8. Evolution
When we talk about evolution, we tend to think in terms of Neanderthals and the five-step diagram that begins with a chimp and straightens up to become a man, but we often forget that evolution is an ongoing process. We continue to evolve. Consider the past 500 years—start the clock in 1515. There were a half million of us, and we routinely lost many of the babies born, and their mothers, too. Europeans were taking over the world, plundering Aztec gold and silver, invading India and Persia, establishing new empires. Even in the most developed nations, people lived in homes with dirt floors and, often, animals, protected by a leaky roof. We had learned to publish books, but few people could read them, and we hadn’t yet developed the novel to encourage large numbers of people to read. We figured out how capture words on paper for wide distribution, but we couldn’t capture pictures of the real world until the 1820s or sound until the 1870s. We were shorter, smellier, and generally less attractive than we are today—each the result of better nutrition, more frequent bathing (once per year was the rule), and sex partners chosen by proximity and convenience, often in our own families or communities. We routinely enslaved other humans, rarely thought twice about abusing children, and almost never traveled. The fastest we could move was as fast as the nearest horse. For reasons both logical and wholly uninformed, nighttime could be terrifying. During the 20th century, we figured out how to kill 80,000 people with just two bombs; to talk to each other through wires, play sounds in everyone’s home and then, moving pictures, too; to build a robot, a car that travels 240 miles per hour, and airborne vehicles that travel faster than the speed of sound; and to build an artificial heart that really works. So far, in the 21st century, we’ve installed part of an artificial face, elected America’s first Black president, figured out that Mars was once covered with water (and might have supported life), established same-sex marriage as a legal right, and completed the Human Genome Project. We’ve cut the world’s extreme poverty rate in half. More girls are in school. Fewer children are dying. There’s more to do. There is always more to do, and humans will do it. Like the beagle who barks every time the squirrel races up the tree, we can’t help ourselves.
7. Should Philadelphia regain its status as a world-class city?
Over time, regions evolve, culture evolves, and cities evolve. The Indus Civilization was home to 5 million people during the Bronze Age, but it's gone now. In Mesopotamia, the people developed the wheel, writing, the first written law, the 60-minute hour, and the 24-hour day. They had a good run of more than 20 centuries, but Mesopotamia is no more. Most cities—in the U.S. and throughout the world—experience ebb and flow. Some places regain former glory; others settle into a sustainable, if less glorious, future. Philadelphia is a good example of a world-class city whose two hundred year peak ended a century ago. What is the best possible future for nearly ten million people who live in this metropolitan area? Does Philadelphia compare favorably with top-tier 21st century destinations (London, Tokyo, Paris, NYC, Singapore, Shanghai, Vancouver, Toronto, Dubai, Sydney, Rome, Hong Kong, D.C.)? Is there a formula for a successful modern city: crime and poverty limited to certain areas; legacy urban life / new vibrancy: clean, convenient; appealing mix of ages, ethnicities, lifestyles, career opportunities in high-value sectors; active arts, culture, food, nightlife, music, university community, significant sports franchises? What’s the role of geography and transportation? Suburbs? Public transportation? Innovation? Well-funded startups? A local talent pool? Immigration and multi-ethnicity? Proximity to other impressive destinations (for Philadelphia: NYC and D.C.)? Although “world class” sounds sexy, perhaps people who live in the region care more about local success than global status. Or must Philadelphia regain world-class status in order to thrive?
