Sometimes you read a book so powerful, so wise that you feel the duty of spreading the author's words and contribute to a better world. Michio Kaku's Physics of the Future is a must-read in the night stand of every leader in the planet, every decision maker, everyone with power to influence societies with high decisions. Actually, I will rephrase this: it should be part of every school curriculum.
If we talk about the future, we talk about the next generation which is going to inherit the very complicated mission of bringing mankind from a Type 0 civilization to a Type I civilization. A type I civilization is planetary, it controls all sources of energy of the planet and might be able to tame and modify the weather. This civilization has an incredible life span and enjoys technologies that we could only dream about when we were kids.
We will live in a world where energy is cheap and abundant, where computers are everywhere to assist us in our daily duties, from our clothing to the walls of our houses. Information will not be only at the palm of your hands, but in front of your eyes.
Nowadays, we are in the transition from Type 0 to Type I and this is the most dangerous moment in history of humanity. This is because we still have all the savagery, all the fundamentalism, racism and intolerance that marked us through our barbaric stage, yet we have enough destructive power to eradicate ourselves from Earth, thanks to the same advances in technology that have brought us to the top of this planet's evolutionary table. If knowledge is power, information is the currency and we live in an age where it can be accessed immediately and anywhere. Anyone can access online data about how to build a nuclear weapon, or where to find all materials needed for it. In these upcoming times where information will be abundant, the only force that oppose the chaos is wisdom.
Kaku defines wisdom as the ability to identify the crucial issues of our time, analyze them from many different points of view and perspectives, and then choose the one that carries out some noble goal and principle. As he points, unlike information, wisdom cannot be dispersed via blogs and internet chatter. It comes from reasoned and informed democratic debate from opposing sides.
George Bernard Shaw once said: "Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve." The Internet is an ally of democratic freedom, allowing people to access information that centuries ago would be controlled by some local government in order to keep their dictatorship's hegemony. Now, youngsters have the power and responsibility of choosing wisely, of deciding how far to take this technology that can change the world, and in what directions it must develop. This promising generation must be educated overall, must be an informed electorate, but we run into one problem. How to do that with a dysfunctional and outmoded educational system?
Sir Ken Robinson warned us with a short question on his memorable speech at TED's conference in 2006: "Do Schools kill creativity?" If the leaders of tomorrow must have common sense, ability of thinking creatively and be problem-solvers, how to develop them in times like these? Why are we leveling our kids by the bottom and rewarding mediocrity when the great work should be done in those years prior to their academic life? Let's not be complacent with a wasteful attitude; let's not try to tell them what to do, but help them to develop their way. We all are responsible for changing the present, we all are parents of the kids of the future; we are the role models of the men and women who will set the destiny our species. Thousands of generations have lived and died to pass their genes so you could be here today, and you have this weight on your shoulders.
Robinson also said: " I believe our only hope for the future is to adopt a new conception of human ecology, one in which we start to reconstitute our conception of the richness of human capacity. Our education system has mined our minds in the way that we strip-mine the earth, for a particular commodity, and for the future, it won’t serve us.
We have to rethink the fundamental principles on which we’re educating our children."
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What are you going to do today?
