Main content
Big History Project
Course: Big History Project > Unit 10
Lesson 4: Other MaterialsWATCH: Henry Louis Gates, Jr. — Visions of the Future
How will resources and opportunity be distributed in the future? American Scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. hopes that the advances of technology will benefit everyone. Created by Big History Project.
Want to join the conversation?
- If advances in technology can benefit, can it also ultimately result in the extinction of mankind?(4 votes)
- Isn't everyone from Pangaea or is that to far behind?(1 vote)
Video transcript
I'm Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
and I have the pleasure of being a professor
at Harvard University. What does the future hold
for the human community? I think it's so exciting. With even the recent
technological advances being so dramatic,
I can imagine the capacity to wipe out the
most common forms of disease, of space travel
at speeds that we can't imagine. Maybe we'll be able
to teleport each other just like science
fiction writers have prophesized for years
and years and years. The distances between continents will metaphorically
grow much shorter. And that means that
the metaphysical differences, the differences
of understanding, the philosophical
and religious differences between people
can quite probably become diminished as well. Then we can remember
that we are members of one family,
the human community, that all of us are descended
from a small group of people that walked out of Africa
60,000 years ago. That no matter
how different we look, whether you're black or white
or red or yellow or brown, whether you have
straight hair or kinky hair, that we are all descended
from the same common ancestors who lived in Africa as
recently as 60,000 years ago. Economic scarcity,
far too often, religious differences
have made us forget our common humanity. So the question
facing your generation will be, what sort of world will the average person
be able to live in? Will they be... will they be
able to take advantage of these technological advances
to live longer, better, healthier, more humane lives, be better educated,
take advantage of all of these great
unimaginable developments in knowledge that our
thinkers will produce? Or will some of us have
disproportionate access to these resources? Will there be huge
class differentials both here in the United States
and throughout the world? Will there be a
third world of poverty and a first world
of economic prosperity and economic development? That, I think, is the
fundamental question facing your generation. And I have absolutely no
doubt that you will make the right decision
about the distribution of wealth and knowledge.