LETTER: Difficult to make predictions 100 years ahead

Dear Editor:

I believe that Frank Martens’ letter, “Take measures now to create a better future” (Summerland Review, Jan. 13), deserves an alternate viewpoint.

READ ALSO: LETTER: Take measures now to create a better future

I seriously doubt that people living in 1923 could have taken many (if any) actions that would shape society and the world at the end of their 20th century. They simply didn’t have data to predict things like the Second World War, exploration of space, computers, genetic engineering, nuclear fission and a myriad other events and discoveries that have shaped, and continue to shape, our current lives.

What those 1923 thinkers had to do was place faith in themselves, their peers and future generations to tackle the problems of their day using the current technologies of the day.

For sure, those future generations created problems along the way and as a species we continue to be slow learners, but when a problem becomes bad enough the tough and the smart tend to eventually get going on its resolution.

Many of the solutions in Frank’s letter are no doubt worthwhile to help tackle the problems of today, but to suggest they will be in any way relevant to life 80 years hence is a bit of a stretch.

One thing we can do is educate our children to the best of our ability — then trust that they will find their own way to the end of their own millennium.

John Bubb

Summerland

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