Star Trek Future (+/- Dilbert)

Rick Knight (rknight@platinum.com)
Mon, 14 Jul 97 10:18:59 CST

Michael Lorrey wrote:

"Read Scott Adams new book, Dilbert Futures, in which he states "The
future will NOT be like Star Trek." because people will still be as
screwed up as they are now, they'll just have cooler high tech toys to
be screwed up with."

Rick responds:

While I enjoyed the excerpt I read (Scott's wit is amazing), I purpose
that the mass process of "getting a clue" may not be so unreasonable.
Yes, we're our culture is rather tweaked but compared to our our
ancestors of just a few hundred years ago, nevermind a millenium or so
ago, we are demonstrably less savage (explicitly anyway), there is
more agreement, more focused devotion to progress and many levels.

Now, while wanton hedonism and narcissism still have negative impacts
on our culture, I rather like the notion of the "1% for Peace"
movement. At least they have the intention that a critical mass
paradigm shift that elevates consciousness could occur. It's rather
dismaying to hear people talk about great technological leaps where
they don't even include the possibility that we may become responsible
stewards of our creations and new illumination.

I'm going to peak at the new Fox show "Roar" not for it's
entertainment value but because I find it curious that a network has
decided that serialization of (an interpretation of) 5th century
Celtic culture is something of broadband interest. There is something
archetypal and possibly significant here. To me, it's not just a
commercial whim that millions of dollars get pumped into these media
memes ($90US million for "Contact"!) and fed en masse to us. We are
creating agreement and we all know that enough agreement becomes
truth, maybe not absolute truth (whatever THAT is) but accepted truth.

The bulk of this century has been an interesting segment in our
gestation period as a species. Like a human fetus, all our brain
cells are being developed and connected as we become more
interconnected, awash in boundless amounts of information and the
invisible waves on which it increasingly travels.

Something's cooking and it smells good.

Rick