6. Learning
By the end of the 21st century, universal literacy and numeracy are likely. With childhood and female literacy rates on the rise, even humans in the laggard regions of the Caribbean, the Arab States, Southern and Western Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa will be able to read, write, and work with numbers. Still, there will be a tremendous divide: four or five billion people with basic literacy skills operating in still-developing economies, and perhaps two billion whose economic and educational situations are far more sophisticated. The educated minority will dominate the marketplace, the jobs, the economic opportunities, securing the best mates for reproduction, and widening the gap. Since this is not the optimum global outcome (it’s likely that the differences will result in unrest and violence, probably over an extended period), we should be thinking seriously about what learning is all about, what people in different places ought to know, how they can continue to learn after formal schooling, and how we can use a combination of technology and local live delivery to assure large-scale learning on a massive scale. Here in the internet’s early days, we’re scratching at promising solutions: TED Talks to encourage curiosity across a wide band of topics; Wikipedia to share an encyclopedia of the world’s information as managed by about 70,000 active editors; Khan Academy to explain basic concepts and more; Britain’s Open University, which was developed in the 1960s in response to the educational potential of television and radio, now serving over 200,000 students enabled by a remarkable open entry policy. Wikipedia is an example of a new way to do an old job, first with scattered success, over time as an increasingly indispensable research tool. Given a globally connected population, these technology-based tools have their place, but they are not the solution to global learning. Instead, that solution exists where it has always been: in the minds and behavior of teachers who convey what people ought to know, and look into their eyes to make certain that they understand the material. Classrooms, school buildings and other 20th century fixtures may not provide the appropriate model, but live local humans teaching other live local humans seems like an idea that won’t go away. What should they teach? Much as we’d like to answer that question on a state, national or global scale, the best possible answer may be a local one, better if it can crafted to suit the needs of the individuals who will be learning for a lifetime.
5. Crowds
Deep down, humans remain a tribal species. Kumbh Mela dates back to the seventh century: it’s a 55-day celebration of creation that attracts 100 million people every three years. From Condé Nast Traveler: “the entire site is transformed into a glittery spectacle as the camps of the various religious communities compete for attention by erecting a colorful riot of blinking whirligigs and by stringing up enough twinkling lights to shame the Milky Way.” Wise men coat themselves in ash and wear flowers (and little more), enjoy ganga, and “parade through cheering throngs.” More than 50,000 people visit an American desert flat to engage in similar antics, encouraging free thinking and sharing, constructing and then incinerating a temple and a giant statue called the "Burning Man.” Past themes have celebrated the human psyche, hope, evolution, fertility, and the wheel of time. Modern sports stadiums seat over 100,000 humans; for some events, tens of millions more watch in high definition and respond as if they were part of the crowd. Each year, nearly 20 million people visit the shrine of Muhammad's grandson, Hussayn ibn Ali, in Iraq during the Arba’een religious observance. About 1.8 million people attended Obama’s 2009 inauguration, and over 3 million celebrated the first Boston Red Sox World Series win in 2005, but there were over 4 million in the crowd at Rod Stewart’s 1994 concert in Rio de Janeiro. Humans cluster in neighborhoods. We form political parties. We watch the same television programs and laugh at the same jokes. We recognize the same celebrities, go to the same schools, watch the same doggie videos on YouTube. We’re encouraged to think for ourselves, but humans do things together, often in very large numbers.
4. Multilingual, Multicultural, Multiethnic
We envision half of the world’s population connected to one another, but we don't all speak the same language, or, as the concept applies to the internet, we don’t read or write the same language. Today, English is the most common language in digital space, followed by Chinese and Spanish. As we double the number of connected humans, which language will they use to communicate? Perhaps more to the point, which culture will guide the communication? Will the U.S. culture and its English language become the default standard, much as the British way affected an empire where the sun never set? Will every American learn to speak, read and write in Spanish, and understand the context for humor written in, say, Cuba or Mexico? Or will reduce our reliance on reading and writing, and shift online communications to mostly video because it provides greater visual context and sub-titling provided by human (as TED Talks does with a large global volunteer workforce), or artificial intelligence (where Google might go). Then again, the future may not be defined by those who are Bulgarian or Japanese. Instead, we’ll see the likes of Egypticans (Egyptian mom, Mexican dad). Humans have always intermarried, ignoring political and often religious boundaries: when that Egyptican grows up and marries a Japino (usually: Japanese dad, Filipino mom: there are about 150,000 so far [many in difficult straits), will the resulting Ejapinocana consider her native land to be in Asia, Africa, or North America. Will she consider Egyptian, Spanish, Japanese or Tagalog to be her native language, or will she go with the flow and simply learn English because it’s the language of her friends and the Internet? As we increase travel and study abroad, and make friends through global digital services, and continue to immigrate, these combinations will be the rule, not the exception. Nothing new: most Americans and many Europeans have been telling similar stories for generations.
