Maybe this isn’t right, but I remember reading that most young boys 50 years ago dreamed about becoming astronomers, scientists, firefighters and policemen. Now young boys dream about becoming influencers, streamers, and rich personalities. Was Idiocracy written by a time-traveller? Are we working hard to make it a reality?
YOU certainly do, because (like all of us) you’ve grown up.
It’s hard to remember how big your dreams were when you were young enough that the universe was infinite.
As for kids of that age, they want to be what society values. Cops aren’t well-loved at the moment; and firefighters are mostly ‘just another profession.’
My dreams have certainly changed, but they aren’t smaller. My dreams now involve space travel to other galaxies and particle physics, which is different from what I dreamt of as a kid which was building a space elevator, drilling to the middle of the earth, and solving world poverty. Well, the last one was naively assuming that poverty was a natural result in a world of benevolent humans.
The universe is still infinite. Take a look at this “Timelapse of the future of the universe” and tell me it doesn’t make you dream of how different our existence could be. Or this one about Egoistic Altruism.