Lately, I feel like I want to retreat from the world, find a quiet Walden and a tiny hut somewhere, just pull a total Thoreauvian rug over my head and resign from the wackiness of finance and social networking, from all hackable sites on the Web. I just heard that the medical information of one out of every three can be stolen, from which all kinds of financial information can be obtained. Who are these hackers and why do they need to steal personal information? Why do they need to send too many people into financial chaos? The world has become so confusing for anyone sixty and older and it looks (looms?) as though it’s going to get increasingly complex. Too bad. As an old optimistic fan of science fiction, I want the world to solve its problems and bring about that Utopian future in which there’s no longer any need to steal identities and personal wealth. Not in my lifetime, but maybe just down the road.
The future—too many people, not enough food or water to support the hordes who might occupy the planet just a few generations down the road; wacky weather that may or may not be the result of man’s carelessness; all sorts of tension emanating from the Middle East; ISIS and its terror tactics with over a million refugees fleeing Syria and other Middle Eastern nations under siege by ISIS; medicine and technology taking us rapidly forward and religious fanatics taking us back;
one of the oddest and most contentious presidential races in a long time with Donald Trump leading the way in oddity, trying to become the Wizard of Od and succeeding nearly every time he opens his mouth; artificial intelligence making a move for good or evil, with driverless cars and computers that talk to us and think for us. Where is it all leading? We’ll know soon enough.
What is the future of the Olympic Games? The one upcoming in Brazil will either be a success or a miserable failure. We have fears of the Zika virus that could lead to many withdrawals of contestants or maybe of whole nations. The Games have become so mammoth and so expensive that future sites may decline the honor (the cost?). Two things I and most of the world will be watching with fascination: the golf competition and the saga of Michael Phelps trying to win more medals. I hope Brazil can bring it off and that no one catches anything from those pesky mosquitoes and that the Games will continue to charm us every four years.
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