Dear South Valley residents of the year 2106:
On Nov. 10, 2006, as Morgan Hill celebrated the centennial
anniversary of its civic founding, I couldn’t help but wonder what
your South Valley community might be like. I can only imagine your
future world.
Dear South Valley residents of the year 2106:
On Nov. 10, 2006, as Morgan Hill celebrated the centennial anniversary of its civic founding, I couldn’t help but wonder what your South Valley community might be like. I can only imagine your future world.
At the risk of faulty forecasts, I’ll ramble in wild speculation of 100 years hence. I truly hope you live in a peaceful place. I hope you’ve found resolution to the problems we here in 2006 face.
Global warming is our biggest worry for our planet’s future survival. And unfortunately, our society is not taking enough effective action to diminish the environmental burdens that will accrue upon you, our children of the far future. Forgive us if we’ve failed you.
The breakdown of ethics among our nation’s elected officials and business leaders is another major malady we have had to address in the last few years. Money and power has corrupted the values and judgment of too many politicians and has diminished the quality of their representation. I hope you 22nd century folks value your government enough to use the ballot box to rid yourselves of any officials who lack good morals. Remember, people power drives democracy.
Let me venture on and speculate what might be in your age. I hope clean fuel sources using the sun, wind and hydrogen will be commonly used to power your world’s infrastructure and technology. I hope right now you’re looking back at us here in 2006 as we burn massive amounts of fossil fuels in our cars and homes and industry, and I hope you say, “What were those people thinking? Didn’t they realize their impact?”
I pray another priority of your South Valley world is providing your children with a quality education. We here in 2006 focus too much school time on training kids to take tests and not enough time on simply learning. I hope the focus of your own schools is to teach your kids to expand their minds and travel down the never-ending paths of knowledge.
My mind hungers to ask you questions about the scientific and technological developments during the next 100 years. What amazing insights about the universe have you discovered? What have you invented? If you’ve by chance managed to figure out time travel, could you please send me back a message describing the amazing contraptions you’ve conceived?
In your world, I imagine, robots must be so far advanced that they’re common household products. You probably go to Costco, Target or Robots-R-Us, or whatever chain stores you shop at, and buy these mechanical servants as easily as we now buy a toaster oven. Advances in artificial intelligence will play an important role in your robotics research. But I bet once computer technology gets to a highly complex level and develops a consciousness, your society will have to address some serious ethical questions about “robot rights,” something that would seem utterly strange to us.
Genetic engineering must be another part of your every day South Valley world. We’re only now stepping out the door into a huge world of researching DNA and manipulating life’s data to alter who we are biologically and create new species. It’s a brave new world your future is facing – with massive potential for benefit to humanity. But I also shiver at how dangerous the use of gene alterations can be if used foolishly.
Space travel, I believe, is another area of major technical advances I foresee for your world. I imagine you South Valley residents living in your far-off tomorrow probably think nothing of spending vacation time on some Hilton Hotel space station orbiting Earth. We today train our astronauts and strap them to expensive and dangerous rockets to launch them to the heights of the heavens. I hope perhaps you’re able to use a safer and cheaper geo-stationary “elevator” to travel into space.
Do you guys have cities on the Moon? Or a colony on Mars? How far have people traveled into the solar system to explore and inhabit it? I’d really love to know. And I hope your government is wise enough not to militarize space for “defense” purposes. The heavens should be preserved as a sacred place for peace and prosperity.
Celebrating Morgan Hill’s centennial past, I reflect on what the coming 100 years will bring this community. Of course, you South Valley citizens who might be reading this on Nov. 10, 2106, at Morgan Hill’s bicentennial celebration have that knowledge. You know what world-shaking historic events will happen and how South Valley society will evolve. For me right now, however, the 100-year future is one great big question mark.
No doubt back in 1906 when Morgan Hill’s founders signed the document making the community’s incorporation official, they too pondered what the next century might bring for their new city. Those people lived in a horse and buggy world, and they probably couldn’t envision the vast number of fossil fuel-powered cars chugging along on our South Valley streets and clogging the six lanes of Hwy. 101 during the commute hours.
The Wright brothers had recently invented the airplane, but the concept of passenger jets continuously cris-crossing South Valley’s sky would seem as far-fetched to them in 1906 as instantaneous transport devices are to us here in 2006. Space exploration would have seemed like an insane dream. Computers, the Internet, televisions, cell phones and a myriad of other technologies we enjoy daily would be pure science fiction to them.
I can only imagine what your world so many tomorrows away from mine must be like. Perhaps one of your Morgan Hill Bicentennial Committee members might find this column in a stack of musty ancient newspapers. They’ll read it and loudly laugh at how far off course I am in my envisaging the future.
Whatever your world is like in 2106, I wish you peace and happiness on your own 200th birthday bash for Morgan Hill. From one age to another, may God bless you.
Martin Cheek is the author of ‘The Silicon Valley Handbook.’ He can be reached at
ma**********@gm***.On
Election Day, make sure you closely watch the outcome of San Jose’s mayoral race between Chuck Reed and Cindy Chavez. A lot’s riding on it for South Valley.
