Today, conversations about the future have an interesting feature - while we are discussing how this or that innovation will affect our lives, this innovation is already entering life and taking over it. And we are left to think not about what will happen, but what to do with what has already happened. In the age of progress, the future manages to become the past while we drink our morning coffee.

We are still discussing how to protect the younger generation from Internet addiction, and meanwhile the social network is becoming a more common meeting place for fathers and children than the kitchen in their own home. We argue about how passports with biometric chips will affect our freedom, but at the same time, everyone has a smartphone in their pocket, which now does not collect information except about our thoughts.

While this text is being written, according to the news The newswires are spreading the message that within two years, fiber optics will be extended to every village in Russia and doctors will have the opportunity via Skype to use certain telemedicine technologies to treat local residents. By the way, I wonder how many of us know what fiber optics, telemedicine technologies and the therapeutic capabilities of Skype are?

The future is not only a guest who is approaching our doorstep at fantastic speed. This is also a guest unfamiliar to us. How would you react to an unknown person who suddenly appeared in your living room in the morning? Yes, he may be friendly and claims that he came with good intentions - to fix a pipe there, prepare children for exams. But you don’t know where he’s from, what’s in his soul, and whether you should leave him or call him urgently. to the rescue.

Sounds implausible? Then try to explain, for example, how your mobile phone works, and list at least half of the functions that are included in its system...

Today, with the help of experts from various fields, we will try to at least a little predict the signs of this guest and assess how far you need to let him beyond the threshold of your own home. We will talk about the main challenges that our children will face in 20-30 years - that is, when they grow up and enter the active stage of life.

And two reservations before starting the conversation.

In -first. We have no goal to scare readers and get scared along with them. Christians know that the end times will come, but they do not know when. However, Christians also know that, no matter how long the life of mankind turns out to be, An individual should live every day as if it were his last. Remember, like Bulgakov: “Yes, man is mortal, but that would not be so bad. The bad thing is that sometimes he is suddenly mortal, that’s the trick!”

Secondly. Yes, the future, as a rule, turns out to be more paradoxical than our expectations. Does this mean that it is pointless to talk about him seriously? Well, about the world of the future, maybe yes (although it’s certainly interesting). But of course, it’s worth talking about the man of the future, and quite seriously. The famous criminologist Gernet wrote: “The education of a person begins 100 years before his birth.” Is it also paradoxical? It seems only at first glance.