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Predicting Life 100 Years From Now
New submitter Simon321 writes "BBC News has an interesting article about the top predictions for life 100 years from now. The highlights include extensive farming of the ocean, wiring all sorts of computers to our brains, space elevators, and the break-up of the United States. 'There are some indications already that California wants to split off and such pressures tend to build over time. It is hard to see this waiting until the end of the century. Maybe an East Coast cluster will want to break off too. Pressures come from the enormous differences in wealth generation capability, and people not wanting to fund others if they can avoid it.'"
'There are some indications already that California wants to split off and such pressures tend to build over time. It is hard to see this waiting until the end of the century. Maybe an East Coast cluster will want to break off too. Pressures come from the enormous differences in wealth generation capability, and people not wanting to fund others if they can avoid it.'
And who is making such outrageous claims? A geologist? Perhaps a seismologist? Perhaps even just some sort of basic scientist?
From the beginning of the article:
Here is what futurologists Ian Pearson (IP) and Patrick Tucker (PT) think of your ideas.
"Futurologist?" What does it take to call oneself a 'futurologist?'
Well, from Ian Pearson's page I'd guess he's got some communication technology background? Or perhaps an author? From his list of achievements:
Ian Pearson has been a full time futurologist since 1991, with a proven track record of around 85% accuracy at the 10 year horizon.
So you could estimate he has a (0.85)^10 or ~19.7% accuracy at the 100 year horizon? Do you get to pick which issues you have to weigh in on? How accurate do you have to be? Are these just yes or no? Multiple choice?
And Patrick Tucker looks to be little more than an author and interviewer. Sorry for the character assassination or ad hominem attacks but these guys are sci-fi authors, essentially. Reprinting their claims of North America breaking apart in anyway within 100 years is less than prudent.
My work here is dung.
30 years ago all sorts of stuff was being predicted. space colonies this that. all we ended up has been a widening income/wealth inequality with those amassing wealth doing nothing with that wealth but letting it amass more wealth sitting in the banks. there is no way in hell we will have space elevators, this that, as long as the rich can make more money without making anything. why invest in a space elevator, why you can just let the money sit in hedge funds and let it become more money overnight, without considerable risk ... the only ones who will do these would be new internet-era entrepreneurs and rich boys like the ones who are investing in space x thingies etc now. and no way in hell their numbers and wealth can make these stuff come true in a way that would matter for the public.
Read radical news here
We will find a guitar, but it will be destroyed by the priests, declaring it is a "silly whim".
"No matter where you go, there you are." -- Buckaroo Banzai
Check it out - we narrowly averted sopa, there is still pipa. those who command the wealth at the top are not hesitant in preventing anything that would harm their own self-interest. they even went as far to create a law that would break the biggest invention of the recent decades - the internet - for that end.
can you say that you can go to space, elevators and private space industry, space colonies etc, in such an environment ? and dont get me started on the whole patent thing.
Read radical news here
It's like shenanigans but for future predictions beyond the thirty year mark, which are bullshit by definition.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
CYA!
( like the feds would ever let that happen anyway )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
50 years ago, they were predicting flying cars, space travel, holographic TVs, etc by y2k but few of the things they predicted came true, and even of those that did most of them are not accessible to Joe Average. However, look at the one big thing most of them missed: The Internet and the consumer microcomputer revolution.
Predicting the somewhat distant future is great and all, but I'm sure there will be something huge that we never see coming and once it's there, we'll wonder how we ever lived without it.
Prediction 1 : I'll be dead.
Prediction 2 : Don't care. See prediction 1.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
'There are some indications already that California wants to split off...people not wanting to fund others if they can avoid it.
Where do I sign to discharge these deadbeats? Count me worried about federal bailouts of their bloated pension funds, etc.
The British will have completed their conquest of the world. The British will have the peasants eat the dead, Only the Royals will be allowed to live beyond the age of 30, etc...
That there will be an ironic post about 20 top predictions from 100 years prior and snarky commentators will smugly wonder how we took any of this seriously.
Is there anything better than clicking through Microsoft ads on Slashdot?
99.99% of the people reading this article will be dead in 100 years.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
You are calling the wrong secession movement, there. California isn't likely to leave. Much more likely is Texas. And if Texas does leave, I'll happily be here telling them not to let the door hit them on the way out.
And to have fun building that wall they've been wanting for so long, on their own.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
By 2050 most of the humans will be dead because of lack of medicines to cure resistant bacteria.
I predict there will be unrest in the middle east.
This isn't really that huge, and we are clearly on the road to this already, but I think our children will struggle to imagine a time when you could only have a wi-fi connection in your house or at a business.
