Time Machine, Asbestos, and What Do We Owe to the Future

Imagine you built a time machine. Like any curious person, you use it to travel 50 years into the future. When you arrive, you find that not much has changed. We are still in a climate crisis, the political landscape remains stagnant with the left and right locked in endless conflict, and none of today’s major problems have been resolved. However, you learn something shocking: our current solutions have actually made things worse. Let’s say, for example, that geothermal energy, which we now champion as a green alternative, has ended up causing devastating consequences.

Many of us would likely return to the present to warn the world, urging people to stop using and developing geothermal energy. But if you think about it, this decision isn’t without consequences. Consider the countless scientists, engineers, and workers in the field. What about their families, their livelihoods, and the generations that would have come from them? Their stable careers vanish; their futures become uncertain. In a way, as a pro-lifer might argue, you have committed a kind of genocide—not of those who exist, but of those who never will.

So, should we consider the future when pushing for progress, or should we disregard it entirely? We assume that progress is inherently good, that it leads to a better future. But we often forget the unintended consequences that come with each step forward.

The Butterfly Effect and All the Dead Birds

In Against Progress, Slavoj Žižek writes, “Therein resides the basic premise of a dialectical notion of progress: when a new, higher stage arrives, there must be a squashed bird somewhere.” He compares progress to a magic trick in The Prestige, where a magician crushes a bird in a cage, only to reveal another bird in his hand. To the audience, it seems as if the bird was transported rather than killed. But behind the scenes, the magician discards the lifeless bird into a bin filled with others just like it.

Progress in our world seems to follow the same pattern—one step forward, but always at a cost. This mirrors the way time travel is portrayed in media, particularly through the Butterfly Effect. Movies and stories often depict small changes in the past leading to catastrophic consequences in the present and future—whether it’s your best friend turning evil or aliens invading Earth. Time travel narratives, whether based on single timelines or multiverse theories, consistently reinforce the idea that altering the past leads to unintended destruction. Saving one group of dead birds just means another group dies in their place.

Let’s return to our hypothetical scenario. If we warn the world that geothermal energy is harmful, entire industries will collapse. Scientists, engineers, and plant workers will lose their jobs. Cities will be left without a primary energy source. Governments will have wasted billions on what turns out to be a failed project. These are our new dead birds—sacrifices we make in the belief that we are shaping a better future. But are we really?

Asbestos: Could Our Solutions Become Future Problems?

It seems that for progress to continue, there will always be casualties. The utilitarian approach is to minimize harm, but a more interesting question emerges: should we even consider the future when making decisions today?

Our current technologies, from artificial intelligence to renewable energy, are advancing at breakneck speed. Those developing these solutions often view them through rose-tinted glasses, believing that their innovations will solve everything and lead to a utopian future. We see this in the push for AI-powered smart cities and the repeated promises of a carbon-free world—always just five years away. These developments justify themselves in the name of progress, rarely pausing to consider what happens if they go wrong.

A historical example of a solution that turned into a catastrophe is asbestos.

In the 20th century, asbestos was considered a miracle material. Its history stretches back to ancient times, used in pottery and insulation. It became vital for urban expansion, incorporated into cement, roofing, and infrastructure. It was durable enough for ships, aircraft, and military barracks during both world wars. Most importantly, its fire resistance made it an essential insulator in an era of increasingly complex electrical systems.

For the people of the time, asbestos was the perfect solution. It was cheap, abundant, and highly effective. But we all know how the story ends.

By the 1920s, asbestos-related health issues were already surfacing. By the 1960s, definitive research confirmed that asbestos exposure led to severe diseases, including lung cancer. Corporations like Johns Manville covered up the dangers for decades. Even as bans emerged in the early 2000s, some countries, like Japan, waited until as late as 2012 to fully prohibit it. Today, major nations like the United States, China, and Russia still allow limited use. In the U.S. alone, despite restrictions, asbestos-related illnesses still claim 10,000 lives annually.

Did the industrialists of the early 20th century knowingly choose to sacrifice thousands of future lives for the sake of progress? Of course not. They saw asbestos as a solution to immediate problems—insulating rapidly growing cities, fortifying war machines, fueling industrialization. Their problematic solution built the foundation of the modern world. But the dead birds they crushed didn’t just disappear—they became a specter that haunts us to this day.

Žižek’s metaphor misses something crucial: in Hegelian dialectics, what came before doesn’t simply vanish. It lingers, shaping what comes next. Progress is not just about dead birds—it’s about the ghosts they leave behind.

Not Just Dead Birds, but the Specter of Progress

So we must ask: is our current progress creating the next asbestos? Are today’s solutions merely future disasters waiting to happen? Our optimistic view of progress blinds us to its dangers. We like to believe that innovation leads to a better world, but we rarely stop to ask whether it might create even worse problems down the line.

This doesn’t mean we should fall into nihilism or reject progress entirely. But we must recognize that progress is neither linear nor clean. Every solution we develop carries with it a new responsibility—a new specter that will linger in the future. Progress is not about building a better tomorrow; it is about addressing our relationship with the world in the present.

We may never know how many birds we have crushed in pursuit of a better world. But one thing is certain: every bird we squash leaves behind a ghost that will haunt the next generation’s pursuit of progress.