Heroes Not Zombies

In 1960, the French magazine, “L’Express” published a series of extracts from the writings of American and Russian scientists about what our world would be like in the year 2000.

It’s fascinating to read them, and reflect on how well those “scientific” predictions have worked out.

• “voyages to the moon will be commonplace” – the last time people walked on the Moon was in 1972.
• “and so will inhabited artificial satellites” – the International Space Station? There is one!
• “all food will be completely synthetic” – maybe not, but an awful lot of it is “highly processed” and, apparently, not so healthy as the natural kind!
• “The world’s population will have increased four fold but will have been stabilised.” – it doubled, but it’s still rising.
• “Disease, as well as famine, will have been eliminated” – that old prediction! How often are we told science is about to end all disease? Was the last time the Human Genome Project? And famine? Sorry, not disappeared yet!
• “There will be universal hygienic inspection and control” – ooh, that’s a bit scary…what’s that? Mass immunisation with a shift towards compulsory instead of voluntary? There are some life insurance products around which link your premiums to the number of steps you take daily, recorded on an wearable device which transmits the data to the insurance company.
• “The problems of energy production will have been completely resolved” – still trying to break free from fossil fuels, nuclear power plants have turned out to be way more expensive than predicted (remember when we were promised nuclear generated electricity would be so cheap they wouldn’t have to charge for it?) and renewables have a long way to go…
• “Knowledge will be accumulated in electronic banks and transmitted directly to the human nervous system by means of coded electronic messages” – wonder how came up with that one back in 1960? Did they foresee Google and Wikipedia? Maybe these knowledge banks don’t send their coded messages directly into our nervous systems but they do to our hand held screens.
• “Natural reproduction will be forbidden. A stable population will be necessary, and it will consist of the highest human types, using artificial insemination from persons dead long enough that a true perspective of their lives and works, free from all personal prejudice, can be seen” – wow! This is the scariest one for me! Forced population control by preventing ALL natural pregnancies and genetically selecting on the basis of “a true perspective” of peoples’ lives and works long after they are dead! And, get this, because this is still a common one…..selected “free from all personal prejudice”. There’s a lot in this one and the foundational beliefs behind it are that “objective”, “rational” science can produce “the highest human types”.
• “they will be able to shape and reshape at will human emotions, desires and thoughts and arrive scientifically at certain efficient pre-established collective decisions” – whoah! From the “neuro-marketing” techniques used by advertisers and merchandisers, to Cambridge Analytica, targeted, disappearing Facebook ads, Twitter bot accounts, WhatsApp groups, robot-calling targeted voters, fake news generated from edited videos….there’s a LOT going on with this one. Increasingly pyschologists and neuroscientists say influencing emotions rather than arguing rationally is a better way to get the results politicians and marketers want. But it’s the last part of the prediction that gives me the chills – “arrive scientifically at certain efficient pre-established collective decisions” – not supporting the creation of new ideas, encouraging critical thought and debate, but manipulating people into making the decisions you want them to take. Have a listen to this (or read the text) – a Guardian article on the new digital populists.