Blast From the Past

Turns out this show is getting more and more like a reality show every day. Scientists in Australia have already come up with an arm that is six-times stronger than previous versions -- getting close to being human strength.
What with computer vision experts already talking about taking cameras and feeding the images directly into the brain, the bionic eye can't be that far off. And I mean a decade or two until you get the zoom, night vision -- I don't know if it will make that cool little "boop-boop-boop-boop-boop" sound. That would be neat, although I imagine it would get you a some sharp elbows to the ribs from the wife if you ever visit the beach. Probably why the Six Million Dollar man never got married -- or did he marry the bionic ear chick? Gee -- that would have to be quite a household: her hearing every freaking thing that's going on and him mowing the yard at 60mph.
In this decade, we're seeing scientists talk about growing new organs from scratch and building mechanical contraptions that can work as good or better than our own parts. While these ideas may take a long time to perfect, it seems obvious that our grandkids are going to live in a world where they can replace body parts whenever they feel like it. This is a quantum leap from just making better medicines and people getting quality health care. Because of this paradigm shift, I would conservatively estimate average life span at 100 years for kids born this year, maybe a lot more. One day they'll be telling THEIR grandkids, "I remember back when your kidney went out that was it! Had to live with just one. Nowadays you kids trading organs like they were Pokemon cards. And no, don't ask me what a Pokemon card is!"
Will they still be watching re-runs of the Six Million Dollar Man? Maybe so. And it will probably look as quaint as those 1950s SciFi movies do to us. I hope I get to see just a little of this future.