Now what?

The main reason that I look forward to tomorrow is to see what will happen.
When we look back over our short lifetime no matter . . .

what age we are, we are amazed at the inventions and changes that we have seen.
For an example, my teenage grandchild has more information in that cell phone in his pocket than my grandfather, who I admired because of what he knew, had accumulated in his entire lifetime.
We have watched on TV, which didn’t exist when I was born, a man land on the moon.
In only a century, we have gone from depending on a horse for transportation to the choice to own a driverless car that is supposed to take you where you want to go.
The horse ran on hay and oats. Now we power our vehicles on gas or diesel and the electric car is just around the corner.
During my lifetime, 1947, we went from candle light and the coal oil lantern to electric lights. A wood furnace heated the house and a wood stove cooked every meal and an ice box kept the milk cold.
Now we are totally dependent on electricity.
My grandfather and his brother both had dairy farms and each year they visited the best Holstein herds within a day’s train ride and bought a new herd sire. Now my daughter selects semen from the top bulls in the world and can select a mate for each cow individually to correct the most important flaws. She can even choose to get a heifer calf.
A thousand Pontiac farmers used to do all field work with horses.
Now there are only a couple hundred farmers left and they have the option to use GPS guided equipment that can plant perfectly straight rows at night without lights on the tractor.
My uncle was a tail gunner on a bomber in WW2 and was shot down and didn’t return home. Now someone in an office can direct a drone carrying a bomb to attack an army on the other side of the world. We just hope that someone has the intelligence not to.
A few years ago, scientists discovered CRISPR. CRISPR is a new technology that allows gene editing or in common terms CRISPR allows the selection of almost any genes of life.
A baby could be designed to have blond hair, green eyes, grow to be six feet tall, be extremely intelligent, never get cancer and a host of other traits that parents could dream about. This brings a whole new outlook to the future. Not only is this technology very expensive but should people have those choices?
Only the very rich could even think of this way of designing a child. In 2019, a Chinese scientist was convicted of experimenting with CRISPR and was sent to prison for 10 years.
An entire health care industry has been built upon the fact that people get sick, need treatment, medication and care.
Experts predict that the most influential effects on our world very soon, will be our aging population with a smaller work force to pay taxes and the ever increasing cost of health care. Some of the diseases and health problems can be reduced and hence increase our life span.
Some of the foods we eat and some of our social habits are reducing our life span. Back room decisions can greatly alter our future.
Remember the golden rule (he who has the gold, makes the decisions). Let’s pray that is not why or how our future is planned.

Chris Judd is a farmer in Clarendon on land that has been in his family for generations.
gladcrest@gmail.com