Asked by: Freddie Senior, Sunningdale School
Two-thousand years ago, the human population was about 300 million – 4 per cent of today’s. With 2019 satellite imaging and computer modelling, you’d hope our ancestors would have been able to see that fossil fuels and rising human populations would destroy our climate and cause mass extinctions of life on Earth. So today we would probably have completely clean tech: all of our vehicles would be electric, and all power sources renewable. We would live in places designed to harm our planet the least: enclosed cities built among mountains, deserts or under oceans.
Computers would likely play an even bigger role in our lives, with invisible data processing integrated into every artefact, from clothing to walls.
Our technology would help us to stay healthy, removing almost all disease by artificially boosting our immune system, while brain-computer interfaces would enable us to communicate with our devices through thought alone.
Meanwhile, intercity transport would take place via underground, vacuum-tube trains, travelling at 8,000km/h.
Read more:
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- Does the past influence the future, or is it the other way around?
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