Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1090, Speaking About the Future.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 1090.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Go to our website at eslpod.com.
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This episode is a dialogue between Robert and Mara talking about things that will happen in the future.
Let's get started.
These designs are really futuristic looking.
I'm trying to be forward thinking and imagine what the world will be like in 50 to 100 years.
You think that the world will be filled with space-age gadgets like these?
That's the natural evolution of technology for the next 100 years, I think.
We will continue to develop labor-saving devices, simpler ways of doing everyday tasks, and to improve artificial intelligence.
That's only because most of us have a fear of the unknown.
Like modern sanitation and transportation?
I want to go back in time with some things, but keep my conveniences.
So you want to pick and choose.
That shouldn't be a problem when we figure out time travel.
Robert begins the dialogue by saying to Mara, these designs are really futuristic looking.
The word futuristic F-U-T-U-R-I-S-T-I-C comes from the word future, meaning something that is not present or past in time.
There's really only one other possibility, and that would be something that hasn't yet happened, or the future.
So futuristic means very forward-looking, very modern, something that looks like well, something from the future, even though that's not technically possible.
Mara says, I'm trying to be forward-thinking today.
To be forward-thinking means to be thinking about the future, planning for the future.
Robert says...
Gadgets G-A-D-G-E-T-S are small machines or devices or tools that do something interesting, that do something different, some form of technology.
Space age is a term you don't hear as much now as you did maybe in the 1960s and 70s.
Space age refers to the period of time when man is now able to go out into outer space, the area outside of our own world.
So space age refers... really to the modern era or the modern period.
Mara says, that's the natural evolution of technology for the next 100 years, I think.
Technology refers to the application of science and in finding practical solutions to things, or simply the creativity of the person who, who makes a certain thing.
Technology could refer to lots of different things, but basically to tools or things we use to accomplish something.
Nowadays, when you say technology, people usually think of computer technology.
Evolution is the process of change over a period of time, usually a long period of time.
In biology, the theory of evolution is associated with the British scientist of the 19th century, Charles Darwin.
But here we're talking not about evolution of human beings, but technological evolution, the change in technology.
Mara continues.
We will continue to develop labor-saving devices, to find simpler ways of doing everyday tasks and to improve artificial intelligence.
A labor, L-A-B-O-R, saving device is some tool or device or machine that saves you work.
Labor saving refers to the time and energy you need in order to accomplish something, to do something.
So, for example, email, in many ways, is a labor-saving device.
You don't have to go to the post office and mail a letter.
You can just do it from your own home or wherever you are, if you have a phone with email.
Mara says, also in the future, we will continue to improve artificial intelligence.
Artificial intelligence is the idea that a computer is able to use information in order to make decisions, to act as if it were like a human being.
I won't get into the philosophical problems with that definition or that line of thinking, but usually in computing we're talking about the ability of the computer to learn certain rules and apply those rules according to the programming of the computer.
Robert says, I'm not sure I want to live in a world that looks like that.
It seems so cold and impersonal.
Something that is impersonal I-M-P-E-R-S-O-N-A-L is something that you are not close to, something or some person that you don't have a lot of feelings for or emotion towards.
Robert is talking about a world that is cold and impersonal.
He means a world in which there isn't a lot of human feeling, perhaps even human interaction.
That would be certainly impersonal.
Mara says that's only because most of us have a fear of the unknown.
A fear...
F-E-A-R.
Of the unknown is when you are afraid of or scared of things that you don't understand, that you don't know about.
Now, of course, I think most of us have a fear of the unknown.
It could be good, it could be bad, but if you don't know what it is, you at the very least might want to be a little cautious about.
Mara is saying that the reason Robert doesn't like Mara's vision of the future is that he has a fear of the unknown.
This is also a common way of dismissing or countering someone's argument by saying that they have some sort of psychological problem.
This is quite common in politics as well as in personal relations.
But back to the story.
Robert says, that's me in a nutshell.
The expression in a nutshell, N-U-T-S-H-E-L-L, means in a very short form, in a very brief summary.
Instead of giving someone a long explanation, you give them just the essential facts or the essential information.
I read somewhere recently that this expression actually comes from a comment made by the Roman author Pliny the Elder about how he had heard that there was a copy of Homer's great poems the Iliad and the Odyssey that were written so small, on such a small piece of paper, that they could all be fit inside of a nutshell.
That seems impossible to me, but that's at least one theory about where this expression, in a nutshell, comes from.
It means in very precise terms, in the fewest number of words possible to express an idea.
Robert says, A simpler way of life would be a less complicated way of living with less distractions.
Innovation, I-N-N-O-V-A-T-I-O-N, refers to inventing new things or creating new technology.
The verb is to innovate.
Novus, N-O-V-U-S, is the Latin word for new, and that's where we get this term, ultimately, from.
Robert wants a simpler way of life with as little innovation as possible.
Mara says, like modern sanitation and transportation?
Mara is asking Robert if he wants a to live in a world where you don't even have modern transportation like cars and airplanes, or modern sanitation S-A-N-I-T-A-T-I-O-N.
Sanitation refers to cleansiness.
We might also use the word hygiene, H-Y-G-I-E-N-E.
That would refer to your personal cleansiness, taking showers and brushing your teeth, having bathrooms that operate in an efficient way.
This is all part of sanitation.
Robert says, well, I want to go back in time with some things, but keep my conveniences.
To go back in time would be Impossible.
Of course, it means to return to an earlier time, before the time in which you are now living.
Conveniences refers to things that make your life easier.
Things like say, Google or a car or the ability to download podcasts and listen to them on your way to work.
These are all modern conveniences, in some cases quite recent conveniences.
Mara says so.
You want to pick and choose, meaning you want to pick the things or select the things that you want to keep and those that you don't.
She says that shouldn't be a problem when we figure out time travel.
Time travel is the idea that you are able to travel either forward or backwards in time.
This is just a theoretical ability.
I'm not sure if most scientists think it would ever be possible, but there are some that do.
There's a popular British television show that's been on for years and years called Doctor Who.
And Doctor Who is a time traveler.
He goes back and forth in time in his little machine.
I used to watch that show when I was in high school back in the 1970s.
It's a British sci-fi or science fiction show.
But...
Mara, of course, is joking.
She doesn't think that we will figure out or be able to understand time travel, at least not soon enough to benefit Robert.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
These designs are really futuristic looking.
I'm trying to be forward-thinking and imagine what the world will be like in 50 to 100 years.
You think that the world will be filled with space-age gadgets like these?
That's the natural evolution of technology for the next 100 years, I think.
We will continue to develop labor-saving devices, simpler ways of doing everyday tasks, and to improve artificial intelligence.
That's only because most of us have a fear of the unknown.
Like modern sanitation and transportation?
Well, I want to go back in time with some things, but keep my conveniences.
So you want to pick and choose.
That shouldn't be a problem when we figure out time travel.
The most important innovator here at ESL Podcast is our wonderful and creative scriptwriter, Dr Lucy Say.
Thank you, Lucy.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2015 by the Center for Educational Development.
