I would rather do research that will affect the current generation. With current research you have a defined end goal that you can work towards, so you know if your research work is heading in the right direction or if it is heading towards a brick wall. When doing research to help future generations you do not necessarily know if the research will be usable for later generations and if it will actually help people later on. With industry research you are able to produce a product that you can hold and use to help people, which is an important factor for me when deciding on research. I think that current is more important because when conducting just research for the sake of discovery you do not know yet if your discoveries will actually help people or if it will be useful to later research. I believe it is better to do the research now towards your end goal rather than waiting and creating ideas for future scientists and engineers to use. I do think academia research is important because it has the potential of being very helpful to later research but it more important to solve the current problems now rather than build more knowledge for later.