I think the huge breakthrough will be cheap renewable energy, but it will be some unforeseen insight/technology that brings it, and not anything that we are likely to predict today...like no grid, but everyone has with them at all times a near endless source of energy that powers their surroundings. Energy could kind of follow the same path that computing has, from large, expensive, centralized to tiny, cheap, and distributed.
while [ 1 ]; do echo -n -e "\xe2\x95\xb$((($RANDOM&1)+1))"; done
Thank God I'm a Native Texan. At least then I'll be able to move there, and get out of the United States of Fucking America.
21st Century Renaissance Man
Research "Optimal Currency Area". Try to have a single currency across a heterogeneous region, and you get a train wreck like the Euro.
People aren't going to give up their native languages, either.
Politicians will still be backstabbing scumbags.
Where are the flying cars.. I was told there would be flying cars..
"11. Eighty per cent of the world will have gay marriage (Likelihood 8/10)"
Seriously? We have so much widespread extremism in the world that you probably couldn't get a majority of countries to agree that milk is white, and they think this'll get done in a measly 90 years?
"12. California will lead the break-up of the US (Dev 2) (Likelihood 8/10)"
The US has survived a civil war, a depression that makes this recession look like good times, corporate tyranny that even today seems unthinkable, they have the balls to call this that likely? Look, I'm not saying it can't happen -- it definitely can. But given how (increasingly) inter-dependent and weak the states are (compared to federal gov't powers), this prediction is brave to say the least.
"13. Space elevators will make space travel cheap and easy (Ahdok) (Likelihood 8/10)"
To be fair he says it won't be so cheap that the average person can afford it, but I think even suggesting that it could be done within 100 years is again brave. There are just so many obstacles that need to be overcome to make this happen; it could even turn out to be theoretically impossible to create materials that would be necessary.
"16. Deserts will become tropical forests (jim300) (Likelihood 7/10)"
More like 1/10. Where's the water coming from? Barring a breakthrough in energy tech that would allow us to cheaply distill sea water, it's never gonna happen (read: it's never gonna happen). The trend today is pretty much the opposite, and I don't see that trend reversing anytime soon in light of increasingly aggressive farming practices and global warming.
I'd love to be wrong though.
weinersmith
Hundred years from know futurulogist will write books predicting the same things as those in the article are "just around the corner" and will be available in less than another 100 years.
Thank God I'm a Native Texan. At least then I'll be able to move there, and get out of the United States of Fucking America.
So, you're not living there currently why?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Why do we always have to go there? We get it, you hate Beck and everything he stands for. This thread has zero to do with him. Please learn the meaning of "off topic".
100 years from now, Linux will be 5 years from taking over the desktop.
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Retrospectively,
- in the eighties AIDS was said to be cured by 2000
- in the seventies nuclear plants were created, expecting all the technical uncertainties to be solved by 2000
not mentioning studies, novels, sci-fi movies that made an unsuccessful attempt to describe a world in a 30~50 years future
And they want to predict the world in 100 years from now?
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
There are some indications already that California wants to split off and such pressures tend to build over time.
This reads like a bad RPG supplement.
Advice: on VPS providers
going down the tubes, isn't it?
I live in Arkansas, so I figure that they will just join the Republic of Texas, and I'm good either way.
21st Century Renaissance Man
Where are the flying cars?! We were promised flying cars!
In the 70s (I was around) "they" were predicting that we'd be out of oil by the turn of the century.
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
I think people forget that 100 years from now... we'll all have been dead for about 99.5 years.
Texas isn't going anywhere, either.
People who want to get elected in Texas use that to cadge votes, because it works, but once they find out you can't defend a nation with a posse carrying six-guns any more and the amount it will raise their taxes to become a real military power with a full Army, Air Force, Coast Guard (370 miles of coastline in the smugglingest water in America), and Border Patrol (1250 miles of border with Mexico, over 60% of the whole border; plus 1400 miles with New Mexico, Okalahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana). Duplicating the rest of the functions of the federal government won't be a cakewalk, either, and don't pretend they'll just let that all fall flat. Economies of scale mean that being a part of the entire nation is cheaper than going it alone. And Texas' physical scale makes it more expensive to administer, not less. Throw in the added expense of commerce across borders, and no protections against tarriffs from the commerce clause, and businesses in the state doing any business out of state will be crippled.
And Texas is hardly monolithic. Split it off from the U.S. and the next thing that happens is that West Texas will insist on separating entirely from East Texas, and East Texas would be just fine with that. So there's only so far the political fixers in the state are willing to take the issue beyond claptrap at campaign rallies.
