The World in 2030

306 The World in 2030
mental training, such as yoga, martial arts, meditation,
and creativity courses are also in common use.
Caffeine is widely used to improve alertness. Herbal
extracts reputed to improve memory are popular,
with sales of Ginko biloba alone in the order of several
hundred million dollars annually in the US. In an
ordinary supermarket we find a staggering number of
energy drinks on display, vying for consumers hoping
to turbo-charge their brains. 532
But by 2030 wealthy people will be expecting far more than
just cosmetic improvements from their doctors and the
enhancements available from education and fizzy drinks. The
genetic manipulation of proteins and molecules, sometimes
referred to as ‘genetic engineering’ or ‘germline engineering’,
holds some extreme promises for the treatment of disease
and even the enhancement, physically and intellectually, of
individual humans.
Writing in his 2006 book ‘Mind Set! Reset Your Thinking
And See The Future’, the Vienna-based futurist John Naisbitt
describes some of the hopes for germline engineering and
warns of its implications:
The great dilemma of the twenty-first century will be
that although germline engineering will allow us to
treat and eventually eliminate diseases and disorders
such as Alzheimer’s, Downs syndrome, and Parkinson’s,
the very same technology will allow us to make
people taller, stronger, smarter, more beautiful. In
short, we will be able to create a perfect race. This of
course falls under the long shadow of eugenics, the