What we need to change, and change soon
The cable question and short-lived phone batteries are a more pressing concern than space tourism.
Michio Kaku, the famous theoretical physicist made a large number of predictions in his book The Physics of the Future, painting an impressive picture of what’s just around the corner for humanity. He anticipates intelligent wallpapers, the ability to reprogram human genes, and wide-scale use of self-replicating nano-devices (with applications ranging from the battle against cancer to new modes of space travel).
No doubt his predictions will come true in a few decades’ time, but what Professor Kaku failed to consider were more pressing current issues that are pushing down hard on the boundaries of sustainability.
Some of the things that will make a tremendous difference are simpler, everyday things. Things we can’t go on producing en masse. Like cables and cords. Think about the sheer amount of them. The number of cables on our bedroom floors, in our offices, in our suitcases (complete with travel adapters). The different sorts we need for our various devices; for syncing, charging, connecting, and converting. There must be a better way to transmit energy than these endless tangles of plastic and wire.
Or phone batteries that die after mere hours of use. As applications, streaming processes and location services get more sophisticated and more responsive, we’re likely to use more, rather than less, energy. Our phones have got to be able to run for much longer — being on a day trip, I should be able to rely on Google Maps for navigation, Spotify for music on the journey, and the camera for taking photos, with enough power left to check the train times back home.
With our tremendous need for energy, I wonder why we waste one very accessible source of power: human energy, be it body heat or energy generated by movement or intense emotions. I could cycle somewhere and charge my phone on the way.
Cycling somewhere would certainly be wiser than all the sitting we do. We all know of the health risks and experience the unpleasant inertia of it daily, yet we create more and more platforms for ourselves to sit. At work, at the coffee shop, at home, while we commute. What if we could use public transport in exchange for a bit of, not money, but energy.
Speaking of money, notes and coins have got to go. It’s a tremendous amount of material that only has nominal value; a physical symbol of worth to be carried around, lost, damaged or counterfeited. In a marketplace that’s becoming increasingly virtual, I only ever use money if I can’t avoid it; maybe once or twice a week. All my other payments happen via debit card or online.
In a similar vein, physical records, receipts, statements and IDs are a nuisance of staggering proportions. You know your “documents” drawer? The IKEA filing boxes and folders that you’ve never got around to sorting out? Well, those could all be digital, stored in the cloud, accessible, searchable and sortable as needed. If we’re following in Professor Kaku’s sci-fi footsteps, I’d go as far as saying that identifying people will happen purely biometrically in the very near future.
Medicine will be one of the areas where the most advancement happens. Storing and analysing real-time medical data will be at the forefront, with prevention rather than intervention in the focus. Your medical account in the cloud will contain your potential genetic diseases, your entire medical history, and a precise chart of your blood sugar level going back to birth.
Making sense of vast amounts of data will give rise to new sciences and advancements that might, yes, just might, enable us to traverse galaxies sometime. How to store and transmit all that data without cables, though — that is the question the next decade has to solve.
