Last weekend, I heard a lecture by the chief engineer of a
company that is creating a car that can fly, or more accurately, a road worthy
airplane. The advantages are: the owner of the two-seater airplane can land at
an airport and just drive away. Also, if weather turns bad, he/she can land and
complete the rest of the journey on road. Such ideas have been floated around
but this one seems to have legs.
However, it will be many years until this innovation is in
common use, and that made me start thinking: I wish I were born now and have
the opportunity to see the world full of such clever devices.
Along the same line of thinking, I most likely will not be
around when we finally colonize Mars. Or find life on another planet or moon.
Our little granddaughter, Ramona, a few months old, will see space travel
become commonplace. She may one day visit moon for vacation, not just Europe.
Self-driving electric cars will be the way people would travel. The era of
polluting fossil fuel will come to an end and the world will meet almost all
its energy using renewables.
At the same time, I am happy that I was not born when my
grandfather did. His generation went through two world wars. For him exploring
the world meant taking train and go to another town in India. Sicknesses were
rampant and two of his daughters died in childhood. He missed out on the world
where people carried little computers in their pockets that could provide
instantaneous communication, take photographs, give directions, and store in
its memory whatever they wished.
Let’s see what is in store for Ramona. Maybe her generation
will get the full brunt of environmental catastrophe. Sea levels will rise
displacing millions of people and sever draughts will cause starvation for
countless others. The tribalism and intolerance that comes with it may make the
early 21st century appear to be the calm before the storm. Religious
zealots would make life difficult for those who do not have faith. Education
would decline until being illiterate would be considered cool while educated
people would be labeled elitists.
For her sake, I hope not.
