The Sci-Fi Utopia and Why We Will Never Achieve It
by Dirk Wessels
Have you ever watched Star Trek or one of these Sci-Fi series? They encounter a new race in some distance galaxy whose language they can’t understand, but they are able to hold their little communicator close to this alien technology and download the whole computer’s database. For a modern day consumer such as myself, that sounds like absolute utopia.
Unfortunately I do not live in the Sci-Fi world. I live in a world where one mobile phone manufacturer can’t even standardize on the size of the connector for their phone chargers. Every time you replace your mobile phone, you can throw away your old charger, even if the new phone is from the same manufacturer. If a single company can’t standardize on a size or shape for a little connector, how can we ever achieve an industry standard? The same applies to memory cards. My brother’s laptop has a 5-in-1 card reader and yet the first memory card he tried in there, one from his mobile phone, did not fit. I went to buy two new light bulbs the other day and thought I had a good idea of the shape and size, but you can imagine what happened when I got home. If I look around the house and office I can give you endless examples of items that perform the same function, but have different shapes and sizes.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the guy who invented (and promoted) the USB (Universal Serial Bus) could be voted in as president of the world? But it won’t happen, now will it? Because the world is driven by capitalism and capitalism says that a different sized connector for their charger will increase their accessory sales.
This brings us to the next point in the Star Trek utopia. Except for the occasional villain, the human race has evolved past greed and the need for a monetary system. I haven’t quite figured it out, but it seems like they are driven only by the desire to explore and better themselves. I know I know, it’s Sci-Fi so what did you expect? However, surely we can make some progress from where we are now. In my world though, it seems as if we are constantly looking for reasons to fight with our neighbors and everything is driven by greed and selfishness. I wake up at 4 ‘o clock every single morning so that I can get to the office just after 5 because I cannot handle the traffic. If you put your indicator on to change lanes, people will accelerate to ensure that you cannot fit into their lane. Didn’t you know, “It’s MY lane and only I deserve to drive in this lane”? The band Live has a song named “I want to dance with you” with a phrase that says “the Karmic ocean dried up and left no trace”. I think they hit the nail on the head there. Similar to Black Eyed Peas’ song “Where is the Love?”.
I think we’re headed in the wrong direction. The frustration with technology is nothing but that, a little bit of frustration. However, it feels to me as if the human race has no desire to improve ourselves. If I look around me I see selfishness. Everything is about ME, I, “how will this benefit ME?”. When I look at the media I see an attitude of “What can I get away with”. Robert Mogabe can get away with anything and that’s exactly what he does. The military in Burma can do whatever they want and so they do. The world governments know what we’re doing to our planet, but I think their attitude is to think up some new convention to make it seem like they care, as long as it does not affect their economy. So I’m a little negative about this planet of ours, when’s the next flight to Mars? Oh wait, this is not my Sci-Fi Utopia, this is reality.
About the Author
Dirk Wessels is a web designer and owner of http://www.successstories.co.za. You may reproduce this article as long as you include this Author notice and a reference to Success Stories