I've been watching videos of the Google car. Pretty awesome technology. The smart phone I hold in my hand has more power than my first laptop did just 7 years ago. So yes, the idea that cars will be driving themselves in eight years seems the highly probable.
And yet, there remains the reality that tragedy strikes unexpectedly. I know people in Japan: People who are searching for bottled water to horde. People who don't know where their loved ones are. People who desperately want to leave the country, but can't. Perhaps in eight years, Japanese newspapers will be filled with stories of cancer, economic stagnation, and dependency on foreign aid.
These two thoughts play around in my head. Two futures. Two possibilities. Humanity is moving forward. Poverty can be eradicated as a disease. Education can be made available. Or the polar ice caps will melt and the images from the tsunami will be world-wide. The US dollar will rapidly inflate, destabilizing world economies.
But in truth, they aren't two futures. They're the same future. Both of them are reality. And that's scary as hell. It's the clash of humanity's potential and its baseness. Christians refer to this as the imago dei (the image of God) and sin.
But there's a new factor: technology. Technology has dramatically sped up the process of change. So things that should take a century, will be happening in the next decade. I wonder where I'll be in 10 years? And what will be a part of my daily life that is now inconceivable?
