Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Thoughts on the Future ~

Science Fiction writer, Ray Bradbury, gave us his thoughts on the future:

"...inventions [i.e. machines, cars] which induce you to behave immorally are indeed with us and are beginning to cause a hell of a lot of trouble in the cultures of the world.  The very countries that made fun of us are now going through the traffic jams and the smog and the murder on the highways...
I've written an article on the steps we have to take to change, rebuild and rethink a lot of things.  We're on our way there.  A lot of big corporations are interested in this, and we're going to have corporate responsibility on many levels.  We're going to build a lot of small towns again, ones which work in new terms.  They'll be humanistic, technological small towns of the future which will have all kinds of travel in it, ways of getting around without using cars.  It will have so many textures that we need, or think we need, as educated hedonists of the future.  There are two or three now being built, and when they work there will be hundreds, and then we'll get people out of the big cities.  The big cities will be partially blown up and replotted into gardens, and they'll be made to work again."

~ Interview with Lawrence Grobel, Endangered Species, Da Capo Press, 2001.

(Ray Bradbury never drove a car and his fear of flying kept him from being a world traveller.  He often lectured high school and college students on how to make a better future.  He spoke to futurists on how not to forget the past and present.  He consulted with architects and city planners on how to turn cities into parks and rebuild communities more feasible for living.) Ray Bradbury (1920 - 2012) American Sci-fi, fantasy, horror writer.