Looking Ahead to 2055
(An essay I have to write for an English Composition class - I need to chop off almost half of it, reduce it to 600 words, but I wanted to post it here before I do.) Interpreting the signs of the times is just as important as reading history if society desires to avoid repeating the same errors. On the eve of 1984, in response to George Orwell’s Dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (first published in 1949), Isaac Asimov wrote Asimov’s New World (Toronto Star) which looks 35 years ahead to 2019. Looking ahead once again to 2055, three themes that have the power to influence the world for good or for evil need to be taken into consideration: technology, ideological polarization and a desire for human perfection. The kind of technology that is being developed and put into our devices and homes gives us the both the potential to learn and to control things around us. Alexa and Siri will turn l ights on, help us find resources for homework and lock the front door. S...
