SAY

MEAN

MATTER

“it was tough being expected to work five hours a day. He thought he had better take twice the normal dose of his cognitive enhancement supplement after all what could it

hurt?” (25).

Arthur Caplan is telling a story of Simon Caplan who is living fifty years from today.  Simon is, in a way, complaining that he is not excited that he has to work five hours everyday.  He then decides to take a second dose of his cognitive enhancement supplement to help him concentrate.

Man is less productive than he used to be and dependant on drugs to get by from day to day.

“If today’s trends in weight gain and obesity among children in the United States continue, in 50 years the adults they become will be marked by limitations in daily activities…Arthritis, diabetes, heart disease, and cancers are the major health consequences of obesity; risk is increased when a person is even moderately overweight” (26).

Wanda Jones explains that if the pattern in weight gain and eating unhealthy continue with children, then in the future, they will have huge limitations.  She mentions that mobility, household tasks, and personal care tasks will be limited in the future.  She explains that obesity causes arthritis, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.

This is a problem since these are all activities that people need to prevent diseases.

“First outer space will appear in a new form.  Aerospace industries will be embodied, and space stations, as well as space cities, will be established.  Mankind will acquire unlimited resources of new energy and minerals through the access to space” (56).

Kim Dae-jung tells his side of the story of fifty years from now.  He explains that in fifty years there will be space stations and space cities containing ordinary citizens from our planet.  He explains that a major part of our resources is going to come from outer space.

If we need to mine the resources of outer space to survive it will mean that we have not been very reliable with the resources on
Earth.  The Earth may very well be only shell of what it once was to humanity.

“People will no longer be able to travel and engage in transactions with anonymity.  In other words governments will know where people are going and what the are doing in the public realm” (61)

Government will become more knowledgeable about the activities of everyone, not just the notorious or famous.

If the average man is known to the government it is likely that this information is available to anyone willing to do the research.  We don’t know exactly how this will resolve itself in the future—but the risk of being at the mercy of a entity not of our choosing who might know us well is scary.

“The United Nations has predicted that world population will peak at about 9 billion…I believe that world population will grow more quickly, and will likely reach ten billion by 2050, before possibly beginning to decline” (64).

If the United Nations are wrong in their prediction of how many people we will have they might not be able to predict what resources the world will need either.

The world may not be able to support the larger population if we don’t have enough resources.

“As a benefit, people will no longer be under the sway of uncontrollable mood swings or remain ‘out of touch’ with their feelings.  Thanks to these instruments, personality traits like extroversion, altruism, love, patriotism, empathy, risk, taking, and violence will be understood for the first time in terms of chemical, electrical, and magnetic activity patterns within the brain.  These breakthroughs will spur national debates about whether it is permissible to use this technology to stimulate healthy mental states in as many people as possible in the interest of creating a more harmonious society” (74).

Chemical technology may  be able to modify mood swings, risky behavior and dysfunctional interactions which could mean that the human race will be more tolerant of each others differences.

The ability to alter the nature of man could also be a way of brain washing people.

“Computer games and virtual reality may improve so much in quality that people may find most of their distractions there, rather than in real travel, reading, or attending concerts, theatre, or other performances” (85).

Technology will become so advanced that it will be hard to tell the difference between real and virtual worlds.

Humanity was meant to deal with the real world in all of its various varieties.  The use of a virtual world would limit those varieties and not change the world with solutions.

Virtual worlds will restrict physical activity causing obesity to be more of an epidemic.

“Robot technology should not be used to interfere with the natural human relations and deprive people of their pride and jobs, but should instead be the silent force behind the scenes to support the life of people” (88).

We shouldn’t rely completely on robots. 

Reliance on robots could remove the sense of pride for humanity because they are doing all the jobs for us.

“’Aren’t blue whales spectacular?  I was very lucky to see them for they almost became extinct” (98).

Many animals are becoming extinct.

Animals are part of the ecology of the world.  What will marine biologists going to do without whales?

“Chinese will be spoken in board rooms and intercontinental hotels and will become the language of the internet for tens of millions” (107).

The Chinese language will replace the English language as the dominant language.

It will show that China dominate the world politics.

“ Mandarin overtook English as the lingua franca when the old empire went into decline in the 2020’s. Africa a thriving continent today and the center of modern cultural expression.  It has shown the way to a new relationship between humans and nature, and like China, has become a trendsetter in new eco-friendly technologies” (122).

Everything will be switched in 50 years.

It could mean that American could go downhill and our live-style could change for the worse.

“ The sea change will not just mean more fish, but also that the ocean’s most iconic and threatened species, including the great whales, seals, sea lions, sea otters, and manatees, will grow in numbers” (125).

This is contradictory to the above quote and means that the sea will thrive in the support of its marine animals.

The more fish in the sea means a larger food produced for human consumption with less guilt.  There will be more jobs for fishermen.

“Scientists’ understanding of the mechanisms of such serious illnesses as Alzheimer’s and many forms of cancer will enable us to develop drugs that will successfully treat these diseases.  Unlike the general treatments of today, these drugs will be tailored to the specific genetic repertoire of the patients, ensuring high rates of therapeutic success” (128).

Medical technology will allow drugs to specifically customized to fit each individual, ensuring the absence of side effects and the achievement of complete recovery.

Humanity will healthier and better able to solve other problems. People will unfortunately also be able to indulge in their bad habits without fear of disease.

“To put this in perspective, we need to contrast that escalating cost with our investment in biomedical research. We have learned to diminish the impact of many diseases and disabilities for all Americans over the past thirty years.  Americans have gained over six years of life expectancy, are controlling chronic diseases like diabetes, and are reducing the dreaded complications of blindness and end-stage kidney disease.  Americans are aging with better health than ever before.  New industries have lead to the creation of thousands of companies in the life sciences with impact beyond

human health” (132).

With the advancement in medical research humanity will have a longer life expectancy than in the past.

We will be able to accomplish more things during a lifetime. 

“Many other teams of scientists are now working on other preemptive strategies including, for example, a possible vaccine for Alzheimer’s

disease” (133).

Medical advancements will include the ability to forestall disease.

Human life will be more productive or we will be able to do more things we want to do.

“We can imagine a day when breast cancer is no longer life-threatening and when treatments are akin to those for strep throat or a fractured finger—easily treatable, without terrible side effects, and from which the patient fully recovers” (137).

The treatment for breast cancer will be no more agonizing than to take a daily dose of drugs for a limited period of time and without debilitating side effects.

This kind of treatment provides a higher quality of life for those are afflicted with the disease.

“As I glide down the street in my new hydroelectric booster shoes, several school children fly by me in the new calibrated helium- efficient high draft propulsion-in-flight shoes. These new high-draft propulsion shoes send them speeding past me at speeds of more than 10 mph” (164).

In the future we will have shoes that can fly.

It could mean that we will get lazy.

Although I am aged, I never thought I would be over 100 years old and on my way to work” (164)

Life expectancy will be greater than what we have today.

1.  People will be more accustomed to seeing older people.  2.  Plastic surgeons will get even richer than they are today.

“Biological and environmental wars are raging everywhere” (166).

Man has interrupted the biological and environmental forces that keep nature balanced.

The result could be critically dangerous to the survival of man.

“ Thank goodness we have solved  the global warming issues, and those crazy water restrictions have ended” (168).

Global warming is over and that man was only worried about watering his lawn.

Man may still have more to worry about because getting enough water was only part of the problem.