2051
Predictions about the future world
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2051
Narrated by:
Virtual Voice
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Narrated by:
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Virtual Voice
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By:
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Bishnu Goswami
This title uses virtual voice narration
Virtual voice is computer-generated narration for audiobooks.
About this listen
However, many individual thinkers of the past and schools of thoughts tried to predict future in longer time scales. There were many works of fiction which painted pictures of the future and continues to draw in the curious mind. From the view of personal experience, in the late 90s, we had numerous fiction books in the local library which were about the future world, some distant in the future in the 2100s, while some were more tame, and were focused in 2020s. On the nonfiction end, there were predictions by eminent physicists, such as ones in the book "Physics of the future" by Michio Kaku.
However, many of these predictions about the year 2020 among these, have failed, and spectacularly so while they were at it. Part of it were the very nature of these books, which perhaps wanted a generation of youngsters interested in careers of science and technology by painting a very futuristic, shiny and gadget-rich world. Another part was very likely the authors themselves getting in the over-optimist mode, not very surprising given many such advances were possible in the past. Two such examples are the rocket and aircraft technology in the first and middle half of the 20th century, which brought the man first to the air, and then to the moon(!) within seventy years. The second is the technological leap of the integrated circuits, which resulted in computers and smartphones becoming such an enormous part in our lives. Another one is the influence of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence, whose influence is currently skyrocketing, and we are in the era of AI.
In this book, I have tried a restrained, scientific approach in predicting the future. For the former, I have tried to avoid being too ambitious, taking into account the slump of various technologies, such as processor speeds and required memory of personal computing devices. It is evident that throughout written history, many of the core principles of society, polity and economics remain the same, and therefore we are not predicting a society without greed, politics without corruption or an economy where money keeps coming and inflation rates go down.
In the scientific approach, I have observed skepticism as a core facet, and observation of current world events were observed to incorporate a moderating influence. It is not to say that I haven't let our imaginations run wild a bit, as we put a gamble in the Quantum Mechanics section. In some places it had to be done, as they currently seem to be very promising fields of development, but the progress is in such as nascent stage that their growth curve cannot be realistically set.
The year I chose, 2051, is one year where many of the readers will probably can experience themselves firsthand, or through their sons and daughters. We can take a look back and wonder how short-sighted people were in the 2021! Or the projections might be not so far-off, only time can tell!
So let's dive in, and hope you enjoy the read, even if it is in the year 2051 itself!
Note: The photo on the cover is a stylized representations off a cliff in Meghalaya, India, overlooking the mountains on the other side. The people standing there were digitally erased, leaving behind their shadows. In 30 years, some features will stay, some will be modified.
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