The Super Summary of World History - Alan Dale Daniel [293]
Can history tell us to what future the present is heading? Not specifically, but we can make some predictions based on the assumption that the major trends of the past will continue. By major trends, I do not mean events that have occurred in the past one hundred years, but events with the commonality of repetition that have been recurring for thousands of years.
If we can depend on anything, it will be that people will keep killing one another. There will be unremitting wars and slaughters of blameless people. Philosophers of hate will continue to attract adherents who will slaughter others who have the audacity to be different. This really is not a prediction; it is only holding up a mirror to the past, seeing what was, and extrapolating it into what will be.
If technological trends continue as they have since the Paleolithic, computers and technology will have more and more control over our lives, and every aspect of our existence may soon be in the hands of machines. Medicine is on the verge of defeating death. Is there any doubt that people start aging because something throws the DNA switches in our genes to command our cells to stop producing the stem cells needed to heal and correct deterioration in our bodies? According to Science News, scientists have discovered how to throw certain DNA switches. Once they discover which switches in the DNA code control aging they will be able to throw those switches and stop the aging process. In many ways the future looks bright, but there is always the cloud of human character hanging over humankind. Humans now have the power to destroy the entire planet overnight, and there is no doubt that some people are willing to destroy everything with a smile. Humanity may defeat death, disease, and other human problems with advancing technology, but human nature will remain the same. When it comes to inventing tools humans are unsurpassed. Avoiding our human characteristics for killing, conquest, and control is the problem.
The Hebrew prophets who wrote some three thousand years ago foretold of a future world governed by numbers and occupied by people who lived well past one hundred years of age.[390] These prophets predicted that everyone would have to have a number to buy or sell, and they predicted a one world government that would operate this system. Strangely, in the year 2010, we can see the outlines of this world forming. Prior to the advent of computers it was impossible to understand how everyone could be assigned a number and forced to use it to participate in the economy. With computer technology we can understand how easily the near future could contain such an economic system.
Today, it looks like the Hebrew prophets were right about the future world economy and the possibility of defeating death. These same prophets said the world would end in chaos, war, famine, pestilence, and plague. If this proves to be correct, then the world will end as it existed with the only difference being a much-increased degree of chaos, war, famine, pestilence, and plague. This prediction sounds reasonable given our increase in war-making capability. The world must also take note that our planet is a dynamic place where asteroid strikes, volcanic explosions, and changing weather all place humankind in constant jeopardy. There have been mass extinctions in the past, and we would be foolish to assume there will not be others. The Bible seems[391] to foretell of a combination of man-made and natural destructive events that will annihilate the world. As far as predictions about the future goes, this is about as good as it gets because it nicely covers what has happened in the past and simply brings the events of the past forward—with a twist thrown in of God’s return to earth. It is interesting to note that many ancient cultures agree that the world will end in terrible violence.
The only way out of this evil termination