While predicting the appearance of humans in the year 3000 may seem like a familiar speculation, scientists are exploring radically different possibilities for human evolution. They believe that humanity is at a crucial turning point: either we adapt to our environment and evolve as a species, or we regress and possibly develop physical abnormalities.
No consideration is given to people’s skin color and although the model is not particularly dark, the future of the human body could look different in several ways.
Mork and Mindy
From 1978 to 1982, an American sitcom, Mork and Mindybrought a creature to Colorado that was only partially human. More was played by the late great comedian Robin Williams and Mindy by Pam Dawber, who was one hundred percent human.
Ironically, a 3D model has been created of “Mindy”. Mindy is the successor to Emma, the sickly work colleague of the future, who was created in 2019 to highlight the challenge of good working conditions.
Emma was developed by researchers after interviewing more than three thousand employees about their health concerns and fears.
If Emma was a product of fears about working conditions, Mindy is a product of the working conditions of the post-COVID-19 era when so many more people are now working from home. The Mindy model is a product of a simulation based on reflections of how the human body will mutate over the next eight decades.
Unlike Mork, humans are not yet predicted to be able to sit on their heads naturally. Nor are they thought to have special powers that come from the index finger. It is debatable whether “Mindy” or future humanity will evolve or degrade.
People in the Year 3000: An Agenda for the Future
Scientific research should be conducted objectively when it comes to the appearance of humans in the year 3000. But if all research is sponsored by someone with an agenda, then the “Mindy” model in this case is a product. It is an offshoot of those concerned with more than just the appearance of the future. Rather, it focuses on how smartphone technologies will affect the human body.
Because the use of computer and smartphone technology is nearly universal, the science behind it can be used to anticipate how the body will change as a result of its use. It seems that this is at least one motivation for these studies, which present the research as the outcome of a dystopian fate.
The human body, broadly speaking, adapts to environmental conditions. This slow, long-term mutation occurs in response to the tasks people perform and, in particular, the tools they use. If this is true, future human hands and necks will be shaped differently.
Humanity could evolve to have claws instead of the shape of our current hands to hold a smartphone. The human neck could be bent to more easily look at our personal computers. Humans could even become hunchbacked, as they sometimes were in the past. Their progress as humans was not charted until they learned to walk and stand upright.
Constantly sitting at a desk for workstations with your torso in front of your hips. It causes your upper body to be out of alignment. Your body should be straight. The human neck should not be constantly leaning over your chest. This can put strain on the neck muscles now. But in the future, this could just be how humans look.
Texting can shape human arms differently, as the position of elbows changes slowly and naturally. Scrolling through smartphones or holding them to the ears evolves the body.
Thicker skulls and smaller brains
The human body may evolve thicker skulls in response to radio frequency radiation emitted by smartphones. As a result, some scientists and researchers believe that the low-energy end of an electromagnetic field emitted by items such as cell phones or microwaves could be potentially harmful.
But if we continue to use computers and smartphones at the same rate for the next eighty years, something may have to happen. For example, many people sleep with their smartphones under their pillows, which could lead not only to new forms of cancer on a large scale, but also to the development of thicker skulls or perhaps even smaller brains.
In 2011, the World Health Organization declared smartphone radiation to be a possible carcinogen. This means that some people can get cancer from it. A 2018 study by the Swiss Tropical Health Institute found that using mobile phones can lead to memory loss.
That same year, Dr. Jennifer Cross of Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City commented on a National Institutes of Health (NIH) study that found that children who spent more than two hours in front of a screen scored lower on language and thinking tests.
According to the study, children who used more than seven hours a day had shrinking brain cortexes, the area associated with critical thinking and reasoning.
Mindy’s evolution, as the model shows, may include humans developing a second eyelid. If research on computer screens causing headaches, eyestrain and blindness is well established, our bodies may evolve to limit the amount of light our eyes are exposed to.
Mindy’s sideways blinking movements, which come from another inner eyelid that provides protection from excessive light exposure from technological devices, could be the final evolutionary change for our futuristic, technology-influenced humans.
A second pair of eyelids for humans in the year 3000
The Mindy Model, which was likely created to think about the future of legal liability and the workloads that impact the human body in relation to smartphones and computer use, appears, at least as it has been popularized, to have neglected an important topic.
The human body does not evolve evenly. It is possible that in the future of man, if the body develops a second eyelid to combat radiation and excessive light, not everyone will have this second eyelid. However, with a second eyelid, a different way of seeing can develop. The way we think about the human image in relation to the appearance of the body while pursuing vision can also change.
In the past, projections of what people would look like in the future suggested a darker or mixed racial uniformity that we do not have today. Under the racial gaze, the visibly “mixed” person is often characterized as a minority.
A dystopian future
The idea here was to go beyond the old assumptions about what humans would look like in the year 3000. The future of humanity should be “darker” with fewer blue eyes. It’s not that such projections are improbable or undesirable. In fact, it can be exciting to see a new perspective on humanity’s appearance in the cards.
While the “Mindy” study focuses on smartphone use and how our bodies may evolve or degrade in a dystopian future, those with second eyelids may be considered inferior or superior. And since everyone is certainly not born with this extra pair of eyelids at the same time, the prospects of interracial marriage may be reimagined.
This is not to say that this is a desirable future or that there is actually a plurality of races in the world. We can never really predict what evolution will bring. However, there can be a lot of suffering or injustice in the name of a futuristic vision that will help people. Those who worry about legal liabilities for smartphones or future health care billing can surely have little to worry about.