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The future,” as we use the word when thinking about technology and society, is an invention, and a relatively modern one. During most of history the years to come were seldom thought about, or were imagined to be either essentially similar to the present, or to follow a path of gradual descent toward some form or another of dissolution. It was only during the last few centuries, and for reasons that are only partially related to the ever-accelerating pace of technological and social change, that the future as a clearly distinct and often “more advanced” place became part of the implicit mental map of Western civilization.
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