Congratulations: You’ve survived another year, and 2010 was quite eventful. For all the technological advances we made his year including iPads and colored e-readers, we still fear the day where our technology will rise up against or fail us, rendering the human race extinct. We’re counting down the top technological disasters that we feared were going to happen, but never did – although we’re not ruling out the possibility that they still might happen.
1. Rise of the Machines
Even though the events depicted in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines that started on July 24, 2004 never happened, a robot uprising can still be in our future. They’ve already created a swimming robot, and some scientists hypothesized that we’d be able to marry our robot creations in the near future because they are going to look increasing more like us. Umm hello, have they not seen Battlestar Galactica? It makes me scared to think my toaster might turn on me one day.
2. Y2K
Warnings about all the computers in the world resetting to the year zero had some people so panicked they built bomb shelters and stocked up on a lifetime’s worth of Spam and corned beef. Then, the most feared event in history never happened. Looking back the whole idea sounded like a bad 1950s sci-fi movie, but technological meltdown is still a fear that stays in the back of our minds.
3. Lethargy Caused By Technological Advances
Life is so much easier with all the crazy gadgets we use everyday. It’s hard to think of how we survived without wireless internet, smartphones and the Clapper (oh and of course the Snuggie). With the rush to make lives much simpler, we’ve also made it increasingly complicated and created problems like the obesity epidemic. We haven’t destroyed ourselves due to lack of exercise just yet, but it as WALL-E showed us, it could happen in the near future.
4. Nanotechnology
The idea of shrinking down things to make them more useful, like making tiny doctors in our bloodstream, has always interested me ever since Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. (Okay, it’s not really nanotechnology, but it’s close enough.) However, nanotechnology can create toxic byproducts and other dangers like minuscule armies that we can’t see attacking us.
5. Time Travel
Although time travel might sound like a great idea, going to the past and erasing our future selves by making some sort of judgmental error or getting stuck in a parallel universe is a terrifying notion. Sure, we could correct some of our mistakes, but it’s probably a good thing that flux capacitors haven’t been invented.
6. Nuclear Holocaust
The super powers of the world have come dangerously close to blowing us all up, but last time I checked we’re all here. As nuclear weapons become more technologically advanced, bombs that detonate at a push of a button always loom in the distance.
7. Genetic Engineering
Cloning, stem cell research and messing with our human DNA can help the human condition – or it can create abominations like our horror movies have shown us. As far as I know, the Frankenstein monster isn’t heading towards me trying to knock down my door… or at least I hope so.
8. Hackers Take Down The Internet
Hackers threaten to destroy the Internet and reset the human condition. Starting over again could be a good thing, but the idea of going to a time before Gmail and YouTube is probably the most frightening scenario of all of these tech meltdowns. As long as we can prevent people from googling google, we should be safe for some time.
9. Hybrids (Not the Car)
If Human Centipede or Splice have taught us anything, trying to get humans to mimic other animals or trying to create a half-human, half-animal creature can only have disastrous results. The smart monkey in Futurama might be funny on TV, but try and imagine if your family pet became smarter that you because they had your brain power and their animal strength.
