Elder Wendell J. Ashton and a Vision of the Future

Now we're continuing on to Elder Wendell J. Ashton and his talk, "Unchanging Principles of Leadership" which he gave in the priesthood session of April 1971.

 

The Quote 

"A book, The Year 2000, talks about some of the developments likely ahead for you: mining and farming on the ocean floors, three-dimensional photography, artificial moons for lighting large areas at night, and many others.

Even more sobering, though, are thoughts regarding other changes that some say are ahead: the phasing out of family life and of the moral code that helped make this and other nations great."

Predictions of the Future, 1960s Style

When I read this reference, I can't tell you how excited I was to find it. I love books about predicting the future - they are fantastic fodder for a science fiction writer. I owe a lot to futurists like Michio Kaku and Ray Kurtweil for helping me write my novels, and it's always fun to see what they got right years later, and maybe not so right.

For example, this book, The Year 2000: a framework for speculation on the next 33 years, has a list of predicted technologies starting on page 50, that's very well thought-out based on what they knew and what issues they were having at the time.

There's a list of things they expected to have happen, some of which were listed in the quote above.

Deep-sea mining is not happening yet, but is currently in development. 

Three-dimensional photography is in fact happening.

Artificial moonlight isn't in general use, but getting artificial moonlight installed in your backyard could happen now.

There were also some technologies they didn't expect that happened, including "True" artificial intelligence.

Most of the rest of it are still cultural dreams.  

 

Phasing Out of Family Life and Moral Codes?

The other part of the quote, I guess, depends on a person's point of view.

The Year 2000 book does predict a more sensate culture in the future, more focused on leisure and consumption.

I can't say that that hasn't happened. At least, the media perception of it has certainly happened, and we live with the latent consequences of that now.

But this is why we have futurists, as well as prophets and apostles, right? To alert us to these sorts of societal trends, so that we can think about whether or not we want to participate, and decide for ourselves what sort of life we want to build.

Always a good thing, in my mind.