The Shape of Things to Come

THE FUTURE ain t what it used to be. George Orwell, Aldous Huxley and William Gibson s most famous works might seem a little overly pessimistic (only a little, mind) in the cold light of the new year, but when it comes to subjects like genetics, race, corporate supremacy and information overload in the 21st century, they were scarily prescient.
But while the next century will undoubtedly bring its own share of horrors the extinction of certain species of animals and plant life, global warming and the ravaging of Africa by AIDS there are also optimistic advances being made, particularly in the medical sector, including gene therapy, neuroscience and animal-human organ transplants (providing the latter practice doesn t open a whole new Pandora s Box of diseases).
In broader social terms, there s also the theoretical possibility of the eradication of racial tensions in America, as different denominations continue to intermarry, and terms like black, white, Latino, Asian and Caucasian start to seem increasingly inadequate and irrelevant.
Ironically though, as the concept of racelessness becomes almost viable in the US, questions of creed and colour look set to become more important in Ireland over the next ten years. No longer an homogenous society, this country is sure to endure multicultural convulsions as Eastern European, Asian and African enclaves begin to interact with the rest of the community. In the long run, such developments can only enrich our own culture, and besides, we d better get used to it: the days of white western hegemony are over, with Asian states looking set to succeed America and Europe as the new superpowers.
Then there s that other touchy subject: sex. Cyber-seers predict that the 21st century will be the age of incorporeal nooky. According to an article written by Yahlin Chang in a recent edition of Newsweek, it ll take just 20 years to develop the correct environment for virtual rumpy-pumpy: a visual/auditory/tactile bodysuit in which you ll be able to get it on with the spitting image of Brad or Marilyn or whomever you fancy. Indeed, men should be able to feel what it s like to have sex as a woman, and vice versa. But it doesn t end there the user will also be able to morph into an animal or even a volcano or mountain range (did the earth move for you, honey?) and experience non-human orgasm, with no worries of AIDS or pregnancy. By 2030, reckons inventor Ray Kurzweil, traditional notions of fidelity will no longer apply. Mind you, he doesn t specify who ll have to dry-clean the bodysuit afterwards.
Right now, though, technology is advancing at an exponential rate, and 2000 looks set to be the Year Of The Gadget, including DVD players (Japanese manufacturers are planning to produce the first commercially available "recording" version later this year), Digital cameras, MP3 players and even electric cars (Ford are now making 8000 rechargeable models per annum). But the key word is convergence, and the major innovation of the near future looks set to be the WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) mobile phone, which will allow you to surf the Internet.
For once, digital Europe is way ahead of analogue America on this one, and the first WAP or "smart" phones should hit the stores by next September. According to one British market research company, by the end of 2001, over half of all mobile users will be hooked up to the Net, with the humble cellphone acting as a portal through which to access information (bus schedules, match scores, directions to the nearest restaurant or petrol station) and conduct m-commerce. Nokia expect to offer video-conferencing within a matter of years, and in theory, you ll be able to discuss weekend plans with your partner, consult a film schedule, download a review, then order and pay for tickets, all over the blower. If you ve a propensity for infidelity however, don t take your phone to town, son . . .
And speaking of surveillance, security and privacy in the Net age are likely to become very hot topics over the next few years.
"I think there are huge legislative issues relating to the Internet," says Gerry McGovern, CEO of the Irish Internet company Nua. "I think private citizens are only beginning to become aware of the issues that occur where they participate actively in an Internet environment, what information is gathered on them. The thinking for the last couple of years that the industry should self-regulate is a total non-starter, because it won t."
All this may sound a little Orwellian, but apart from Social Security and credit card numbers being leaked through the Web, there s the rather more mundane nuisance of unsolicited correspondance. At present in the US, department store cashiers frequently ask for your home phone number as a matter of course. If you re fool enough to hand it over to them, they often sell it on to other companies, resulting in dozens of junk calls on your answering machine when you get home from work. Transfer this prospect to the Net, and you have the very real possibility of hundreds of junk e-mails incoming every time you log on.
"That has been an ongoing bugbear," Gerry admits. "I think a big consideration as we move forward is information overload. How do we as a society learn what to pick out and what to delete? That s a big crisis for the information society: pollution."
The same goes for the real world. In the 20th century, the planet warmed by one degree Fahrenheit, and the temperature looks set to rise anything from 1.8 to 6.3 degrees by the start of the 22nd. Bizarrely enough, Ireland s weather may grow colder as a result changes in ocean currents could freeze Northern Europe within the next 50 years.
Adrienne Murphy, editor of environmental magazine Source, reckons things will get worse before they get better.
"If you look at the earth as an organism, just as a human is, before a human can heal they usually reach a crisis point, either emotionally or physically," she explains. "That s what s happening at the moment, where there s massive convulsions on a global scale. Globally, we ll see that our extremely volatile climate is coming from the destruction of forests worldwide. In a lot of countries, there ll be huge efforts made to replant forests around the world. I have no doubt that in 20 years time the people in the Glen of the Downs will be completely vindicated, seen as making a brave last stand to protect one of the last native oak forests left, just as the destruction of Georgian Dublin is now very seriously regretted, even though the people who tried to stop it at the time were considered to be way-out."
Adrienne maintains that in the immediate future, issues of healthy food and clean water will become even more important.
"The genetic modification of food has actually had the beneficial effect of bringing an awareness of environmentalism right to people s tables," she points out. "At the moment our government are being prosecuted in the European court of justice because they haven t been providing us with safe drinking water. That s a really serious issue which is going to hot up this year. Our water is filthy, as well as being poisoned with fluoride. And the next generation will think that the whole idea of pissing and shitting in perfectly clean water is actually a very barbaric practice, because we re facing a global water crisis."
But what about off the planet? Well, the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence or SETI may not be top priority amongst Big Scientists (linking the theory of gravity to quantum mechanics remains the Nobel-winning Holy Grail in that department), but it is a subject which has captured the public s imagination, inspiring substantial support for both governmental and privately-funded projects.
"The pace at which SETI is being pursued has definitely speeded up," testifies Dave Moore of Astronomy Ireland. "The basic science of it is down to Frank Drake, responsible for an equation which concludes that, optimistically speaking, there should be about 100,000 advanced civilisations in our own galaxy right now. Drake went out on a limb when NASA funded this project and said that by the end of ten years, he was convinced they would find evidence of extra-terrestrial life. I thought that was an amazing statement. Unfortunately, because NASA cut the funding, things slowed up a lot, but a lot of people have contributed to the project privately, like Steven Spielberg, and now there s a SETI institute.
"For a long time, of course, the most likely place to find life was Mars, but that s now number two. The second moon of Jupiter, Europa, became the hot candidate when they discovered a 16 mile deep salty ocean containing organic compounds, which is warm. So basically there has been the same kind of organic soup that would ve been around on the earth in its early days, but for ten times longer than it took for life to form on the earth. So you come down to one of two important conclusions: either we are wrong about how life got started on the earth, or there must be life on Europa."
So what efforts are being made to find out?
"There s a probe already funded to go to Europa to map the entire surface looking for a landing site. It s due to arrive there in 2004," Dave explains. "After that, there are plans to land a probe on the surface which will then drill down through the sheet of ice covering this ocean. They re hoping that there are cracks in the ocean bed where minerals and nutrients gush out, and that s where life is most likely to congregate. Nobody s saying there s a whole load of dolphins and whales swimming around in the oceans of Europa, but even if they found very simple single-celled self-replicating organic molecules which is what DNA is then it happened twice in the one solar system, and the universe is rife with life."