One may be able to simply look outside to realize the change that’s affected our world these past several years. Whether it takes the form of increasingly commonplace electric vehicles silently rolling down our streets, a Zoom conversation with unique backgrounds and edited faces, or even small Wall-E look-alikes bringing ordered food right to the front door (a story about it, here), we live in a place that’s rapidly evolving in time and space.

It’s honestly a little scary to think about. Ethical conversations continue to emerge around what we should do with newfound technologic discoveries. These advancements have an increasingly tight grip on the modern lifestyle and inevitably come with benefits and drawbacks. The question becomes, how do we identify the changes that are truly beneficial to humanity, and if so, what are the short- and long-term ramifications of exploring these new insights, let alone making them available to the public?

Answering these tough questions entails quite a bit of anxiety-inducing decision-making. It sometimes makes me think back to what life was like in the days of “Little House on the Prarie”. Life expectancy may not have been as long, and days might have been filled with wiping the sweat from our brows as we put food on the table, but I’m sure it would come with a sort of serene simplicity (at least initially). I’m sure after about two weeks we would start to miss popping on Netflix, or the freedom of a long-distance FaceTime. Alas, the grass is always greener.

But we need to live in the moment. Right here. Right now. Given our current context, I am hopeful that humanity will make the right decisions that benefit both ourselves and the future inhabitants of the planet long after we’re gone (fingers crossed).

Photo by Ales Nesetril on Unsplash