Let’s start off this new year at RJsCorner by looking at our view of the future. Sadly, there are those who seem to be frightened by almost everything these days. I kinda think that mentality make up a big majority of the MAGA folks. Everything is changing so fast as to make their heads spin. The only way they can see to relieve that overwhelming fear is to tear everything down and then let them dictate what changes and what doesn’t.
Then, at the other end of the spectrum, are those of us who might have some trepidation about some changes but are actually excited to see the advances that change brings. For instance, we see technological and healthcare advances just over the horizon, that will make life so much better than it has ever been in my lifetime. We are excited about the future, but annoyed by some of the present situations, especially those who fear it so much.
I frequently say I was born twenty years too early. The coming couple of decades will see advances in healthcare and information beyond belief. When I graduated from college, the calculator was yet to be invented. The PC was almost two decades away. My first decade or so in my corporate life, was simply boring to me. I just didn’t feel challenged enough.
When I got my hands on a TRS-80 personal computer from Radio Shack in the late 1970s, my world started changing dramatically. I taught myself “Basic” computer language. After that was accomplished, I moved on to “C” and eventually HTML. When I retired, I was writing software tools (they are called apps today) for a division of engineers in a giant corporation. I was in seventh heaven, whatever that means 🙃
Getting back to the main topic of this post, between the two outside fringes of those who absolutely fear change and those who embrace it, lies the vast middle. I can’t tell you exactly what percentage of the population is in the middle, but if it is like other statistical anomalies, it is likely about 80%. But, it seems that those in the middle are as usual, nonchalant on too many topics. Will that apathetic crowd allow the fear fringe to threaten our democracy?
I would like to think that most in the middle certainly have some fear, but also some excitement about the future. They are not like the MAGA crowd, who are prepping for a certain near doomsday. One nice thing about these rapid changes is that some of the things, like most social media, will likely be replaced by something better before it can do much permeant damage.
Where do you fit in this population?
How do you see the future as Mad Max or the Jetsons?
RJ's Corner 
I, like you, look forward to advances, although I also have some trepidations. Over my lifetime, the earnings of writers have dropped significantly, for example, and advances in AI are likely going to force earnings lower. At the same time, I’m excited about the way AI tools might help even fiction writers. Advances in robotics that can be employed for home care can’t happen soon enough. I once was in my audiologist’s office when my audiologist apologized and checked an alert she’d just received from the system monitoring her aging father, home alone for a few hours while his caretaker went to her own doctor’s appointment. My granddaughter wears an Apple watch that will alert her mom if she loses consciousness and falls, as she has done several times in the past years, once fracturing her skull and incurring a brain bleed bad enough that it momentarily stopped her heart on the way to the hospital. The watch allows this young adult woman to live a life of more freedom than she would otherwise be able to do. (This is a postural thing related to her inherited metabolic disease and not something that would occur while driving.) For health reasons, my husband also wears one that will alert me and a daughter if his blood pressure drops too low and he sinks toward unconsciousness, which has resulted in two recent hospitalizations. How about something that would return some form of vision to my cousin blinded by retinitis pigmentosa the way my granddaughter employs cochlear implants to restore some form of hearing, if he should so choose? Exoskeletons that walk partially or fully paralyzed people, avoiding some of the health difficulties that result from sitting or lying all the time? And, yes, please to driverless cars that will pick us up in the future and take us to appointments or outings.
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Thanks for the thoughtful comments, Linda. They give us a lot to think about. I don’t know if it is just me, but I have become less likely to read much beyond a couple of thousand words to get to the point of the author. Except for my very early reading days when I consumed almost everything from John Steinbeck, Jack London and a few other’s fiction has just not been my venue. I continue to read non-fiction at that length, but even that has been throttled down seriously the last few years. I think that is because there is just so much info out there now that is readily available to answer so many different questions…
But like your excellent examples, there is so much going on in the medical field now. I would love to be here in the 2030s and 40s to see it all come to fruition.
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