#72 — Why you can Time Travel already
I lived in Rome for several years, then in Barcelona, then in Santiago, then in San Francisco. In the meantime I visited several European, US and Latin American cities. Miami, Amsterdam, Rio de Janeiro, New York, Brussels, Mexico City, Dublin. I’m lucky, I know it and I’m very grateful for that. Didn’t have the chance to travel to Asia and Africa yet, I will do it soon tho.
Every city is different, yet people are somewhat the same. It’s a funny feeling. Another funny thing is that the more you actually travel, the more you understand the importance of challenging your silly definition of “normality”. Something I never realized up to now is that you’re not traveling only in space, but you’re traveling also in time. Seriously, don’t make that funny face. Think about it.
There is a place where people use self-driving cars, digital currencies and 3D-printers. These people have free food everywhere, interact with the whole globe in real-time and own a chunk of the company they work for. They think about commercial space travel and talk to their glasses. Here not only diversity is accepted, but it’s encouraged. It feels so 2063, right? But it’s happening today. In the Silicon Valley.
Then there’s a place where the economy is crumbling, where rich people only invest in real estate. Where companies pay minimum wages to poor people, struggling because of taxes made to repay a not anymore sustainable public debt. These people, angry at the ones “stealing” their jobs, mostly just watch television or read newspapers. Also this is happening today, in Europe… and yeah, it feels so 2013.
Then there’s a place where the economy is growing, aggressively, but at the highest price of crushing its natural resources and its own people’s health. Where the politics decide what people do, what they earn, what they know. People don’t ask for what’s right but instead for what’s permitted. Diversity is not only uncomfortable, but often punished by law. This is happening today as well, even if it feels so 1963.
Then –I know, it’s weird- there is another place. Where the problem of your neighbor (and yours) is to find uncontaminated water and the first food in the whole week. These people don’t know how to write neither how to read. They often don’t know the concept of money, they barter stuff. It hurts, we can pretend to not see it, but also this is happening today… regardless of the fact that it feels so 1913.
Seems a fairy tale, but makes sense right? So, questions: is this inequality necessary? Is it in some ways functional to keep the world spinning around? Or is there also potential and an opportunity to fix things? What could be the most impactful way to do so? And if there is a way to do so, isn’t that actually responsibility of every and each one of us?
Don’t have an answer (yet), but that’s no excuse for not asking.
