could have also taught George how to not leave behind a big mess. |
Notes: The factual content came from a variety of television
and print sources; some of it from the Canadian magazine
Maclean's: Aug. 21, 2000 and Aug. 20, 2001 issues, from
articles on the future written mostly by Chris Wood. More
recently, in addition to a variety of print sources, I have
drawn from Canadian television, CNN, and the BBC.
There are a lot of experts who know far more than myself, so
ideally they should be the ones running this website. Unfortunately,
they are aware that probable flaws like misconceptions, biases, and
misunderstandings will be delivered by a simple presentation that
simplifies the problems of the world. Complex problems have
complex solutions. If an expert attempted a file like this, their
colleagues would probably look upon them as a fool.However, in our complex and busy world, my impression is that a
file like this has practical value. It can help the reader gain awareness,
knowledge, and insights, and aid in assembling opinions. So when I chose
to begin this project, it was because it needed to be done, and I had the time;
it was not because I'm packed with knowledge, insight, and education.
My suspicion was that after extensive mulling and many rewrites,
then things which made sense would emerge. So, please don't
take anything here as the plain truth or a final solution
to complex problems; but rather work with it,
and turn it into something constructive.
Questions? Suggestions? Comments.
to: 
Since Jan. 10, 2001 unique hits are:
SYNOPSIS
INTERIOR
According to all those articles the interior of the house will be simple and clean looking. They don't use alot of pattern on their interior design. They more play with shape, and colour. Mostly the room will be big and they don't have much corner. They also using high technology system for the operational of the house, everything is automatic. Basically it's trying to spoilt the user. White, grey and black are the most colour used, bright colour is used only to make the design look excited.
EXTERIOR
The eksterior will be futuristric looking. Aluminium , metal and ion design will be used. The shape is more ellipse like ufo shape or eggs shape, there are still a rectangle shape used but mostly they soften the edge. They minimalised the use of sharp edge in architechture to prevent a negative space for example a corner. Room with no corner is easier to manage.
PROGRESS
PRODUCT
INTERIOR POSTER
EKSTERIOR POSTER
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