I liked a premise in the Village that was missed on - even though it was the underlying theme: That is (let's say) a a bunch of hippies (one of the Tree Hugging, Whale Wars type) Go and live on 1000 acres, planting themselves in the middle of it (or far back end) and tell our children they cannot go passed a few hundred feet on any tree-line in your "commune/compound" by the THIRD GENERATION, no one would know of an outside world - literal can be done in some great comfort if you bought and build great stuff to start your "world" and that anything beyond the trees will kill you or ban you (likely the first) so that no one knows of an outside world and the youngest NOT EVEN understanding such concepts.
For 10's of thousands of generation, families have lived on the same 1/4 acre of land for 50+ generations, then if just a few hundred years, someone discovered all that is technological and geographical and here we are with fantastical toys - far from where our recent elders came from.
Magical stuff to think a family has likely slept in the same building (just rebuild a thousand times) for 10 thousands years, that amazes me, but it has happened. Today, likely 98% of the world can communicate instantly 24 hours a day, if only for emergencies.
Then we have the AGES we have gone through, what do you think is next, which AGE I mean?
My hope, it is an enlightening when through CHEMICALS we discover the laws of PHYSICAL AND CONSCIOUS CONNECTION - an AGE where dying and suffering people are able to RELEASE themselves FROM their physical PAIN RIDDEN BODIES.
The TRUE DAY when MAN meets God' afterlife, experience the Universe AND instantly anywhere in time - TRULY using Einstein answer to bending space and time. I really feel our concious beings are capable of travelings the FAR REACHES of the UNIVERSE and at any time they choose - literally enjoy the CONSCIOUS WORLD and start learning using God's Wikipedia, to experience anything and everything.
I call this age the CONSCIOUS AGE and I feel it is coming soon. I think that a NEW ANESTHESIA is created and can separate the conscious from the body to prevent pain for the patient before, during and after surgeries. They will find its TRUE POTENTIAL, the Psizer's Riser (as they nicknamed a heart medication that aroused men back from the dead - but this drug creates an AGE, a change in man's every movement from then on - whatever is next, has to replace (or put it in second) the ENTERTAINMENT AGE we are in... 5 years ago it was only the Communication Age, but now they (and I say too) this age we are in, is the ENTERTAINMENT age.
Very likely my wish of the Conscious AGe coming next is MEDICALLY SOUND in a Robert Ludlum kinda way, but who knows, we have to go from HDTV to 3D to HOLOGRAM which is the obvious next technical step. If we get away from what the Internet can do, see the magic or Warfare and Medical Science we have come in 40 years - ever see a 3d Computer grahic in full color of your hear beating, I have it's cool !
SO...... What is the next AGE?????
I'm might split this topic, I like this point Beemaster brought up :-D