Science and technology are the best chances for humans to survive a while longer–a lot longer, actually–but they also mean the end of us, as we’ve long defined our species. Those changes, which will likely occur very gradually, are disquieting (and fascinating) when considered all at once. Maybe that’s why movies and commercials set in techno-dystopias so enthrall us, as we watch them from the screens of our beloved tablets and smartphones. We want the future, but not all of it. In a CNET piece, Chris Matyszczyk wonders about our dual emotions regarding tomorrow. An excerpt:

It seems that almost every ad and Hollywood movie created about the future shows a world that is cold, heartless, menacing and thoroughly soulless.

Yes, we’ll have all sorts of strange gizmos, flying machines and lasers that will paralyze all living beings from galaxies away. But at heart our lives will be chillingly dark, the only color being provided by little green people who zoom in for a pot of tea, a cookie and a skirmish or two.

Simultaneously, in these pages we’re celebrating new devices, robots, flying cars, um, watches and other exciting creations that will take us into a more intelligent and allegedly advanced world.

While Google’s Ray Kurzweil cannot wait until the robots come and he can become one of them, many of us more earthly beings — Stephen Hawking, for example — worry that the robots will take one look at us, use us for a little while and stomp us against the cutting room floor.

Perhaps one reason why ads and movies like to portray the future as a miserable and dangerous place is that humans, in all our bloated magisterial weakness, have an innate fear of the unknown, of the things that can’t ultimately be predicted and controlled.

Yet here we are actively creating that very future. Here we are constructing the very digital, electronic elements that end up frightening Tom Cruise, Will Smith and even non Thetan-believers like Denzel Washington.

Is it really that we’re just playing a little game with ourselves in these ads and movies? Is it that filmmakers have to portray the future as menacing and dangerous so that they can ultimately create a happy ending (even if the world’s been largely destroyed in the process?)

Could it be, though, that there’s some element of self-distrust and even self-loathing in our dedication to automation and digital nirvana, while at the same time using ads and movies to warn of the insane nincompoopery of our thought processes?•