The Potomac Institute for Policy Studies hosts the Center for Revolutionary Scientific Thought (CReST), which harbors individuals from a variety of backgrounds to ensure a complete outlook on the futures of science and technology from an academic and policy perspective. CReST intends to inform the public and government officials, alike, about the most pressing issues and concerns regarding the future of science and technology. See one of our latest CReST blogs below:

Thinking About Future Generations

by Dr. Paul Syers

Nature misses the mark when examining the question of what problems future generations will face. The most recent issue of Nature, released this week, takes a break from its usual way of thinking and tackles the bold concept of looking far into the future. I was excited to dive into one particular article that started off asking how well we can predict the effect that our decisions today will affect future generations. Imagine my disappointment when the article turned out to be nothing more than a vehicle for discussion nuclear waste disposal. While that particular issue is important and will be for generations to come, I find it an incredibly limited focus for discussing the impact of our actions on future generations.

In some ways, saying we need to improve how we store nuclear waste makes the same assumptions that the beginning premise of the article warns against. With the types of capabilities we will soon acquire in the areas of genetic manipulation, neurotechnology, and machine learning, our civilization and even species could look very different in as little as the next three generations. Nuclear waste is just one small piece in a very large, complicated puzzle, and it’s likely we don’t even have all the pieces yet. If you’re going to ask that question, why not tackle it head on and acknowledge this?

Find the entire blog here.