Future Imperfect

One of the many blessings in my life is that I was able to be at EPCOT Center on opening day. My mother worked for Eastern Airlines (official airline of Disney World at the time!), and one of the benefits of working for an airline at that time was free travel (can you even imagine?). So we were able to make it to EPCOT on the day it first opened its doors (which, to be honest, was so crowded we didn't really get to do anything) as well as many other times throughout my childhood.

EPCOT had always (up until recently) been divided into two areas - FutureWorld and World Showcase. World Showcase was interesting enough, with all the different countries on display, and definitely had the best food - but for a kid in the 80s FutureWorld was where you wanted to be. Because it was about the future.

There were plants hanging from the ceiling! And outposts at the bottom of the ocean! And cars running on electricity! Heck, the first experience many of us had with a touch-screen was at the kiosks to make a dinner reservation! My favorite exhibit in EPCOT was called Horizons, which was a slow-moving ride that took you through several different parts of a possible future society. At the end of the ride, it let you pick if future-you would like to live in space, at a sea-base, or in a dessert outpost (I always picked the sea base). Because that's where we'd be able to live. In the future.

And why would we think we couldn't achieve those goals? We had Concordes and space shuttles and the ability to make a call to someone in China (whenever the satellite was in the right spot). We were living in inequality and still embroiled in the Cold War, but there was little doubt in the 80s that all of that could be overcome, and that our future selves would live in a golden age.

EPCOT was a premiere destination...for about a decade. Then the cracks in FutureWorld really started to show. Some of those cracks were pretty tactical - after all, the future as envisioned in 1982 didn't include cell phones or the internet. But the biggest crack was in the concept itself - kids stopped caring about "the future". Horizons was shuttered for good. Disney tinkered and tinkered with FutureWorld until we get to where we are now - with the former area sub-divided into three separate lands, and the main attraction of the park being riding the Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind thrill ride. There are still "future" attractions at EPCOT - but people have to be enticed to come see them.

Yesterday I received an email that I can't stop thinking about. It was a mailing from Spartan Race. They send multiple emails a week on fitness, nutrition, and motivation (and, of course, signing up for their races). But there was a black box towards the bottom of their email that asked "Is Your Body Built to Survive 2050?" I don't usually click many of their links, or most links from any corporate email blasts (don't want to get too tied to algorithms), but this intrigued me. What exactly did they think you would need to SURVIVE 24 years from now? I hit the "LET'S FIND OUT" button to learn more.

What I found was a three-question multiple choice quiz. The questions were as follows:

1. THE BLACKOUT: The grid is down. No power, no running water, no cell signal. Sirens fade, stores empty, and panic spreads. What's your move?

2. HEAT WAVE: It's week three of a global heat crisis. Water is scarce, and power grids keep failing. You're running out of supplies. What do you do?

3. SYSTEM CRASH: It's 2050. Food production has collapsed, and digital networks are down. You've got basic tools and two days of rations. How do you survive?

As you might imagine for Spartan Race, all of the "correct" answers aligned with self-reliance and discipline, rather than relying on community or technology.

This quiz was the first time I thought of the general concept of "the future" in a long, long time, and definitely one of the first times I'd really considered it to be so bleak. And...it really doesn't feel too off base.

I don't really want to play the blame game or start picking out where we went wrong in the last 40 or so years - this is too big an issue and I don't feel qualified - but I never really thought about how all the decisions and events of the past few decades (especially since the millennium) have turned the future from something to look forward too to something to fear. More than anything, I feel bad for the Millennials, Gen Zs, and Gen Alphas, since I don't know that they were ever able to experience an EPCOT moment, of looking forward to the world they would live in as adults.

I do feel like, right now, hate and division and inequality have some momentum. Unchecked, that will dictate our future for us, forcing most of us (but probably not the top 1%) to live through the wasteland Spartan Race is envisioning in 2050.

For what it's worth, I still have hope we can turn it around. I still have hope we can get past the issues that divide us and form a more just and peaceful society. And I still have hope that one day we'll all be sitting at a table, laughing and breaking bread, in our home at the bottom of the sea.