The future as I see it

This blog is full of speculation. Why? Because I like to imagine things how they are likely to turn – at least the way I see them.

Worry not – this is not a spiritual but rather a spirited journey into the near future. A future most of us are likely to see so you can hold me to my own words. And I will ground myself in science and technology, human behavior and cultural facts plus a heavy dose of speculation. I will also air some opinions on politics but only insofar as it helps us understand future developments.

Already as a young lad, I looked at the moon and imagined what it could feel like to walk on it. I was not even 8 years old but understood that the vacuum there would kill me immediately if I ventured out without any protection so I saw myself inside a think space suit with bulky gloves and a view limited by a clunky helmet.

In the course of my life, my imagination of what the future must be like turned more and more complex, and I also saw some of my predictions unfold – plus even more turn to dust. I could virtually see entire cities as they functioned, breathed, and lived in minute detail as if they would already exist. It was like a movie to me and people around me started to call me a dreamer. I imagined food supply, waste management systems, traffic control, and the future of remote medicine and work.

I imagined how people would travel in fully automatic vehicles and how goods and people moved around. I imagined the future of childbirth, education, and training, how we would take care of our elderly, and yes, energy systems. I imagined how our lifestyles and recreation would be affected and how we would evolve from wetware to iWare.

I loved Star Trek and all other space movies but I also quickly understood that none of this was going to come to pass as the future in those movies was rooted in 20th-century thinking. Start Trek quickly became the life ball in space to me or did you imagine paper flipcharts in a spaceship?

It made sense to me only if it was all-encompassing, from the development of a voice-assisted navigation system to artificial organs and fully renewable, emissions-free energy systems. It all was part of the grander picture as nothing ever evolves isolated from the rest.

This blog is the place where I put all my (sometimes-crazy) thoughts into writing. I want there to be a trace to check what my thinking was in the past a couple of years from now. Because the future is happening right now and much quicker than we care to believe. And it’s going to be awe-inspiring.

We take things for granted today that seemed unbelievable just a few years ago. This blog is written mainly on an iPad on the screen keyboard. To my parents it’s a bit like magic – to touch a screen and move items with the fingers – or toes if you prefer. My kids do not know a world without it. It’s all-natural to them.

The last 50 years were more eventful, more exciting, and much more evolutionary than the entire human history before 1964. And so will the next 25 years be much more exciting than the last 50. My grandfather was born in 1899 – long before the Wright brothers got airborne. When he died, the Space Shuttle was in full operation. When my father was born there were virtually no computers and those that existed were as big as a house and could only perform the simplest of all calculations. Compare that to an iPhone.

Join the ride and imagine tomorrow as it is us who will build it.