As New Year’s 2010 edges closer and many of you consider what plans to make and parties to attend, I thought it might be interesting to reflect on the decade as a whole and get some perspective.

For all you hopefuls out there who might think that this will be just another “I Love the 70s/80s/90s” recap, I can assure you that this will not be the case. I will try to at least offer some context and implications regarding the decade in the overview of humanity, and not just talk about our 2000s’ version of Furby dolls and pet rocks. Though those were pretty cool.

It seems to me that the character of this decade seems to portray itself very much like that of an enigma.

We saw things that showed clear signs of human progress, while at the same time things that reeked of archaic disaster.

YouTube and Google became everyday verbs, and iPods the only acceptable music player.

VHS became a strange, unknown abbreviation, and Facebook and MySpace unexpectedly became social networking giants.

Hybrid vehicles made attempts at environmental protection, and telerobotics became essentials in medicine.

This short description of scientific achievements over the past 10 years seems to be at odds with the treachery and evil that humanity also saw.

This decade witnessed several massacres linked to terrorism — the Sept. 11 attacks, the 2004 Madrid bombings, the 2005 London bombings, the 2008 Mumbai attacks and many others.

Wars were expanded across the globe, and genocide remains a serious issue in areas such as Darfur.

The decade also saw financial institutions crumble, leading to a global recession in industrialized nations, hurting international trade and increasing poverty.

While these brief descriptions do not do any justice to any of the events that occurred and the real effects they had during the decade, and these contradictions are by no means unique to the 2000s, they do demonstrate a common thing: scientific and human progress are not moving at the same rate.

In the past, many fictional depictions of the future have shown society making leaps and bounds in terms of technological advancements, which has enabled society itself to become utopian. Though our technological advancements seem to mirror this ideal state, the people themselves seem to be lagging behind.

The two entities should be developing in conjunction with one another, not as separate halves. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not sitting here crying over how bad the world is; however, I do believe more can be done so that there is a closer relationship between human progress and overall peace, prosperity and well-being throughout the world.

I remain cynical, but I hope a day will come when humankind as a whole will possess the intellect and scientific understanding of true human nature, so that society can one day hint of a utopia where the disparity between humanity and scientific progress will not be so great.

Even if that’s the only message you got out of this extended tangent, I hope it will be in the back of your minds as you think about the context of our decade, or as much of it as you can remember after New Year’s Day comes and goes.