In 1903, the Wright brothers took the first flight in human history
(they were in the air for less than a minute),
and just 66 years later, we landed on the moon.
Many people saw both within their lifetimes: the first plane and the moon landing.
What will the next decades bring?
Odds are, my child will live well into the 22nd century.
New vaccines, progress in clean, low-carbon energy,
better cancer treatments – a range of future innovations
could very much improve her living conditions and the environment around us.
Oh, the things she will see!
What is familiar to us today –
photography, the radio, antibiotics, the Internet –
was unimaginable to our ancestors just a few generations ago.
If your great-great-great grandparents could spend a week with you
they would be blown away by your everyday life.
But...
We are children of people
who were raised by people
of The Great Depression,
who were children of people
raised by people of the Civil War.
What I take away from this history is that I will likely see technologies in my lifetime that appear unimaginable to me today.
We all should strive to gain the knowledge we need
to contribute to an intelligent debate about the world we want to live in.
To a large part this means gaining the knowledge, and wisdom,
on the question of which future we want for our children.