What Happens in the 4000s?

This is again, one of my more random posts but I was thinking the other day about how all my life I've heard about the year 2050. One of the first images I remember from French class in my childhood was this dome with garbage everywhere outside of it and people walking around in space suits. This was supposed to be 2050, and the picture was about a world deeply polluted an hideous.

It's actually one of the most terrifying things I ever encountered as a kid, because my French teacher, a lady with short, brown hair who recommended me into French immersion later in conversations with my mom, said that she would die before 2050 and so it was up to us students to keep the world clean and make sure it didn't end up like that.



Telling seven year olds they're in charge of the future? So traumatic. I do think that was one of the formative experiences of my childhood, because I was terrified of that reality. For the first time I walked out of school and noticed the pollution all around. There used to be cigarettes butts on the pavement everywhere. After some new anti-smoking and littering legislation, the Ontario of today has way less garbage than what I remember from primary grades. Still, that message of environmental responsibility of the world has been ingrained in the heads of kids of my generation.

YA experienced a strange jump in dystopia a few years ago and I feel like I've read many of them. What I've noticed most is that the dystopia takes place in the 2000s. I vaguely remember a book about what happens in the very early 3000s. So what about the 4000s?


Any kind of guess on what life will be like two thousand years in the future will be completely wrong. It's scary thinking about it. Will there be a civilization left? Will there be another world war? Hydrogen and nuclear bombs? What will the pollution be like? How many people will populate the Earth? What kind of technology will they be using? Will any people even be left? Imagining so far into the future is a daunting task, but I think I would like to read a story that takes place in the 4000s.

It may as well be a fantasy because everything will have changed immensely from our primal times, but I guess I'm a little creeped out that authors keep imagining horrible things happening in the near future. That's my lifetime folks! I'm hoping the world remains pleasant and my generation can stop the pollution and work towards sustainability and a high quality of life for all people.

I'll still continue to read about dystopias taking place in the next fifty years, but I'll just throw it out there that maybe we're okay for a few more generations and the 4000s might be a better time to end the world.

-P.E.

6 comments:

  1. Way to go teacher! Scaring little kids with all the 'you must save the future' talk, haha. I can see how that is traumatic when you are so young. This is actually something I don't like to think about too often. When I think back and see all the epidemics that happened - I definitely see it coming.. and all the frightening dystopians with robots and how they stand up against us, that might happen to some day :p

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    1. Lol you probably already know my thoughts on robots. Yeah, that teacher did scare me, but she also got me to open my eyes, which I think is huge. I do try to be conscious of my impact on the environment at all times, which I think was her goal. I hope those awful dystopias never occur though.

      --P.E.

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  2. A books that takes place in the 4000s? That would be awesome!

    I am a teen and I really don't want the world to end in the next 100(ish) years... I mean, as much as I love reading dystopian books, I don't want to have to experience one in my lifetime!

    Also, a book that took place in 4000s would be so creative and different. Who knows what the far, far future is like? Awesome post, it got me thinking about this topic!

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    1. Yeah, let the world end when we're not around, right? Lol. Glad it got you thinking though. I suppose everything would be different in the 4000s. Maybe by then, cats can talk!

      -P.E.

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  3. Someone definitely needs to write a book about the 4000s!! What book did you read that was set in the 3000s? It's so weird even thinking about things that will happen in thousands of years. In the past 1000 the world has changed SO much, the 4000s will probably be full of things that we will never be able to get our heads around at the moment..
    What an interesting post - you've really got me thinking! aha

    Laura @ What's Hot?

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    1. Sorry, I actually wrote this post on New Year's Eve where I vaguely remembered a book occurring in the 3000s. By now, I have no clue. I love thinking about it. The possibilities are actually endless, because really, anything can happen. I would love to see an author try to go there and make sense of the world.

      -P.E.

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What do you think?