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(Future concept housing to deal with pollution, food shortage and over population, is often inspiring and does wonders in dispelling dystopian notions of a horrible future. Source: Futuristicnews.com)

A dystopian future: rampant overpopulation, starvation, pollution and widespread poverty. What else can be expected in a scarcity-driven economy? Why do so many consider the future this way? Why is it so feasible to the modern mind that resources will dissipate, bringing suffering and malady – especially given how radically our ‘resource needs’ have changed over the course of human history. It can all be traced to a study done during the early 70's.

(The future is/was pretty wacky - and it didn't/won't happen the way we think.)

I’ve been writing about the future this year, technology, medicine, science – societal concerns. Anything I can think of (and find interesting). There is a recurring theme in what I read among the scientific and futurist communities – the future is looking good – the end isn't nigh.

The 1950's promised us jet packs, flying cars, space holidays, robot man-servants and unlimited energy. Instead, we got air pollution, better medicine, a worrying degree of societal control in the hands of private entities and, of course, our wondrous world wide web.

Our amazing breakthroughs in computing, medicine, technology and information distribution aside - why didn't humanity get the future we wanted? Why does the future seem so dismal?

(Dirty energy is what we Earthlings use every day (even our clean energy is dirty somewhere along the line).

It takes about 2.5 seconds for light to hit the moon and return to earth (a lunar laser ranging experiment says so), meaning we have a massive chunk of mass floating around our planet not being used for anything constructive besides night-sky decoration. Sure, we land on it every now and then to practice planting flags and picking up rocks - but that's hardly helping us deal with our main problems back here on Earth, is it?

Now, things like healthcare, education, social disparity and ethics have already been touched upon (by me). What are some other salient faults that could be addressed?