As a person in his nineties and born in the past Holicene Age with the prospect of leaving it in the current Anthropocene Era, I have started wondering when the world is going to put humanity back into our sense of true original humanity.

This question has been uppermost in my mind as I realise my life so far has also spanned two deadly world wars and 96 serious military actions between countries and states with a total estimated death toll of well over 120 million often innocent people.

What exactly has gone on around this globe during my near-century in years here to bring us to our present hapless state of affairs where poor mental health is steeply rising and the sheer joy of living is being diminished daily?

When I first opened my eyes to the Universe at birth, there were no dangerous plastics as we know them today; no chemicalised fast foods, no thought of self-driving e-cars; no forest destruction of any great note; no chemical fertilisers for fruit and vegetables and no talk of planetary exploration or of climate change.

In those far-off days, one would have been considered utterly mad if you talked about the possibility of man reaching the moon; about the prospect of TV in all our homes; of the magical world-wide IT web; of tobacco being considered one of the biggest poisons to human life; of hearts being transplanted; of the sound barrier being broken and of people starting to turn their backs on their chosen historic cultural beliefs.

In this day and age, however, we see families being subjected to eating foods provided by broadscale agriculture that often relies on some unnatural pesticides and fertilisers compared to the original small farming practices of the old Holicene Age of my earlier years.

We are also being subjected to being over medicated by modern science and avaricious pharmaceutical companies without any thought of those aids and therapies well used with some success over the passing of recent centuries.

Today, we are being controlled by Artificial Intelligence, computerisation, hacker- affected electronic banking and by constant commercial and often illegal and ill-meaning or money-threatening mobile phone calls and emails.

Workers are sadly being replaced by machines, their purse strings are being pressured by overcharging merchants and finance companies, while their employers’ businesses are being repeatedly compromised by electronic scammers.

We are also now experiencing the unrelenting growth of certain monolithic industrial and commercial empires that avoid paying their fair taxes and have all too often put an end to smaller companies with a more compassionate attitude to people, to their local economic situation and to personal service with their customers first in mind.

Just about every suburb internationally is now being affected by illicit drug taking and selling with analgesics being swallowed by young and old in an effort to control growing despair and other newly acquired personal problems.

Built-in New Age attitudes are encouraging obesity, immorality, community irresponsibility, selfishness, thoughtlessness, disrespect for authority and reduced work let alone good family ethics.

We and our underage sons and daughters are also being brainwashed by a fast expanding and largely uncontrolled social media as well as by the use of unhealthy words in song messaging.

Our news is being punctured by irrelevant personal opinions, by manipulated facts and by “entertainment” programmes centred on unhealthy negativity and undesirable behaviours.

In addition, the modern Anthropocene talk of today is that we have to immediately stop burning all fossil fuels, do without petroleum for transport and capture the sun’s energy to propel all our future modes of transport and keep our home lights and factories going.

These are all very laudable targets to achieve but little do we, however, realise that each of us are being urgently pressed into buying all the latest equipment, white goods and “toys” that can only be of use if powered by electric power — and while having no guarantee that our alternative sources of energy will supply us with sufficient power to meet all our future needs.

The wholesale change-over to literally everything being powered only by energy from sun, wind and hydro-powered plants will require more electricity than ever and possibly beyond the capacity of all our natural sources.

As we already know, the main computer networks of the world currently use far more power each year than that used by Australia, New Zealand and France combined.

In considering our current attempts to rectify the mounting problems of the “new” world, I have to ask whether we are as yet really on track to find a workable solution to our various possible woes?

I am not a negative person by nature or by profession as a journalist, economist and political scientist — or an old fogey, as some may say. But my many years of recording and researching our world history tells me that too many of our changes are not bringing us too many real foreseeable advantages.

And what of the future in this Fourth Industrial and Social Revolution we now find ourselves in? In a few years’ time, there will be no cars as we have known them. There will not be any vehicle repair workshops to talk of and few dealers in spare parts.

Our cars today have an average of 20,000 manufactured components. Refined electronic vehicles of the future will have less than 100 parts and will be fitted with electric motors that can be replaced in a matter of minutes.

Autonomous cars may fortunately result in fewer vehicles in the streets, fewer parking lots, cleaner city air and cheaper insurance costs by hypothetical virtue of fewer accidents and road deaths. Today’s petrol-driven cars, on the other hand, will only as a rule in future be found in local museums.

There will be no taxis as such, only autonomous and driverless Uber-style transport. Further advances in AI vehicles will no doubt spell the end to taxis, leaving us with only autonomous vehicles we can hire for a fee.

AI will also replace common GPs in monitoring our general health issues. Houses and minor buildings will be constructed by as yet untested 3D methods with fewer trades and tradesmen being needed in the national workforce.

Computer programmes will diagnose cancers, will replace lawyers for advice and will dominate everything that moves in our homes.

Further refined home computer study will replace many personal face-to-face university lecture halls. Likewise, future wars will be run entirely by computers and long-range guided missiles on a grander scale than those armaments already in use today. What more, one may well ask?