Lately I've been getting the feeling that we could achieve great or terrible things in the near future. Our economy, our world politics, and our rapidly advancing technology all seem to be coming together to say, "Something big awaits just beyond the horizon." But will it be good or bad?

The Bible says no man shall know the end of days, and maybe that's why things seemed so "normal," even while unprecedented actions were being taken by our President, both at home and abroad. What if we're just accepting it all as not an "end of the world" kind of thing because we simply don't see how it all fits together? I realized that there is a definite possibility that there's a method to this madness, and that everything that's happened in the news has taken place for a reason. But of course, that's how pure paranoia is born. "Everything matters! It's all a massive conspiracy!!" Haha, right.

Ok, so if we forget that road for a minute (the idea that we're already on the path to Armageddon), and focus on a more golden scenario, what do we get? A pretty awesome outlook. That's right, even in the face of famine, war, poverty, climate change, and disease, we can still be optimistic because we've got something that just might have the power necessary to trump all our woes. Technology. We keep moving forward at an ever-increasing pace. Pretty soon, we'll likely have a global wireless network powerful enough to provide poverty-stricken nations with the ability of linking to information and resources that can pull them up and greatly improve and enhance their lives. If we made an effort to do something like that a few years ago, we'd have had to lay a ton of cable. Now, with satellites and new "I'll beam you the movie in 2 seconds" technology, a massive effort like that will be far easier.

But of course, anything that is powerful is not necessarily good, or even bad. It's what is done with it that is good or bad. Sure, we've got incredible technology, but we could seriously screw things over for everybody by not using the foresight to prevent the undesirable scenarios. We might clean up the planet and improve the standard of living for all 6 billion residents…or we could dig ourselves a deep hole of war, omnipresent surveillance, and misery. I guess it's really all up to us. Let's hope we don't blow it!

This article spells out how inventor Ray Kurzweil, who's been making frighteningly accurate predictions about the future for years, sees our future. His whole take on the level of society's progress differs from your Average Joe's concept of the same in one basic way: Joe sees things moving linearly, but Ray sees them progressing exponentially!

Take for example the human genome project. Originally scheduled to finish up in its fifteenth year, it had only completed mapping 1% of the human genome by year 7. Nobody thought it would be on time. But every subsequent year, the amount of progress doubled, until it did indeed encompass 100% in year 15.

Kurzweil says that most people can't comprehend the nature of the future as he sees it, because they look at things from a point of view ground in the present rate of things. But if you take into consideration things like, "Moore's Law," which says that processing power for computers will double each year (as it has shown to be doing), then within 20 years we should have computers that are smarter than people.

Kurzweil predicted back in the 80's that some sort of computer network would arise to connect us all, and he was right. He also said that a computer would beat the world chess champion in 1998. It did happen, but in 1997!

Among Kurzweil's ideas for the future are the interconnectedness between humans and machines. By around 2045, if you're not hooked in in some way, perhaps with nanobots complementing your brainpower, you may not be able to understand the changing technology. At that point, he says, we'll likely have reached the Technological Singularity, in which AI is coming up with new technology faster than ordinary humans can contribute.

What's the best part? Kurzweil sees nanotechnology, genetics, and robotics reaching a point where human life can be sustained indefinitely. He takes a lot of vitamins, and for good reason. If you take care of yourself, "you may just live long enough to live forever."