The Avengers and Why We're Living In the Future

So, I just got home from watching The Avengers. And first of all, if you haven't seen it yet, do yourself a favor and go see it. Whether or not you're a fan of superhero movies, you will like this film. Without making this a post about the specifics of why it is awesome, there is a reason it is making as much money as it is. So, go see it. I'll wait.

...

How'd you like the movie? Awesome, right? Sweet. Let's get into why we're living in the future.

I make this argument a lot- usually when some new technology comes out and everyone is fawning over it. I say this most often when people make changes to their cell phones via WiFi, and the example that I use most often is a story about the zoo. A friend of mine and I were at the zoo one day, and we wanted a picture of a tiger, but the big cat was lounging too far away for our cell phones to really get a good shot. No problem, says I, and I quickly pull up my app store and grab a free camera zoom app. Within sixty seconds, the camera on my phone can now zoom close enough to get a decent picture- not just enlarging a pre-existing small picture, mind you, it actually zooms. I accomplished this -this fundamental alteration to the nature of my phone- without plugging in to a computer, for free, in less time than it took for me to type this paragraph.

So, what does this have to do with The Avengers?

In the movies previous to this one, especially Thor, the idea is proposed that some of the "magical" aspects of the various superheroes (again, mostly Thor), are actually super-advanced science. This theme of science that borderlines on the arcane is repeated again and again throughout the Marvel universe: Tony Stark can build a fuel source that provides more energy from a generator the size of a baseball than a conventional coal plant could ever hope to output; Bruce Banner turns himself into a nigh-invulnerable, unstoppable force of anger and rage; Captain America becomes the ultimate soldier at the peak of human physiological development; Scarlet Johansson is hot. All miracles of super-science.


"Don't forget about Hawkeye, Dan!"


For better or worse, the real world doesn't have Tony Stark or Bruce Banner running around to solve all our problems. But that doesn't mean we aren't cracking into the realms of super-science, ourselves. Take, for example, the ITER- or the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. Slated for a commercial debut of somewhere between 2030-2050, a fusion (as opposed to fission, big difference!) power plant such as this would revolutionize the way we think of energy. Or, if power plants ain't your thing, consider a helmet that the Army is reportedly developing that could read your brain's activity and compose messages from it- essentially, a telepathy helmet. Or, hey, apparently James Cameron feels like blowing up asteroids to mine their sweet, sweet metallic-rich cores.
This is all besides the fact that while I was typing this, I downloaded a new music album to my phone while I Yelped where I'm going to get dinner from, while video-chatting to my parents.

If we can just... not blow up the planet for the next 50 years or so, I firmly believe that we're going to be staring down the barrel of a glorious super-science future.