The Wisdom of the Future
(Original)

Alesia Kuzminava
(Age 16, Belarus)
School ? 166, Minsk

Even a victorious war is an Evilthat must be prevented by the peoples' wisdom

O. Bismarck

A man is a social creature. Since times immemorial people lived in groups and needed to communicate with each other. Initially, just to survive, then to share their opinions and knowledge. Of course, everybody wants to have friends, people with complete uniformity of ideas, and just to have a peaceful sky above our heads. But our common sky is not so peaceful.

Today, unfortunately, a lot of people die at "hot points" of our planet and so, we should find solutions to these conflicts using communication instead of weapon.

There is no doubt that the best ways to get the luxury of communication are mass media. TV, radio, the press, PC, satellite communication, DVD, mobile phones and Internet are our daily helpers because they are used for business and pleasure, for studies and advertisements, for politics and solving global problems and so on. Spreading information, exchanging views and opinions, finding much in common or something different and interesting, entertaining us are their aims. Mass media connect all the countries of the world any moment you want, they can spread a great many copies at a time and the information is available to everybody. Don't forget about the possibility to access all the worlds' existing services without rising from the chair, thus, saving time for creativity.

Unfortunately, in Belarus we still have problems with some types of mass media. In the remote places of our country people even can't send an e-mail because Internet is something unknown to them. But new technologies are spreading fast and, hopefully, we will get all advantages of it very soon.

And what is the future of mass media?

Just imagine that everybody will be able, for example, to sit in a large room with displays instead of walls and to ask media for any atmosphere that will be created around. It can be Rome or Washington, restaurant or the seaside or anything else. Then you will decide what person you want to communicate with and the hologram of the man will appear in your place. At the same time this person will have the same situation sitting with you in his room maybe far away. It is only the example of future possibilities of communication. The work on-line can influence the events in the real time. And what if we were able to switch the Internet on with the power of our thought? Who knows, perhaps, one day we will get in touch with the universe intelligence.

Besides, mass media can collect knowledge of all nations creating one common human archive which will contain the wisdom from all over the world and there will be the best search system that can answer any question at a moment.

Anyway, mass media should be a peaceful tool to make the world of more than 6.5 billion people live together without any conflicts because Internet gives people some extra virtual space to share. "Keep good people busy", the saying goes. Today getting rid of violence on TV and in video games is very important. Why not start doing common things?

The great Belarusian poet A. Vyartsinsky wrote: "The life is given to create the life; not to destroy, not to exterminate but to create". Nobody wants violence to be implemented against himself. So, mass media will help people to understand that the WORD should be the only weapon everywhere. The rule is supposed to be like that "First discuss, then do". Mass media give opportunities for international press-conferences and negotiations. People may stay far away and begin with words but not with a war. Moreover, it is better to have international scientists', writers' or poets' competitions on-line than nuclear weapon competition of different countries. 'A new scientific discovery' sounds much better than 'the Third World war'! Perhaps, people will discover the psychological base of all conflicts and will understand how to stop fighting everywhere.

Mass media help to save our ecology spreading the projects of its protection and sharing information, experiences and technologies. Besides, if we use e-books and e-papers, it will be possible to reduce the deforestation.

Finally, let's use mass media to unite young people who will be friends-adults all around the world. There is an experience in our city when schoolchildren from Minsk and Eindhoven (the Netherlands) held a conference on ecological problems in 1999. They started with exchanging ideas by Internet, then fulfilled common projects and organized a performance on that topic. They became good friends and passed their friendship to other generation of schoolchildren at their schools.

Thus, mass media shape a new form of society of people who will live in peace and harmony with nature and each other.