A Letter to My Granddaughter Sharlyn - Allen Mesch

A Letter to My Granddaughter SharlynDear Sharlyn,I am unsure of my reasons or goals as I write this letter to you.Last weekend I helped my father sort through some of my grandfather (your great, greatgrandfather) Allen's papers. We discovered some old slides, probably done with PowerPoint, for a classhe taught at Collin College (now Texas A&M University - McKinney). The class was called "The Next FiftyYears." In April 2011, great, great grandpa Allen tried to describe the world that might exist today in2060. As Dad and I read through grandpa's notes, we fondly recalled the old man who had been such apresence in our lives. We remembered escorting grandma Sharlyn, who you are named after, to scatterhis ashes at the Gettysburg, PA battlefield.Dad, who would celebrate his ninetieth birthday this summer, said I should do something with thenotes before Mom, as is her fashion, threw them away.Not being inclined to make forecasts or read science-fiction, I decided to limit myself to adescription of life in Plano, Texas on April 17, 2060. I have attached a copy of great grandpa Allen'snotes, so you can compare his forecast with what really happened.I was born in Plano, Texas in 1996 and practiced medicine at the National Healthcare and ResearchCenter in McKinney since October 2030. Your grandfather and my husband, Kyle, is an InformationSpecialist for Shanghai America. Your Dad Cole was born in 2031, and your Aunt Nikki was born in 2033.Our home is not much different from the one my grandparents lived in before it was destroyed in atornado in May 2025. That storm leveled most of the area from the Dallas Sherman Expressway (route75) to the George W. Bush Memorial Turnpike, what we used to call the North Dallas Tollway. The mostsignificant difference from that house is the size of our home. Federal regulations prohibit homes in ourincome bracket from being larger than 2,000 square feet.We have three bedrooms and two full bathrooms. The bathrooms are equipped with a combinationshower/disinfecting station, sink, and toilet. As in all homes built after 2040, the water is recycled withbodily wastes reprocessed and sent to the power unit. Our home is completely energy self-sufficientthanks to the breakthrough in solar energy in 2030. As you may recall from your history class, a group ofworld scientists developed a small, highly-efficient photovoltaic cell. Almost all buildings in thedeveloped world are now equipped with them. The cells are manufactured by General Electric, ExxonIndustries, and China Solar.My grandmother wouldn't recognize our kitchen. The old fashion stove, microwave, andrefrigerator are gone. You may remember when we saw what they looked like when grandpa and metook you to the Texas Historical Museum in Austin. That old-fashioned technology was replaced by theHamilton Beach nanotech food processor. The processor is integrated with our personal body monitorsto prepare tailored meals. Occasionally, we do eat "real" fresh foods grown in our hydro-gardens. It'sseems barbaric to think how we used to kill animals for our sources of protein. Cows, pigs, and chickensare still eaten in some primitive countries.Fast food chains such as MacDonald's, where I enjoyed French fries as a child, were outlawed in2025 after the Center for Disease Control declared obesity as an epidemic. In fact, restaurants haveslowly disappeared except in third-world countries where MacDonald's China continues to provide soybasedfoods. Nanotech food processors have made the art of cooking nearly obsolete.The Next Fifty Years © Allen Mesch Page 1

The focal point of modern homes is the life-experience center where families work, study, exercise,and relax. The LG Industries Interactive home computer-media-virtual reality system allows each familymember to enjoy personalized experiences. Last weekend, your grandfather and I went skiing inSwitzerland. It was just amazing, and we had no broken bones from the virtual reality experience.The bedrooms are small designed for sleeping and dressing. Clothing is manufactured in the Singer-Sanyo Fashion Revolution using nanotech developments. Clothing is recycled or delivered to third worldcountries.Outside, now that's a concept! We don't really have an outside living area. Our house is built like afort with a covered, air-conditioned inner courtyard. We have a pool and genetically engineered flowersthat require minimum sunshine, water, and nutrients. Our two-seat, battery-powered electric car islocated in a docking station next to the artisan workstation that your grand dad built several years ago.As a doctor, I have seen a dramatic change in healthcare since your great, great grandpa's lifetime.Thanks to personal monitors, examinations can be done from home. The patient simply logs onto his orher Virtual MD account and downloads the data from the monitor. Using artificial intelligencetechnology, a diagnosis is prepared and is sent to a certified MD for review and approval. There is talk inCongress of eliminating this last step as a cost-saving measure. Healthcare for the poor is provided vialow-cost distribution centers operated by a joint venture of Burger King and Humana. I do see a fewcases in person at the hospital. However, most of my day is spent designing pharmaceuticals, implants,and monitors rather than seeing patients. The barbaric practice of surgery has just about disappeared.The practice was labeled as cruel and inhuman by the United Nations World Health Organization tenyears ago. I wonder what medicine will be like when I reach my mandatory retirement age of 85.Entertainment has changed a great deal since 2010. Believe it or not, people used to gather in largebuildings holding from 100 to 100,000 to watch movies, see and hear performers, and attend athleticevents. Today, movies are sent directly to the life-experience center. All performances are recordedand delivered on-demand. Professional sports are played in small stadiums holding around 1,000 ultrarichpeople and broadcasted live on a pay-per-view basis. All high school and college sports were doneaway as cost-saving measures in the 2020's.Of course, all education has changed. Instruction is done by the Education Division of DreamWorksMedia. The instructional avatar and format are tailored to each student's requirements. Classrooms, asthose attended by Grandpa Kyle and I, are a thing of the past. They were done away with to reduceeducational costs, allow students to proceed at their own pace, and reduce the spread of disease.Colleges and universities still exist. Well, sort of. The ivy-covered campuses of the 20th century havechanged into the virtual universities of today. Students take on-line classes and interface withprofessors and other students using the Internet. Time for education is critical since the average degreenow requires six years to complete.We continue to be the world leader and advocate of democracy. Since the student rebellion inChina in 2025, democratic reforms have spread around the world as theocracies, monarchies, anddictatorships have fallen. The evolution of Islam has done a great deal to make the world a betterplace. Muslims have embraced a more tolerant philosophy relative to other religions. As democracyspread and personal wealth improved; terrorism has almost disappeared.The number of Hispanic families in Texas continues to increase and now accounts for over 50% ofpopulation. Many white, middle class citizens have left Texas for more comfortable northern statessuch as Michigan, Wisconsin, Washington, and Oregon. Global warming has hit Texas hard. Wild firesdestroyed Lubbock, tornadoes leveled Denison, and hurricanes flooded Texas City and Galveston. YourThe Next Fifty Years © Allen Mesch Page 2

