Blog 10: Write Yourself Into the Future Part 1 and 2
This week we are instructed to write a short story about the future and what we think it will be like.
Imagine a world where all-natural life besides the human race is non-existent. The year is 3023 and there is no natural life in existence any longer: No plants, no animals. The people living during this time don't know the sound of a singing bird in the morning or the hooting of an owl at dusk. All living creatures died due to extreme over pollution and excessive fossil fuels in our earth that were too toxic for them to continue. Since there's no plants, grass, or trees to create oxygen, each person has an oxygen machine in their home to keep them alive. When they leave the house, they have their own portable one to be able to breathe. The people who couldn't afford oxygen machines have to hope their portable one lasts them until the next fill up station on the street. Zoos still exist in enclosed bubbles for the public to enjoy but at a serious price of oxygen. On the bright side, there are less car accidents due to the fact that there's no longer the chance of hitting a deer or swerving to avoid a squirrel. Although the low accident rate could also be due to the new and improved 100% self-driving vehicles, the fact that there's no animals also help. When children are in school, they learn about animals like we did dinosaurs or the wooly mammoth, treated as history. The important part is no one learns about why they don't exist anymore, mainly because of the fossil fuels generated through industrialization. The older generations tell stories, good and bad about the animals that used to exist and how easy it was to leave the house care-free. But everything comes at a cost, unfortunately now the price was the loss of all living creatures for the "benefit" of industrialization.
Our group met on 4/4/23 from 11:40 to 12:10 and it consisted of Carly Regan, Abigail Richardson and Veda Reeves.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading each other's short stories, we discussed the stories and why they were written. Abigail's story was about her future 10 years down the line and how she would be graduated from college and in her career. She said she hopefully would have a family by then. Her story also covered the rest of the world's future in that she said there would be many machines instead of people. In a sense that machines would take over the jobs of humans such as waitressing jobs and banking. She gave us many other examples, where some are even occurring already today. Her story just elaborated and furthered the idea. Abigail's story was positive when it came to her future but for the environment and world, her story was negative because the machines can lead to loss of jobs and more industrialization. She also explained to us that her story made her sad because she is a social person who would be upset if machines and robots took over because there would be less human interaction. My story was similar to Abigail's story in that mine was a more negative outlook on the future. My story pertained to industrialization and how it negatively affects the world. It explained that at the rate our world is going right now, there will be a day that animals won't exist any longer. There are already animals going extinct, and my story just elaborated on that idea to the point where one day there won't be any animals due to poor oxygen in the atmosphere. The poor oxygen and loss of animals stemmed from industrialization and building which leads to loss of habitats and increased fossil fuels which is depleting our environment at increasing rates. For Veda, her story took a different outlook on the future. She had a very positive outlook on the future. Part of her story stemmed from the way she wishes the future would look like and the other part stemmed from her lifestyle currently. She wrote a story about how local markets will be supported more than big grocery stores. She elaborated on the part about small farms and fresh products instead of frozen, processed foods we buy in the stores. Her story focused on the future of small farms and how they will receive more land and be able to feed local families and bring back a sense of the home-grown local movement. The way Veda felt this will happen is through social media promotion. Although social media can have negative effects, for this Veda felt it would be positive because it will support local farms and spread the word. Usually with social media, it tends to have a "everyone is doing it" kind of attitude which makes others follow so Veda's story explained that if enough people support local farms then it will lead to the expansion of this. Furthermore, in her future story with the support of local farms, this would lead to cheaper prices of food. Overall, each one of us took a totally different approach on the assignment with mine and Abigail's having a more negative outlook and Veda's being more positive.
A few questions we covered in our discussion was the question of "Which parts of the stories are possible?". For this topic, we all felt that with each of our stories, some parts were very possible. On the contrary, we also felt that the whole story was not possible and probably won't happen to the extreme of the story. With that said, we felt for Abigail's story it was very possible for machines and robots to take over certain jobs, as it has happened already. Such jobs that could become possible are waitressing jobs. We felt that her story is very possible but not the entire thing, as some jobs just can't be computerized. Furthermore, we felt that if this was to be true then the economy would plumet because no one would have a job and therefore have little spending money. For my story, we felt that the entire story was most likely not possible, but the parts about industrialization and loss of oxygen in the atmosphere and loss of habitats is very possible and is currently happening at increasing rates every day. We did feel that there will be more species of animals that will become extinct, but certainly not all. We also agreed that all plants and trees will not die because this will most likely lead to the end of the environment completely since without plants and trees there is no oxygen. For Veda's story, we felt that there was quite a bit of truth to her story in terms of supporting local businesses instead of large food chains. A good example I compared it to is NC State agriculture. A lot of NC State foods are sold in food stores. The difference would be buying straight from NC State instead of buying it from the food stores at a higher price. Veda's story could definitely be possible, as she tries to live this lifestyle already where she buys her produce and other products from market stands and local farms.
ReplyDeleteAnother topic we discussed was the question of "How can we get other people to expand their imaginations to help transform the world?". This was a deeper way of thinking and deeper discussion for our group, as we used Veda's story to counteract mine and Abigail's stories. With this idea, we said that if we used Veda's story of supporting local businesses and discontinuing the support of large corporations, then this will counteract Abigail's story directly because the use of machines won't exist in local farms or restaurants. Veda's story will also counteract my story because supporting local farms instead of large corporations will stop industrialization, therefore stopping habitat destruction, finally leading to the buildup of oxygen back into the atmosphere and the preservation of the plants and animals, therefore preventing extinction as well.
We concluded that Veda's story led us to understand how a chain of reactions would work to prevent mine and Abigail's stories and we felt that if more people read Veda's story and acted upon it appropriately, the environment and future will be a pleasant surprise.