Charlie Chaplin and Adolf Hitler were born in 1889. So were a lot of other people, of course-- like Ecuador's Maria Esther de Capovilla. But unlike everyone else born that year, she is still alive. At 116 years, she is the world's oldest person.
In 116 years it will be 2121. Given what has happened between 1889 and 2005, anyone care to toss out predictions for the future 116 years hence (besides the Iraq war...)?
And another question: given a choice to spend the rest of your life 50 years in the past (1955) or 50 years in the future (2055), which would you choose?
3 comments:
You can't play professional sports UNLESS you use performance enhancing drugs. And mood-stabilizers.
1955. my life would have been so much easier happily married, 2 kids a dog, cooking nice 3 course meals for my family every night. this whole "quest for knowledge" thing can be very depressing. 55, expectations were so much lower....
I'm torn. There will be progress unimaginable in the next 50 years (hopefully), but as a trombone player, I probably could have worked every single night up until about 1982, so that would be nearly 30 years of solid, solid gigging.
Tough call.
WF
Two words: Flying cars.
I'd rather live out the next 50 years. For one thing, I want to see how this thing ends, and things are so much better now than they've ever been, as far as having access to the sum of accumulated human achievements. Nearly every good record that has ever been recorded is currently in print and available online for free. Bookstores offer multiple editions of nearly every important piece of literature, and used bookstores offer pretty much everything else. I can rent damn near any movie ever released and have it delivered to my doorstep. I can research almost anything I want -- from public records to obscure artists -- without standing up from my desk.
When you put it that way, it's no wonder some people are trying to put the genie back into the bottle.
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