3. Connected Population
So far, we've managed to connect about 1/3 of the people on earth to one another and to the Internet. According to Deloitte’s 2014 report, The Value of Connectivity, the resulting improvements in public health, education, food security, disaster relief, citizen engagement, and employment are powerful motivators for a higher share of connected people, but most of the unconnected live in developing nations with significant economic and political obstacles. The Internet resides on the fence between a public good (the U.S. will be managing it as a public utility) and a commercial enterprise, so government involvement is essential. Like telephone service in the 20th century, provision in developing markets might be best accomplished through monopolies, and a case could be made for free Internet as a public good, more similar to a highway system than a magazine subscription. From a U.S. perspective, with our 82 percent Internet penetration, the problem may be difficult to understand: in Africa, penetration is just 20 percent, and limited to certain regions; in India, it’s 13 percent—but these numbers are misleading. Connection to the Internet and connection to the world wide web are different ideas: fewer than 1 million people, most of them in developed countries, access web sites (and blogs, etc.) Worldwide, less than 20 percent of mobile phones can access web sites. Throughout the developing world, there are examples of the transformative impact of new technologies: for example, “In Uganda, health workers based in Kampala can connect a microscope to a mobile phone with a camera, take pictures of microscopic images and send them to a central server. Clinicians with access to the server can then make a diagnosis and identify bacteria of different diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis.” A connected population can do a world of good—it will define our 21st century future—but how do we make devices more affordable, reduce usage costs and reduce taxation to make this possible? Is this the job of the wireless companies, the governments, or the rest of us? Where does the responsibility reside?
2. Can we work together to save Earth from extreme weather and an asteroid catastrophe?
With pretty blue skies and the occasional stormy day, earth is a congenial place to live. Over time, the opposite is true: great volatility lurks below the land and oceans and beyond the skies, and beyond, as space objects collide with stupendous consequences. For spaceship earth, awesome adventure awaits! Underlying it all: is it possible for the nations on earth to work together and save the planet from future mishaps and disasters? Several paths intertwine: the ability of people on earth to work together; the strange behavior of earth and other objects in space; the inevitably of massive change over an extended time scale. We’re due for a new ice age—or is this 10,000 years in the future? Is that delay due to human intervention? Do our 150-year old records tell us much about 4.5 billion years of earth history? Can we control or mitigate extreme weather risks? How much do we know? How much do we know about we don’t know? What difference can we make, you and me, today or next week or next year? Do we wait and see what happens—or take appropriate action today, and hope we’re doing the right thing?
1. Our Place in the Universe
From time to time, every human wonders whether we are alone in the universe, whether there are other life forms, like us or not like us. We have not yet invented the theory, the tools or the processes to answer that question, so we do what humans have always done. We develop elaborate stories, and believe they are true: stories about alien visitors and abductions, parallel universes. Is there, or was there, life on another planet in our solar system? Maybe Mars, but we’re just beginning to explore. Outside the solar system, perhaps in another galaxy or through a wormhole? No answers, not yet anyway. How about the metaphysical, the spiritual? Most of our mythology and religion attempts to explain earthly activities, perhaps as far away as the sun, with minor references to the stars or planets. If heaven is above us, it’s probably beyond the atmosphere. (If hell is below, it's probably in the earth's molten core.) Perhaps there is more “out there" than we can see or perceive with human senses and contemporary tools: parallel universes and unexplained phenomena. Thinking beyond what we can actually see—that’s a tough one for most humans. And yet, we have this innate feeling that there must be more than life on earth, that there are gods and untold splendors to be revealed, exciting and perhaps devastating life forms to be discovered, knowledge to be shared in a universe that is, for the most part, a vast dark and empty space punctuated by rocks, ice, and gasses. It’s only human to ask questions and to explore. If we keep looking, and paying attention, maybe we’ll find answers to questions we have not yet learned to conceive.
We could make a case for the obvious: the inventor, the systems thinker, the innovative professional. Or, we could promote the idea of smart investment in the ideas, companies and individuals most likely to become the next Apple or Google. Or, maybe, the future is the result of work done in the labs—the fundamental science that drives the technology that drives the future. Maybe we rework the intellectual property system to encourage more patents, more flexible copyright rules, better harmonizing throughout the world. Maybe we can legislate the future (probably not). Maybe we can let the market take care of itself—with less restrictive laws and a culture of encouragement. Maybe it will come from another country—from an entrepreneur working with scarce resources in India, or a well-funded government-favorite company in South Korea. Maybe it will come from a garage on the next block.
4. Who Designs The Future?