How far ahead?

How far into the future might one think of looking?

For one idea, past the point at which familiar technologies are gone... or at least changed so drastically that they're no longer recognizable. Some technologies have been around for quite awhile, unchanged in basic form and function.

Although today's automobile may look drastically different in style from the early vehicles of the 1900 era, they essentially haven't changed that much. Four wheels, gas engine... But like technologies before and after, it's lifetime will be limited, or so I believe. What will replace it? A more advanced form of physical transport? Virtual presence? Teleportation?

I believe that there will come a time in the future at which the automobile, as well as many other familiar technologies, will not only be gone, but forgotten. And the only place to see one will be in a museum of ancient artifacts. That's a time I want to visit!

What will the future be like... when?

I'm lots older now. But I grew up in the early 1960's - a time when people were only just beginning to believe that space travel was possible. And still, many could not believe. I came on the scene not long before Sputnik, and I was still a youngster when Neil Armstrong first set foot on the Moon. I dreamed that by the dawn of the Millenium, we would have outposts on Mars, explorations en route to the nearest stars and personal robots to cater to our every whim. The Jetsons.

I'm still waiting... Yet it seems it's just a matter of time.

Time...

The question is, how much time? What would it be like to travel far, far into the future. To a time when technology has advanced to the point at which the person of today would not recognize it for what it was? Most certainly other things will evolve as well. Cultures. Governments. Our very own biology.

What will the reading be on the Clock of the Long Now when mankind dodges his first real asteroid encounter?

That will be an interesting time to visit!