This incredibly realistic-seeming film refined our view. It suggested that we could make space travel as mundane as taking the commuter train, or communicate by picture-phone. Now many of the movie's prognostications are well on their way to becoming reality. We live in a world of total information, total communication, total interaction. Live Internet feeds, commercial rockets and satellites, and an international space station are all a part of our daily lives.
Cloning is a reality.
Robots are becoming more adroit every day, and some of their builders speculate openly about merging artificial intelligence with the human body. But before we get carried away with the increasingly thin line between science and science fiction, it's useful to take a good look at some inescapable realities. Despite our undeniable material advances and technical sophistication, it seems to me that this is the truth of our world today, and in the foreseeable future. The simple fact of life on Earth is that there are ever more humans, and ever less usable water. Of course, we need water to survive, but thirst is only part of the equation.