With December here and the new year is near, what are the visions of a better future? Always in pursuit of the unknown, innumerable questions whisper in our ear.

Will the roses bloom in spring?

A crystal ball or a satellite view may reveal half the globe remains in darkness, ignorant of man’s achievements in the last two millennia. The other half is perennially in fear of what is or what might be.

Awkward questions stir the mind, unable to rid of vexations and premonitions. We fear change, but change is inevitable. Yet fear continues to haunt the mind. Its spirit breathes you, its atmosphere surrounds you.

Fear is no small matter. It is a formidable human emotion that has accompanied man since its creation. A host of symptoms triggers the mind leaving you physically uncomfortable and mentally disturbing.

Fear of the year 2025 is the primary reason for anxiety. It must be replaced by hope, but the waters are murky, the air is foggy, and the skies are cloudy.

With the winds of war dizzily whisking around us, and the economy grappling with financial insecurity, can we have hope? We face threats of another pandemic, the rash race of technology and general anxiety about the rapid growth of artificial intelligence, giving rise to mass unemployment, leaves the future inherently uncertain.

Lack of transparency breeds speculation and speculation tends to veer towards the negative. How then can we be confident about a hopeful future?

The void could be mostly rumours, conspiracy or theories of a machine invasion. Nonetheless, people naturally fear the unknown.

Gently, quietly, then loudly, fear shouts in your ear. Fantasy or fact, it reaches your mind. It must be stopped. It must be replaced with transparency, understanding, and hope.

While technology promises benefits it also instills fears.

Science helps wars. Since WWI science has helped spur the damages of war, growing exponentially since. Can we serve science and prevent it simultaneously? Modern war is now an organised violence carried out by military forces.

Military wars are the servants of science. They call them the elites or the intellectual class, the driving force behind the destruction of mankind. With the stroke of a pen nations crumble by the scientific/military systems.

We must tame the hungry beast of technology before it overtakes us — machines over people. It is plausible. It is approaching a dangerous time when it can blow up the planet. If WWIII comes it will leave the planet with sticks and stones.

We are at a risk of eventually elevating technology over humanity, unable to advance humanity with the same pace. In its zeal for empowerment of the mind, science mistook it for the progress of the heart.

We shudder at those who yawn in sophisticated luxury, press a button, smile, take a puff of a rich cigar, and watch the ghastly death of their suffocating brethren. Do we have any responsibility, any remorse, or a sigh of sadness as the bodies fall at their feet?

What do we boast at the amazing achievements of the last century? We have a million ways to describe, except for the ways of the heart.
Highly disturbed over the killing of their planet earth for fear of the greenhouse gasses, man has never found any concern for the men who inhabit it.

Are we hardwired to kill as anthropologists claim? A scientific research finds that chimpanzees and humans have similar rates of murder. Killers are mostly men in both species. In 2019, a report of the FBI found that 90 per cent of killers are male. How many females have you seen debating war tactics and strategies in the war rooms of military leaders? Our fear overwhelms us.

No two ways about the importance of science. It began thousands of years, since man first rubbed two stones and discovered fire. He never stopped experimenting. He invented the wheel, developed the bow and arrow or tried to explain the rising and the setting of the sun. They were major advances in science to control the things around them.

Civilisations continued to excel in the ancient world, until the Middle Ages came to a standstill. Scholars were more interested in theology while the Arabs excelled in scientific knowledge. The rebirth of science began around 1543 with the book of Nicolaus Copernicus and likewise so did Science fiction with the work of Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

Science fiction became an inspiration to scientists chasing the dreams and creations of their imagination. George Orwell, H G Wells, and Aldous Huxley were picked up by modern philosophers and science fiction writers who gave us Star Wars and Avatar adopted for the screen.

Star Wars by George Lucas invented mass killings. James Cameron, ironically used his technology in Avatar to condemn technology over nature. Both philosophic and scientific concepts surpassed $2 billion at the box office.

Thankful or thankless for the fictional experiments about immortality. Is technology the benefactor or the enemy of mankind? Concern remains over the sciences of wars. The key is to mitigate fear in knowledge.

Science is here to stay, so is change. Change is real. It is unmovable, unshakeable, unavoidable. So nature deemed: “If winter comes, can spring be far behind?”

Not next week, next month, or next year, think good “can” happen, rather than “if” good happens.  

Our only fear is that ethics will also change with technology.

“Only he who attempts the absurd is capable of achieving the impossible.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936)

* A version of this article appears in print in the 5 December, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly