We’re living in the future. Don’t give me any guff about flying cars. Or moon bases, either — geez, you people and your moon bases. Just because it’s the future as envisioned by Bruce Sterling and William Gibson, instead of Hugo Gernsback, doesn’t make it any less the future. And I love it here.
What I love most about living in the future is the vast oceans of information. When one of my daughters asks something I don’t know (“How do birds know with way is south? Who invented ice cream? How does cutting taxes on the rich help anybody but the rich?”), I can turn to the Internet and have the answers in seconds. (Magnets. The Chinese. Magic.)
For my own projects, I’ve come to rely on YouTube tutorials. I’ve been teaching myself Unity 3d, and the video tutorials of the Tornado Twins have beyond helpful. This weekend also saw me tear a toilet out of the floor (on purpose) and replace everything in and below it — with the helpful guidance of a half-dozen YouTube plumbers.
Finally, I love living in the future because it brings us all together. We don’t need to get into atomic-powered rocket cars to go see what Grandma’s up to; we can call her on the mini-computer we carry in our pockets and have a video chat. I stay in touch with friends who, even ten years ago, would have been lost or abandoned through the chaos of moving and shifting lifestyles. And I can make friends and contacts from around the world with the click of a mouse — let’s see your moon base do that.
What’s your favorite part of living in the future?
