Star Wars, Sci Fi and the Future of Human Civilization
Reach for the stars!
Something that humans have been blessed with is curiosity and imagination. This is the fuel that has powered our advancement and continuing to harness this fuel will be the key to a future that leads us to the Stars.
Carl Sagan remarked famously in his award-winning TV series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, that the future of the human race could see us going into the stars or into a path of self-destruction. A lot of physicists and astronomers have asserted the importance of moving out into space. But before we get into that, there should be an explanation of the different type of civilizations and where we stand.
Types of Civilizations
Type 0
| It's not even mentioned on Michio Kaku's post but here it is anyway: http://mkaku.org/home/?page_id=250
| This is where we are at right now
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Type 1
| Death is obsolete, material goods no longer scarce
| If all goes well Michio Kaku, predicts we will attain this in 100-200 years
|
Type 2
| Star-cluster scale influence
| This could be us in a few thousand years
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Type 3
| Interstellar travel, galactic engineering
| This aint happening for a million years! Damn!
|
Read more about this right here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale (My favorite source: Wikipedia) lol
One of the main features of the Star Wars is the omnipresent energy known as the 'Force'. It has a good and bad side to it. Dr. Michio Kaku has likened the 'Force' to the dark matter in black holes that emit a lot of energy.
The World in 2030
George Lucas calls Disney his retirement fund
After being repeatedly rejected at the start of his film career, Lucas persisted and the success of the Star Wars trilogy can be seen in the recent big news of Lucasfilm being sold to Walt Disney for a whopping $4 billion.
Children are mostly attracted to sci-fi and fantasy and this comes as no surprise. It the creativity and imagination that is present in a child that ultimately leads to the stuff of Star Wars. Lucas has played a major part in ensuring that generations have been inspired to think creatively and imaginative through the success of the Star Wars trilogy.
But like all great innovators, Lucas feels he needs to do much more and he has pledged to use a lot of the money from the Disney deal to improve education across the globe.
We need another spark
The 1960s really set the stage for the kind of prosperity that we are enjoying today. We had John F. Kennedy with his ultimatum of putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade that materialized. To put this into context, it is like dreaming of putting a man on Mars by the end of this decade: a notion that will most likely be scoffed at.
It has been all doom and gloom as of late. I don't deny that Silicon Valley and the tech world has continued to prosper and improve our standards of living. But the negativity really kills it with the older generation trying to stifling their children's dream by using phrases like 'be realistic' (a phrase that should really be non-existent).
One thing that I have always believed is to just go with the flow and according to what your heart feels. Being an investment banker, I have been so focused on retirement, retirement and the FUTURE. One must remember that the future is now and we might as well lead our lives the way we want to. In other words go for your dreams and have no regrets, even if you fail. It is far better to try something than to sit on an opportunity and pass it and then wonder what if?
Sci fi is great for not just stretching our imaginations, but also giving us something to ponder about what really is the future of the human civilization. After all, that what we think about is what we eventually become!
The point is to stretch your imagination and think out of the box. I know that there are a lot of ingredients for success, but this is one of the most important ones.
At the same time, the human race must remember to love one another regardless of race, appearance and other differences. The last thing an optimist such as myself wants is a scenario that resembles what we saw in the Planet of the Apes.