It's theater, nothing more.
In 2112, we will most likely be early into the First Turning of the saeculum after the next one.
Basically, we'll be in the future version of the late 1940s/early 1950s and we'll have recently won the future version of WW2.
California's problems are first and foremost political. There is no political will to actually clean up your state's problems with spending too much money. You have a prison guard union that has managed to make generous six figure salaries the norm, not the exception, for its employees and California has the largest prison population in the US--even compared to states like Texas and Florida which rival it in population size. You spend more on average for public schools than most of the union, but have little to show for it compared to many other states with equivalent wealth production capacity.
Why? Because your state is a microcosm of the mentality that is crushing the federal government. The complete and utter inability to say "no, you've already gotten enough and aren't getting anymore."
Ob xkcd
Just out of curiosity, what's your point? I mean, I get that you don't like him and everything. But how does it help your credibility to actually lie? You want to point out your distaste for someone else's world view through deceit? What are you, twelve?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
The Human population can't survive another 100 years. I think we have reached our limit with capicity and resource plunder. We've poluted the planet and poisend atmosphere, and with vast improvements in computers, the world will be taken over by artificial intelligence who will see Humans as a virus to the planet.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
And maybe NYC, too?
Then, how would they get the federal money they need each year to avoid going broke? I suspect the author got that slightly wrong -- the rest of the country wants California to split off. There, fixed it for you.
(A Californica ex-pat)
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
- The divide between the wealthy and the poor continues to grow. Globally, the middle-class is virtually non-existent. Most of the world lives just above a subsistence level.
- Biodiversity reaches an unprecedented minimum. Between over harvesting and habitat destruction, whole ecosystems have disappeared from the earth. People debate whether many of the large land mammal species ever actually existed or if they were part of a mythology.
- Petroleum is unquestionably depleted and too expensive for use other than by the military and the extremely wealthy.
- War continues as we fight over the dwindling remains of our natural resources.
- Welcome to the surveillance state.
- World population continues to increase, although at slower rates due to famine, disease and widespread war.
- The US has virtually no national transportation infrastructure since the social and political will never appeared to move away from the automobile before before gasoline prices and the maintenance of our roads became financially untenable.
- global warming continues with unimaginable impacts on coastal regions.
- chaos is the only predictable quality of life.
- No Linux on the desktop and the desktop computer itself will be an antiquated notion.
I wish I could jump on board with the techo-fantasies but I don't think that's where we are going - at least not for the majority. Now I'm depressed...
Alex, I'll take keybindings not used by Emacs for $400....
California pays out more than they take in...
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
eh?
The US Civil War was fought specifically to answer that question. The USA is not Canada. There is no way to leave the union. Period. That question has an answer. While certain ignorant politicians like Rick Perry like to talk tough about seceding from the USA, there is no constitutional mechanism to allow this. There's no reason to conclude that the US wouldn't just simply use military force to preserve the union if it came down to it like they did in the Civil War. It's difficult to imagine that California, which is the economic engine of the USA, would simply be allowed to leave with a shrug of the shoulders as the other 49 states watch the US economy tumble to perhaps being on par with Italy or worse without California. I'd like to point out too that California basically feeds the USA as well. Their agricultural output is vast. They're not leaving without a fight.
While I do expect some languages to simply disappear due to lack of relevance, expecting languages like Russian, French, German and Japanese, just to name a few, to disappear is not realistic. Languages that will disappear will be languages that are already endangered. People in human history have show a willingness to kill over language issues. 100 years from now for all practical purposes we'll have just as many languages with over 100,000 speakers as we do today.
Space
Space colonies
External colony on another planetary body
Flying cars
Flying trains (hey why not?)
Floating cities in both the sky and ocean.
We'll be building pyramids again
The first, true, 3D city. Not this 2.5D crap we have built now.
Underground city (wait, that might not be stupid, someone is planning this due to building regulations)
Underwatttter city.
Dinosaurs.
Teleportation of macro-scale objects
Working forcefields
Pirates
Media industry will be happy, productive participants in society, creating content for the sake of creating content and being rewarded handsomely.
Slashdot will still be here.
We will all have beowulf clusters in our back pockets connected to our brains with...
The new brain-computer interface 3 connection, 14 exabits faster! AWE!
4chan is a nice place.
Anonymous now own a country.
Their queen is an autistic anime character who believes she is an alien.
CNN will have a relevant news story.
The human race is doomed due to lovebots. There is only 1.4billion humans left after the lovebot wars.
I will complete this list on my deathbed, while being hugged by my robotic lovebots. Cuz I be getting all the bots.
Maybe the San Andreas fault line will help them break off... and slide into the ocean! Good riddance Hollywood!
Was waiting for one of the inevitable "Beck/Hannity/Limbaugh" haters coughing up his vomit all over the forum, and lookee here, I wasn't disappointed.. Hey Bozo! We understand you bat-s$$t insane liberals can't live without actively hating people who disagree with them, but why don't you just go over there in the corner and hate these gentleman privately.. Just another datapoint on liberals.. They absolutely CANNOT tolerate ANYBODY who disagrees with them and rather than simply saying "I disagree with you, so we'll just have to agree-to-disagree on where this country is going", liberals feel the need to actively HATE these people, using terms that would be classed as "Hate Speech" by the same liberals IF these Conservative voices were to use the same terms to describe liberals. Dr Michael Savage has the modern liberal classified perfectly as being afflicted with a mental illness...
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
What would such a thing need us for?
What is even more disturbing is that the exponential trend identified by Moore can be found in completely unrelated economic figures, energy use figures, patent volume figures, and many more.
Humans seem destined to ride an exponential wave, and not to notice until it's too late.
And all the while, the Fermi paradox waits before us like a dark chasm.
Amen to that. In so many ways I've long thought Lincoln a fool for trying to hang on to the south. As the saying goes "a house divided cannot stand". We might have kept the union together in name but they've done nothing but tear it apart ever since. Both sides have strong and largely opposite beliefs that if implemented may well be able to create a self-sustaining if not prosperous nation. Trying to combine the two has proven anything but productive and most certainly detrimental.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
There was no comment on demographics in these predictions. Much of the world is actually de-populating because of a low birthrate. That's quite an omission.
Why because of the crime, poverty, and lack of good healthcare for the non-elite of course.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
...People will be laughing at the outlandish stuff predicted in that article.
Predictions of the Year 2000 from The Ladies Home Journal of December 1900
http://www.yorktownhistory.org/homepages/1900_predictions.htm
Some spot on. Others... not so much.
A hundred years from now, copyrights will have been repeatedly extended to last their current length plus a hundred years.
As a result, very few new developments will have been made, and the future will look pretty much like the present.
you're wrong, Texans also have long guns and some other things, and that is sufficient as U.S. finds out but does not learn over and over and over in Afghanistan, Iraq, Viet Nam, Korea.
Texas receives less federal benefit than it pays. cut out the middle man, as they say.
Texas allows illegal to come and work, what additional new border patrol is needed?
I appreciate all the hard work you have done to combat bigotry and bridge gaps to help make the world a better place.
That's how the world will be in 100 Years!
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
So get reedy to spend 6-8+ years in a class room before starting a job.
These questions lack vision. Here are the questions reworked to make them more plausible:
1. Oceans will be extensively farmed and not just for fish, and these farms will later be sold off turned into developments with cul de sacs street layouts.
2. We will have the ability to communicate through thought transmission, except for women who still will speak a language not understood by men.
3. Thanks to DNA and robotic engineering, we will have created more assholes that will now be immortal.
4. We will be able to blame the weather on the sun.
5. Antarctica will be unionized.
6. One single worldwide currency that is worthless.
7. We will all be wired to computers to make our brains work less.
8. Nanorobots will flow around our body fixing cells, and will soon takeover turning us into batteries.
9. We will have sussed nuclear fusion, but it never will be adopted due to patent litigation.
10. There will only be three languages in the world - English, American, and the Binary Language of Moisture Evaporators
and finally, I would add...
11. Mainframes will still be around.
Was waiting for one of the inevitable "Beck/Hannity/Limbaugh" lovers coughing up his vomit all over the forum, and lookee here, I wasn't disappointed.. Hey Bozo! We understand you bat-s$$t insane conservatives can't live without actively hating people who disagree with them, but why don't you just go over there in the corner and love these gentleman privately.. Just another datapoint on conservatives.. They absolutely CANNOT tolerate ANYBODY who disagrees with them and rather than simply saying "I disagree with you, so we'll just have to agree-to-disagree on where this country is going", conservatives feel the need to actively HATE these people, using terms that would be classed as "Hate Speech" by the same conservatives IF these liberal voices were to use the same terms to describe conservatives. Dr Michael Savage has the modern conservative classified perfectly as being afflicted with a mental illness...
Taking all bets as to which sounds more realistic. Almost overwhelmingly the people calling to tone it down a bit are liberal. Well, as liberal as the current Democratic party is, which is center-right. Meanwhile, the conservatives are calling on their base to get their guns and electrocute Mexicans.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
I actually took an elective called "The Future of Technology" for my undergrad degree.
