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I recently reread my favorite book in the world, "The Napoleon of Notting Hill" by GK Chesterton. In it, Chesterton, writing in 1904 I believe, predicts the year 1984. He predicts that almost nothing changes. Of course, he was wrong, but he never really expected to actually be correct. The first chapter of the book discusses futurology in general, and I believe that Chesterton's portrayal of futurology is largely correct.

The general tendency of futurologists is to take one or two trends of modern culture (be they technological, political, or economic) and expand them, assume that they will overshadow other current aspects of culture. There is a tendency to make the assumption of expansive progress, assuming that things which are, will continue and, mostly, get bigger. This need not be true. It is true for some things, but not all things.

The future of mankind, then, is simple. It will continue until it stops. Probably technology will advance for a while, but it will probably have a recessive period at some point. All things fluctuate. Social systems will evolve and be overturned in revolutions and fads. All the while normal people will continue to live normal lives. Nations will dissolve and be formed, boundaries broken down and established. The people will continue.

Probably the people will change a bit, but not that much. Changes in humanity on the whole are rare. Humans today are pretty much like humans a thousand years ago, with a few differences. The way we think about things isn't exactly the same, but it's close. "Big changes" like the differences between modernity and post-modernity aren't as big as people make them out to be, and the great leaps of science will be seen as baby steps a thousand years from now.

All the while, people will be people. They will fall in love, drink beer, have children, quarrel, exploit each other, give generous gifts, be born, and die. That is the future of humankind. Not a radical change to some higher level of thought, not bionics, not socialism. Any of those things may play a part, but, in the end, they are just the outside face, the trappings and constructs, of humans. A thousand years from now, if there are people, they will just be people.

Learn more about this author, Lyman Stone.
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