Back To The Future

A father and his 10 year old son have a talk on their camping trip in the not too distant future--

Dad, -- Yes Son. I was thinking. What was life like in the late 20th-early 21st Century? I mean how did people live back then? Well Son, (laughs) that was a little before my time. Ask your Grandfather he could tell you more about it then I could. Is there anything that you could tell me? Sure, what is it that you want to know? How did people get around back then? Well, they usually traveled from place to place in vehicles called cars and trucks. These vehicle's were powered by something called an internal combustion engine which burned a fossil fuel called gasoline. What was that like? It was noisy, inefficient and dirty. The burning of the fossil fuels polluted our air with toxic gases. You mean there was no nuclear fusion or renewable energy technology? No Son that came much later. The worlds economy was based on these fossil fuels until the supply ran out. Oh, about the late 2040's

How did people communicate with each other? Well, they talked into these things called telephones. You mean that there were no amplification stations that could tune into our thoughts an sent them to someone else? No, that too was way off into the future. In fact, your Grandfather told me one time that he remembers it being a big black box on the wall. You talked into something called a receiver that attached to the phone with a long cord made of copper wire. That was in the 1960's I believe. Oh Dad! Your teasing me! No son, I swear on my I -consciousness that It's the truth!

How long did people live? That Son is the most tragic part of that era. People died young. You were lucky to have 70-80 years. Sometimes not even that! Aging was a miserable experience that was full of sickness, pain. and then death. Just think Son, all that human potential wasted. Now of course we have I-consciousness transfer into genetically engineered clones. So our life expectancy is many hundreds of years. Dad? Wasn't it grandfathers 157th birthday last week? Yes. He said that he was going to go rock climbing on that asteroid that he always wanted to visit.

I heard that at one time people worked at these thing called jobs. They used to do this for pieces of paper and metal called money. This is how people lived? Yes this is true. Jobs were usually physical places such as stores and factories where people worked 40 to 50 hours a week to give us our physical goods and services. No kidding! Wait, it gets even stranger! there was no Internet as well. At least the way that we know it today. Wow! no robotic servants or nanotechnologies where goods build themselves. That's right. We had to do all of that ourselves!

Boy! it sure doesn't seem like that was a very good time! Oh, I suppose that sometimes it had its charm but there was a lot of pain and suffering. There were wars, disease, poverty and crime. That was before World War Three. After that human civilization finally learned to live in peace.

Now here we are in the year 2117 in this perfect society where pain and suffering are obsolete. I love you Dad. I love you Son. Mars is beautiful this time of year isnt it Dad? It sure is Son. It sure is--


To find where I got the inspiration to write this story please visit my business blog
at http://www.drhasbusiness.blogspot.com/

Peace, Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!


Don (Reddog 63)