A View from the Year 3000
by Michael H. Hart

Our Price: $402.48
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $62.55 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions

Book Summary Information

Book Reviews of A View from the Year 3000

Book Review: Year 3000
Summary: 4 Stars

The system of education, too, is curious. First, it must be truly important, because all of his new entries in this book (I think there are fifty five in all) have attended university for a long time. Today, highly educated people attend universities for years after high school, but in the distant days of the future fantastic described by Dr. Hart, it often takes them decades to do so--obviously this arrangement may be more appealing to academics than the population in general. This protracted schooling takes place despite the fact that direct downloading of information from computers into the brain is possible in that world of the day after tomorrow. Explanation for this paradox: downloading of information provides only the knowledge of facts, but no "understanding." One wonders how perfect brainwashing (another idea that Hart describes as almost imminent) can be real when "downloading" can do no more than supply the human brain with facts. Also, people generally work between 20 and 60 years before they retire; in fact, his most influential people after the year 2000 go to school for almost as long as they work afterwards--then they either live in perpetual retirement, or perish in some accident (although there is at least one suicide). This vision of the future of long schooling, important intellectual work, and endless retirement is the academic's utopia.

One striking feature of Hart's predicitions is that almost everybody who is among the most influential after the twnety-first century comes either from Asia or Africa. As far as I am able to tell, nobody among the most influential people born after the twenty-first century comes from Western Europe. Few of the influential people are people are born outside the earth--mostly in sun-orbiting colonies.

I think in some sense Dr. Hart's view of the year 3000 is too conservative. By 3000, I expect contact with other civilizations in outer space. (While Dr. Hart states very explicitly his view that life is very rare or nonexistent outside the earth, at least in our galaxy.) I also expect cyborgs, genetically engineered creatures of all kinds, virtually real worlds, and very advanced artificial intelligence, whose knowledge and understanding will surpass by far anything a human being can attain.

Having said all that, no one can rule out the possibility that mankind will destroy itself before the fantastic world of 3000 is reached--the world is precarious place to inhabit.

Summary of A View from the Year 3000

The hundred persons are ranked in order of their influence. The main section of the book consists of short biographies of those 100 persons, describing what each person accomplished, and why that person is so important.

Forty-five of the entries are actual historical personages. These include such well known figures as Jesus Christ, Confucius, Charles Darwin, Christopher Columbus, Albert Einstein, and George Washington.

Among the fifty-five entries from the third millennium are: Sue Ellen Green (who develops a cancer vaccine); Miguel Carranza (chief founder of the United World Federation); Stella Ricardo Garcia (architect and formscaper); Mika Kivikoski (who develops the technology to control the weather); and Shu Gungwu (who finds the solution to the baffling "mind-body problem").

Other topics treated include: space travel and space colonies; medical advances (such as artificial organs, and reversible sex-change operations); arts and entertainment (including music, literature, the visual arts, and sports and games); solar power; philosophy (including political theory, epistemology, semantics, and ethics); mathematics, pollution control, robots, brainwashing; nuclear warfare; robots; and artificial intelligence.

The book includes a historical chart (listing the main events of both the actual past and the projected future), a list of honorable mentions (and their accomplishments); a glossary, and an extensive index.

Philosophers Books

• Subjects > Biographies & Memoirs > Professionals & Academics > Philosophers
• Literature & Fiction
• Science & Math > Technology
• Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction