Well, if the future doesn't take care of itself, then I definitely won't be around to see it. ;)

My point is that it might or might not "take care of itself", we shouldn't be so sure either way, which is why we should do what we can to nudge it in the right direction (by, f.ex., working on existential risks and FAI, among other things).

What would the average educated person from 1800 think about today? How many things would they be horrified by?

And how many things would they find amazing and worth living for (many of which we take for granted and don't even notice anymore)?

I'm sure that the list could go on and on, and I'd also expect that I'd be as horrified by our future as our ancestors would be by our present.

As Kutta says, this isn't a time machine scenario (unless cryonics are involved, I suppose). The future would come one day at a time, as it has always done throughout your life.