Lets take a moment to reflect on us as a race. Up until the birth of industrialization, the vast majority of humanity was confined to an extremely small world-usually their village. For them, even a trip to another village, 20 miles away, was an epic journey-something we may even perceive as a vacation these days, only taken MAYBE once a year. Most of the world hunted, farmed, and raised livestock to live. There wasnt free time, weekends, or anything like that. Life was a chore starting from about age 8, till you died. With the exception of larger cities, which were few, comparatively speaking, people supplied what they needed. Then industrialization hit us. Suddenly we could produce more food than we could consume, were capable of travelling distances in hours, that used to take weeks. Life suddenly had free time. people had extra money. Some took to exploring, whether they were prepared to do so or not. Vacations, though not yet really taken yet, except by the wealthy, werent spent outdoors, for the most part. They were used to go see family, visit old friends, etc. Those with money went to health spas, or took guided safaris to exotic lands, but, your average people worked, took a few days off year to visit relatives.
Jump forward to the middle half of the 20th century, and again life as we know it changed. Suddenly, at least for Americans, we were flush with cash. People took vacations, travelled thanks to trains, and even planes, and the new interstate road systems. Families took vacations together, after dad got his week off from the factory. Spare time was used wisely.
These days, and this is my opinion, we are inundated with the rampant commercialism of America. Everyone wants us to buy their product. Combine that with the fact that most of us I would wager work an office job-labor jobs are largely a thing of the past, with a few exceptions. Our lives revolve around the office, and all the media we are inundated with on a daily basis. We need this, we need that-an artificial need is created. So, our culture has switched to a consumerist one-we buy the latest & greatest toys, with extra money. Even to the point of going into debt. Instead of travelling, we experience it virtually-through movies, TV, the internet-we have become a nation of indoor adeventurers. Now, I know a lot of us here may be, at least, contrary to all this, but look at the larger part of america. Even people who call themselves outdoorsmen, some I know couldnt start a fire without a match. Camping on weekends, although is a nice break, doesnt necessarily make you an outdoorsman.
I think that we are disconnected from our species programming, due to this. It took us all of our existence to get where we are; for 99% of that, we were at the mercy of the world. In the past 150 years, we have developed the ability to limit, if not entirely eliminate, the natural cycles that we had deal with throughout our existence. WE can force grow produce, speed up the growth of livestock, defeat almost any natural affliction we have, travel completely around the world in hours, and live in environments that, only 100 years ago, would have killed us. For so long, as a race, we dreamed these things. Now we live them, and our dreams are no more. Where does that leave us?
I agree with Benjaminn-we have pretty well defined our world. We still have a lot to discover, but, we now understand how to go about these discoveries, as opposed to stumbling upon them. We have pretty much what we need as a culture; there will be advances in communications, travel, and other major life affecting things, but I really dont see anything awe inspiring, like the way electricity was, in our future.
Sorry this was so long and rambling. One more quick thing; horror movies, sci fi movies, and adventure vacations appeal to us on a visceral level for one major reason; most of us live a mundane life, and that fear feeling is something that kept us alive as a race for millenia. It lies buried deep within our psyche, and every now & again needs to be stimulated. We do it the safe way-through thrills where the REAL danger is largely removed. That emotion though still likes to be used, as it got us where we are. No more do we have real adventures (most of us anyway), nor are we used to being thrust into situations that could cause REAL fear. So, we get it through the safe route. This is largely the disconnect alot of people feel, IMHO.