The Triangle

Issue date: 10/29/04 Section: Sci-Tech

Media Credit: The Triangle

Over five millennia ago, the first areas of the world began the slow transition from the Stone Age into the Bronze Age. Quality of life increased dramatically with the new technology made available and the rise of complex urban civilizations and cultural centers. Around this time, the first written languages appeared. It was not until the 1450s that this process was automated with the invention of the movable type printing press by Johann Gutenberg, and information was truly available to the masses. Two hundred and fifty years ago, steam power was revolutionizing the world, bringing the major powers into the Industrial Age with mechanical innovations. Fifty years ago, the Space Age was still only a dream and the modern world was still relying on industry to keep the world running, with vacuum tubes only seen in a few applications. All of that changed within a decade.

Politics aside, the world today is much different from it was fifty years ago, twenty-five years ago, or even ten years ago. With technology advancing so quickly in such an exponential fashion, it is difficult to accurately predict how we will live our lives in ten years, or even next year for that matter. However difficult, many visionaries have tried to foresee the world of tomorrow through many different mediums, ranging wildly from the mundane to the absurd.

Some futurists foresee a pleasant world filled with robot servants, flying cars, and many more innovations of fantasy, while others predicted an electronic world where humans were controlled by their own creations, as in The Matrix. While The Matrix may seem a bit too extreme in predicting the future, it is not alone. In Neuromancer, the science fiction masterpiece by William Gibson, humans have cybernetic implants and traverse a virtual world filled with data and artificial intelligence. At what point, though, do these insights stop being predictions and start to be dreams of an overactive imagination?

There have been several attempts made to address this issue, attempting to bring accuracy and credibility toward predicting the future. These efforts not only look at the progress made toward technological advancements throughout history, but also towards society's reaction to those improvements. Alvin Toffler, one of the most influential futurists, explored the super-industrial society that is to come. In his books Future Shock and The Third Wave, Toffler predicts a world where technology is changing at an extremely fast pace, forcing people to adapt quickly to the changes. As a result, information is to become the new driving force behind society. In addition, Toffler predicted that the material needs and wants of the many niche markets could be mass customized and produced "just in time", as they are needed.

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