great grandfather Brenden has decided to move to Colorado and your great Aunt Joelle will be movingthere, as well.The spread of crime around the U.S.-Mexico border eventually led to war. The U.S. Robotic Armyswept through northern Mexico leaving a path of destruction. The United Nations finally stepped in andstopped the fighting. U.S. troops withdrew in 2035, leaving a power vacuum that was quickly filled bydrug lords. The United States strengthened the border defense and left all of the robot soldiers in place.That slowed illegal immigration and reduced the drug trade. The border was peaceful, and UNsupervision helped install an honest government.Most drug-related violence ended when the use of certain narcotics was made legal. The open saleof narcotics in state-licensed stores reduced drug-related crime for about ten years. There has been anincrease in crime since 2050 as rival gangs have competed to gain a market share of the newest illegaldrug.The gap between rich and poor continues to widen. The very wealthy live and work in gated anddomed communities. They have few dealings with the outside world except through data and voicecommunication. Your grandfather and I have some contact with this group, however, our access tothem is highly regulated. Upward economic mobility is limited and is controlled by a ruling aristocracyof the ultra rich. Most people have four or five careers of fifteen to twenty year lifetimes starting at 30and ending around 110 to 120. This career dynamic is required by the rapidly changing technology whichmakes jobs obsolete. We used to have chemical and mechanical engineering, and now we havenanotech engineers.The arts are very different today. Computer-generated synthesized music, art, and literature matchpersonal preferences with spiritual and educational goals. We still have the classics and a fewindependent artists who use primitive means like pencil and paper, antique instruments, and paints andbrushes to express themselves. However, today the arts are more an individual form of expressionrather than a public display.National elections are all done with on-line data communication. Voters are identified by eye scans.Only people who meet certain standards are allowed to vote. The number of votes a person has isbased on his wealth. The greater your net worth; the more votes you have. Criminals and otherundesirables cannot vote. Some the poor immigrants are not able to vote because they fail the literacytest. Texas politics continues to be dominated by the Hispanic-led Republican Party. The economicdistribution of voting power has led to high voter apathy. The turnout was 40% in the past nationalelection. Texas initiated an income tax in 2025 as funds from oil and gas severance taxes dried up. Thenational value added tax (VAT) has allowed the government to operate with a balanced budget for thelast twenty years.Oh, I nearly forgot the debt problem. America's debt grew so high in the late 2020s that it declaredbankruptcy. The government refused to honor its debt with China, and the two countries nearly went towar. China eventually settled on 10 cents on the dollar rather than face the prospect of thermonuclearwar.We continue to consume a great deal of energy. Energy use per capita has nearly tripled since mygrandfather's time. Fortunately, virtually all energy consumption is in the form of electricity that isproduced by distributed generation using natural gas, solar, and wind power. The worldwide waterscarcity feared in 2010 never materialized as desalinization plants and water purification facilitiesstabilized and increased the supply.The Next Fifty Years © Allen Mesch Page 3

Texas is past its prime as a great state. The State government failed to address educational issues,and national government was incompetent in solving the problems of illegal immigration, globalwarming, water supply, and infrastructure collapse.People are now more religious than your great, great grandfather imagined. Religions have soughtdeeper meaning, and theologians now stress religious relevance in the lessons taught centuries ago.Civilization has progressed, but mankind still possess nearly the same characteristics as it did in biblicaltimes --- greed, envy, lust, love, humor, kindness, and ego. Church service is broadcast live, andcounseling is available 24/7 on-line. The major religions in America are Protestant, Catholic, and Islam.Our life today is a combination of science fiction innovations, shifting demographics, andenvironmental fears. Try as we may, I fear that the world that I leave to you is much worse than theworld grandpa Allen left to me.Love,Grandma BrookeThe Next Fifty Years © Allen Mesch Page 4