This world is evolving so fast, at times it seems hard to keep up. Let me inform ya. We have so much unseen power. I don't know that people realize what we can do with the technology we have now. We can do so much more than make silly little household gadgets. We can explore our universe without endangering any of our fellow humans. We are so close to things like teleportation, and completely unlocking the geneome code, not kidding! In the right hands things like affecting the fetus' genes can do wonders, it's mot just about the right color eyes, it's preventing cancers and diseases. You know we even have the power to turn the most desolate corners of earth into thriving farmland? I love the advertisement for Du Pont with the "To do list for the planet" because everything there is achiveable and so in the near future. Find out more about what I mean by reading the "Computers Will Save Us" article in the June issue of Discover.

I think that there are people of our generation that want to get out there and help and do so much more for society. But then I also think that there are the ones that just don't really care one way or the other about anything and could care less about where they end up.

In a way, it's kind of our "duty" or whatever to try and fix up the planet as much as possible. I mean, our parent's really screwed it up, and now, as the Next Great Generation, it's our job to make it better again. Typical, huh?

Hoew r u

I definitely agree with the environmentalists: that we should protect what's left of our beautiful earth. Personally, I think that humankind has screwed up everything and we're all going to die, and technology- instead of moving us forward- has doomed us all. But maybe that's just my bright 'n cheerful outlook on life.

huh

I agree with you on some points, but not others. We should be trying to do good for the people in our society, but the new technology is locked into the hands of people who are on the money making path. They don't care about people in general. Whose hands would we put the technology into? The government? a private philanthropist? Really great things can only be achieved when people come together for a common cause. But we need to be wary. If we mess around with the environment, we could find disastrous results. People have been draining Lake Mead for one hundred years to make the desert valley around bloom, at the expense of a truly unique and ancient habitat, which is now almost lost. In the Nile, a damn was built in the mid nineties to stop flooding, and a team had to move the entire temple of Abul-Simbul, carving it out of the rock wall it was carved into, and moving it up the cliff, and many priceless artifacts were lost. It turns out that the water level fluctuated so much, after all the money spent, that thousands of acres of arable land were accidentally destroyed, and the inability of the river to inundate made for arid and unusable land downstream. Now, poor farmers have to import fertilizers and irrigation systems in one of the most stable and fruitful rivers in the world. But, one thousand miles to the east, in Iraq, there is another story. Iraq was one of the greatest centers of culture in the world from the beginning of civilization, and names of great places, Babylon, Nimrod, Erech, Assyria, Sumer, Ur, Bagdad, and other great cities and kingdoms became bywords for wealth and power. All this from 5000 BC to the 1400's. In the fourteen hundreds, invading Turks destroyed the secret to Babylonian success: the irrigation system. Without the irrigation, the caked up loess of the valley became hostile to life, and Iraq became what it is today. So, if we mess with the environment, and we forget the secrets that went into their creation, our children or our children's children will suffer greatly. Remember, the path to hell is paved by good intentions.

i think every community should have a rec center or something of the sort for teens to do something and not resort to doing drugs

Should we say that "god's plan" should prevent us from saving people's lives? I mean, I don't believe in god, so I would be enraged if some nonexsistent thing in my life made it so my child were born with Down Syndrome. But for you, that child's destiny is to have brain damage. How can we say who is right? We can't really all agree in one god, so why should we bring relion into this? But you could also say that because we cannot agree in religion we should just not go forward with these belief challenging changes. WHO CAN TELL??????????

There's still some places that have the same natural beauty the had thousands of years ago. Humans are yet to visit the deepest of the ocean bed. And people are preserving parts of the environment, like state or national parks, and acre-by-acre of rainforest. And they've decided not to use Antartica as a dumping zone atleast.

Technology is helping people but it can be taken too far. As far as the crops where right now its desolate, I'm sorry but I disagree. I grew up in Idaho and it is on the prettiest states. The whole population is one million but it has beautiful mountains to ski, hike and backpack in. If the whole country was productive in terms of that crops could be raised there where would we go to get away from it all.
Marlayna

technology gives us this awesome power that we've only begun to understand. Just in the last few decades things like computers and even microwaves have just begun to be introduced into every house.

But I don't completly trust this new era. Imagine if instead of crashing into the WTC the terrorists had decided to take down a communications center first. We would have been completly helpless then. And that is what I'm afraid of. People are getting so caught up on using the internet for communication and everyday to complex tasks that if it were to fall then... I don't trust it. I think that the internet is going to crash and all the information will be lost. It is kind of like a non-existant place with information floating around.

yeah it really creeps me out that movies like Gattaca and the Matrix could be a reality in the future. I hope our generation won't let the world come to that

yea he is hot, but uh, the message behind the movie does a lot for it too. i personally don't think we will have that big of a problem but I am no fortune teller

he's a hottie for sure!

Gattaca is one of my favorite movies! I love jude law. well i don't have anything important to say about this topic, so that's all

I have seen Gattaca and it was great! One of my favorites.

I am not nessisarily a religios person but I am in my own way spiritual, I don't don't connect things the way that, say, Christians do.

Personally I beleave there is a balance to all things. I support abortion and gene therapy. I dont support unnessisary (and everyone's definition of it is different)suffering. I think that as we progress in controlling births and space exploration even there will be less need for reducing the population (other advances like one's that reduce pollution will also aid in the lack of this need) and hence healthy humans will be more suitable. No one want's people to suffer, but at times I will admit it is needed. I just don't think that that time is still here, at least not in the same way.

just so everybody knows i agree, that as long as we have diseases and horrible viruses, we should be finding cures for them. I disagree with saying that technology is this wonderfu tool that can accomplish miracles, because it (like everything) has a bad side, one, i believe, that should not be over looked as a minor consequence but be viewed as a serious downside.

yeah now that i think about it i think you're both really right. i mean all those diseases that killed entire countries we found a cure for those why not cancer? i think it's just cuz it's so new and kinda scary that i just automatically thought it was wrong... but yah i definately think that we need to make sure it doesn't damage the environement and doesn't infringe on peoples cultures and stuff .. we need to take it slow and make sure we're not hurting other people or ourselves

God Bless

Sarah

I think we all need to get one thing in perspective finding cures is not messing up the enviornment or anything else, it is saving lives. If science hadn't progressed then we would still be living with scarlet fever, measles, and so many other diseases I can't even remember. Young girls get infected with AIDS each year, some from their own stupid mistakes, others from the mistakes of the people who raped them. I think that most technology that comes along improves our world, otherwise we would still be riding in covered wagons, using feather pens, listening to the radio for news, watching black and white movies, and no computers. if we hadn't advanced we would still be living in the 1500s, when it is 2001. I think our lives are much better with technology, and along with everything that is good there are some set backs, such as guns, drugs, and bombs. Technology overall is great it is just a few individual setbacks and things that didn't need to be invented, in our past. But hey just because there are a few bad things doesn't mean that everything about it is bad.