http://www.501places.com/2010/07/what-will-they-think-of-us-when-were-old/ Sharing the world with you Wed, 11 May 2011 10:41:03 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.2 http://www.501places.com/2010/07/what-will-they-think-of-us-when-were-old/#comment-13528 Andy Jarosz Thu, 05 Aug 2010 19:26:30 +0000 http://www.501places.com/?p=3328#comment-13528 Thank you John for your fascinating response. I really enjoyed reading your comment and came back to it several times before replying. You touch on so many contradictions in our modern world. Perhaps our wars will be fought over war rather than oil - we already know about the likely shortages of water yet continue to waste it as if it was in unlimited supply. And your illustration of the stag party flights is hard to argue with - will they also wonder why we travelled so much around the planet just because we were curious? I hope not. We all share you hope about medicine too. We are on the cusp of so many advances that hopefully we'll see that big change you wish for. Thanks again for sharing your valuable thoughts. Thank you John for your fascinating response. I really enjoyed reading your comment and came back to it several times before replying. You touch on so many contradictions in our modern world. Perhaps our wars will be fought over war rather than oil – we already know about the likely shortages of water yet continue to waste it as if it was in unlimited supply. And your illustration of the stag party flights is hard to argue with – will they also wonder why we travelled so much around the planet just because we were curious? I hope not.
We all share you hope about medicine too. We are on the cusp of so many advances that hopefully we’ll see that big change you wish for. Thanks again for sharing your valuable thoughts.

]]> http://www.501places.com/2010/07/what-will-they-think-of-us-when-were-old/#comment-13330 John Wed, 04 Aug 2010 08:44:52 +0000 http://www.501places.com/?p=3328#comment-13330 Andy, the point you make about putting men on the moon is true. Perhaps the reason is that the resources required to send men back to the moon as effectively moon tourists outweighs any social, scientific or financial benefit. That is why the effort has been in exploring using space probes while simultaneously researching space colonisation via the ISS. The same applies to supersonic passenger flight, there are plenty of downsides, but no real benefits in a world where you can do teleconferencing in 3D if you so wished. Personally, I think that the world of 2050 will look back at us in amazement, at the way we recklessly wasted fossil fuel resources and increased the concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere many times over. Why we even wasted energy watering, then mowing grass when that area could grow precious crops. They will find it incredible to think that we would fly to Prague, Riga etc just for a drunken Hen /Stag Party. Then as you point out waged wars to keep supplied with our fossil fuel fix. They will wonder why we allowed so much of the world's forests to be felled, for the ocean's to be emptied of their fish and for ocean floors to be depleted of life by bottom trawling. Of course, I hope I am wrong in the above points. What I would really like the world of 2050 to look back and say is "Wasn't medicine so barbaric and primitive back in 2010. Andy, the point you make about putting men on the moon is true. Perhaps the reason is that the resources required to send men back to the moon as effectively moon tourists outweighs any social, scientific or financial benefit. That is why the effort has been in exploring using space probes while simultaneously researching space colonisation via the ISS. The same applies to supersonic passenger flight, there are plenty of downsides, but no real benefits in a world where you can do teleconferencing in 3D if you so wished.
Personally, I think that the world of 2050 will look back at us in amazement, at the way we recklessly wasted fossil fuel resources and increased the concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere many times over. Why we even wasted energy watering, then mowing grass when that area could grow precious crops. They will find it incredible to think that we would fly to Prague, Riga etc just for a drunken Hen /Stag Party. Then as you point out waged wars to keep supplied with our fossil fuel fix.
They will wonder why we allowed so much of the world’s forests to be felled, for the ocean’s to be emptied of their fish and for ocean floors to be depleted of life by bottom trawling.
Of course, I hope I am wrong in the above points. What I would really like the world of 2050 to look back and say is “Wasn’t medicine so barbaric and primitive back in 2010.

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