Lesson 30: Unit 59 BY THE YEARS 2025

Lesson 30: Unit 59 BY THE YEARS 2025

David: Today we talk about the changing world. We try to imagine what the world will be like in the year 2025.

Kevin: And we talked to this man; Bruce Sterling, who’s a science fiction writer.

David: What will the world be like in the year 2015? What will have happened? What do you think, Natalie?

Natalie: I think the population of the world will have increased. And the major cities will have become much bigger.

David: What about you, Kevin?

Kevin: Well, I hope that a lot of things will have improved.

David: Such as?

Kevin: I hope we’ll have found the answer to our traffic problems. And I hope that doctors will have discovered more ways to cure serious illnesses and diseases.

Natalie: And I hope that people will have learned how to live in peace.

David: So what do Natalie and Kevin think or hope will have happened by the year 2015?

…will have increased…

…will have become…

…will have found…

…will have discovered…

David: But do we really know what will happen in the next 30 years? Do we even know what will happen in the next 30 days? What will you have done by this time next month?

1.    I hope I will have been on holiday.

2.    I will have directed my first play.

3.    By this time next month… I’ll have packed my stuff to go to Zimbabwe. I’ll have said goodbye to everybody. I’ll have given in my notice at work.

4.    I will have appointed 17 new teachers.

5.    I will probably have gone bankrupt, unless I get a job in the next two weeks.

6.    I will have had my wisdom teeth out.

7.    Oh, I will have turned 30. I’m turning 30 on Friday the 13^th. So that’s a big monumental occasion.

A VERY NICE BABY.

Friend: She’s a very nice baby.

Father: She’s an extraordinary baby. Extremely intelligent.

Friend: Really?

Father: Oh yes! She’s going to be an amazing person. Yes, indeed! By the time she’s three years old, my little girl will have learned to read and write. She will have finished school by the time she’s 11. And by the time she’s 15, she will have graduated from university. And by the time she’s 21, she will have become Prime Minister.

Baby: And by ten o’clock tonight, I still won’t have had any breakfast.

Kevin: the baby had a prediction about the very near future.

I still won’t have had any breakfast.

Bruce Sterling; science fiction writer.

I am an author and journalist and I am a genre writer. I write science fiction novels. I’m interested in the sciences and I’m interested in conveying to people what they really mean. I like to carry scientific thought into the fabric of daily life. I’m not interested in the sciences in the abstract. I want to talk and think about how they actually affect people in their lives. The way they dress, the way they work, what they do, how they react, how they live, how they die, how they eat, how they suffer. I’m interested in the human impact of technological innovation.

Now, I work at home and I work on a computer, so I spend all day in front of a screen. And then to relax I will often move into the other room, and approach another screen, this time the television screen. But with one, I sit right before it, close enough to touch it; and with the other I sit across the room and I address it with a remote control. Now, these  two screens have the same images and they will increasingly share data. The question is: under what circumstances will I sit before them, and under which will I lie down before them? And I think you will find the two merging as time goes on; you will find yourself doing more and more work on your television, and more and more work that is almost indistinguishable from play in a lot of ways.

Already I find many of my social relations… the way I talk to people is very electronic: it takes place through networks; it takes place through telephones, through fax machines; eventually I will be seeing them on the television, and it will be difficult for me to tell work from play, and work from parties.

I suspect that by the year 2025 we may have forgotten all about the concept of nations. I really believe that we will have moved to the concept of trading blocks by 2025. And it’s true that nationalism seems surprisingly powerful at this point in time, but I suspect that that won’t last, that we will have moved to a society where national boundaries and even cultural boundaries are increasingly meaningless. It’ll have less and less to do with people’s loyalties, less and less to do with people’s daily lives.

I suspect that by 2015, the United nations will have become a much more powerful force, but perhaps not under the same name. I think we will see some kind of environmental police force: an international force which has the power to interfere in local affairs, if it feels that it serves the interests of the global environment.

I think that Europe has a great deal to teach the world possibly, probably more so at this point I time than the United States or even the East Asian groups. Europe has been a source of a lot of trouble in the twentieth century and it’s nationalists trouble and political trouble. If the Europeans can learn to overcome their own tribalism, then perhaps the rest of the world can learn.

The other hand, if Europeans cannot do this, then I foresee, very great trouble. Probably in another world war, perhaps more savage in the earlier ones, not a nuclear world  war, but a war over resources basically a continent sized Yugoslavia, and that’s not a pleasant prospect, but I don’t believe that will in fact happen. I think the Europeans will have their open orders. I think they will have a won European currency and I think they have a good chance of becoming the single most powerful trading bloc of the three, I see coming.

… may have forgotten…

… will have become…

I believe we will have stopped wasting so many of our resources. I believe we will have installed much more recycling. I believe that our industries will have become much cleaner. They will have been redesigned from top to bottom to save energy, to save resources, to stop pollution. I believe we will take much more care about what we put into our environment, in the way of chemicals and toxins. I believe also that our eating habits will change drastically; we will be eating material in 2025 that would be basically unrecognizable to anyone today. I think there will be a great vogue for artificial foods, because they’re cheap to make. I believe practices like slaughtering livestock for food will still be around, but they will have been abandoned in great extent, not because of moral reasons, but basically for financial reasons: there’s simply not going to be room for enormous herds of cattle.

We will have become more advanced, but we will not have become any more moral. I think we will still see the same hypocrisy the same greed, the same basic animal traits that have always propelled humanity. But, on the other hand, I don’t believe we will have become any worse; and perhaps our increasing knowledge may bring us a little bit more wisdom.

WORD BANK

Achievement	Logro/éxito/hazaña	Improve	Mejorar
Appoint	Nombrar	Landed	Aterrizado
Bald	Calvo	Peace	Paz
Bankrupt	En quiebra/arruinado/sin un peso	Stuff	Cosas/pertenencias
Data	Información/datos	Wisdom teeth	Muelas del juicio
Direct	Dirigir	Address	Dirigirse a algo o a alguien
Get on with	Llevarse bien	Affairs	Asuntos
Give in (my) notice	Presentar (mi) dimensión	Approach	Aproximarse

Borders	Fronteras/límites	Images	Imágenes
Concept	Concepto	Increasingly	Cada vez más
Continent	Continente	Indistinguishable from	Indistinguible de
Cultural	Cultural	Interfere in	Interferir en
Currency	Moneda	Loyalties	Lealtades/fidelidades
Electronic	Electrónico	Meaningless	Sin sentido
Force	Fuerza	Merge	Unir/fusionar
Global	Global/mundial	Networks	Redes
Powerful	Poderoso	Suspect	Sospechar
Remote control	Control remoto/mando a distancia	Takes place	Tiene lugar
Social relations	Relaciones sociales	Touch	Tocar

Trading block	Bloque comercial	Under what circumstances			En qué circunstancias
Artificial	Artificial	Cattle			Ganado
Chemicals	Productos químicos	Drastically			Drásticamente
Greed	Avaricia/codicia	Herd			Rebaño
humanity	Humanidad	Hypocrisy			Hipocresía
Instal	Instalar	Livestock			Ganado
Moral	Moral	Propel			Impulsar
Recycling	Reciclaje	Slaughter			Matanza/sacrificio
Toxins	Toxinas/productos tóxicos	Trait		Rasgo
Unrecognisable	irreconocible	Vogue		Moda/voga
Waste	Desperdiciar	Wisdom		Sabiduría
Genre	Género		Novels	Novelas