Looking two decades ahead...

Few hours ago, I read an article on The Kyunghyang Shinmun, one of the mainstream media in the Republic of Korea about a female student of the future, who was created in 1995 by. According to the article, her name is Eun Bee Ko. Twenty years ago, a research center in the Republic of Korea made various prediction about the future and published their works through Kyunghyang Shinmun's Magazine X, a page read by the younger generation at that time. "Eun Bee" was one of their creation and prediction. This year marks the target year that the researchers of that time picked to make their predictions. This branch of study is called futurology. Even though there were some exaggerated materials, I was able to recognize familiar objects with similar functions.

For her 20th birthday (2015), Eun Bee supposedly receives a device called PCS, which is an acronym for Personal Communication Service that has the same functions as a smartphone. Through this device, Eun Bee is able to receive personal messages and the device also comes with various application software like "personal fashion system" that gives suggestion for clothes to wear depending on the weather and her interest. Although the terms are different, I was able to see that the generation twenty years, who in the present day would mostly be adults, thought and imagined about things, which would create the culture today.

I guess every generation has a common interest on future. I do not imagine that the issue and the interest among the young generation twenty years ago would be different than the young generation today. Occasionally, I imagine the future world, when I think about my personal future and also whenever I watch films about future, which are usually about a dystopian world. Sometime, I do agree that these types of films have huge effect over our impression about future.

Some of the predictions are incorrect, but some predictions turned out to be true. Even though their imagination did not come true completely, I think if we are able to maintain a healthy culture, just like the heavenly culture, I believe that this mentality will be reflected in the later years. I would like to imagine where the spirit of the heavenly culture and the work for world peace will bring us twenty years from now on. Dr. Ian Pearson, a futurologist, says that "Anyone can predict stuff, but only a few get it right." But, also I think we also hold the key to the future, because the prediction will follow the trend of how this world flows. If these futurologists or anyone, who gains an interest to make a prediction about the future, they will look at the trend of the world and how it is reflected over culture. 

When they see continuous wars and films about the end of the war, they will probably predict something similar in that direction. But, what if they start seeing movements of peace and see films about peace winning awards and gaining the most viewers and fans, even before they make that their prediction, I think I would be more excited to see a different world, when wars would only be a fantasy in my dream, while peace will become a reality. What kind of world do you see twenty years later? What kind of world do you think is being created through the peace movement of HWPL and Chairman Man Hee Lee?