The whole field is a bunch of BS and guesswork. It makes Psychoanalysis look like a hard science. I would sooner believe someone who says the world will end on December 12, 2012, than any "futurologist."
And the reason is exactly as you said: all they want is for people to believe what they say, and pay them money to say more.
From my own observations, there seem to be two types of "futurologists:"
1) Those who make grandiose and sensational predictions, from the perspective of "wouldn't it be cool if..." or even "the worst thing I can think of is...." Their audience is anybody who will listen and pay them to write an article.
2) Those who try to predict the next short-term trend before it happens. Their audience generally consists of technology and investment companies, who pay them directly for their insight as a consultant.
My favorite example of the first type is a committee who claimed the USA would wake up one day in the near future, unable to afford to feed itself. Europe would have to step in and bail them out, delivering subsidized food. In reality, recent events have shown that the global economy is so tied together that if the USA ever got in that much trouble, there's no way that Europe would have the resources to help on that scale.
The second type reminds me of a Pinky and the Brain episode where the Brain predicts the next modern art craze will be paintings of doughnuts. Someone really does stand a chance at making a fortune if they can correctly predict the near-term trends in technology. (Or if they can drive the trend how they want, see also: Steve Jobs). Predicting those trends is very risky and expensive, however, and I don't even want to think about the cash that's been lost trying to catch the next big wave before it even forms, only to have it never materialize.
Most predictions on the future of technology are absolutely and amazingly incorrect ... the rest are just lucky guesses.
I appreciate all the hard work you have done to combat bigotry and bridge gaps to help make the world a better place.
The loudest people in Texas want their state to be a third-world country. To them, I say go ahead.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
There are all sorts of "secession" pressures, in every direction. I'd rather just see the country broken up into several smaller countries, like the old Bell System was. Here's one plan for it that makes some sense: Dividing Up the States
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
California and the East Coast will attempt to secede from the Union. The Midwestern and Southern states will send in troops to stop them.
Taking advantage of the confusion, Canada will invade across the border with the support of Native Americans and Hispanics. Upon reaching Washington DC, they will burn the capitol and take control the country. Following this, the Southwest will be returned to Mexico and much of the remainder of the former USA to the First Nations peoples.
Have gnu, will travel.
I don't see it as being very likely, but personally, I'd be thrilled to get rid of California and the East Coast. Having those nutjobs around is a real drag, they keep pushing stuff onto the rest of us that we don't want. They can go off on their own and ruin their lives how ever they see fit.
The last time someone tried to break up the Union, there was a bloody war. I would not be okay with California simply leaving! That is, unless I get 20 acres of prime land in Napa. Or near San Luis Obispo, I'm not picky!
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
Well, I'm still waiting for eastern WASHINGTON to break away and be the State of Lincoln I bet the break up of the united states will be in the next 20 years. however keep in mind that this is from a current highschool student.
I just want the damn flying car and the robot butler I was supposed to get before the year 2000.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
CA (as a state) is no parasite; far from it. California pays more federal taxes and receives back less money than probably any other state. In the USA, people don't even realize states like CA and NY support loser states like Texas; CA gives and doesn't get much back; while many southern states are a drain on the nation financially. People think the Greek situation is bad... we've been "bailing out" over half our states for a century.
CA has internal state-level money problems which in many ways reflect the nations problems; if they kept that federal money instead of losing it to poor states they'd be far better off. They also have a similar political problem; their budget situation is worse because their rules enforce the dysfunction which at the federal level the GOP is purposely causing dysfunction by choice. They've said as much; at some point they can start doing their job; in CA a lot of problems are written in law so fixing things involve 1st in fixing the system. For example, in CA a filibuster like rule is law on the budget while in the US Senate it is just a DoS attack. Another example is yearly budget battles (vs 2 yrs.) Another example is off-the-table big budget items.
I'm not connected to CA; but the parent was so far off
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
but once they find out you can't defend a nation with a posse carrying six-guns any more and the amount it will raise their taxes to become a real military power with a full Army, Air Force, Coast Guard (370 miles of coastline in the smugglingest water in America), and Border Patrol (1250 miles of border with Mexico, over 60% of the whole border; plus 1400 miles with New Mexico, Okalahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana). Duplicating the rest of the functions of the federal government won't be a cakewalk, either, and don't pretend they'll just let that all fall flat. Economies of scale mean that being a part of the entire nation is cheaper than going it alone. And Texas' physical scale makes it more expensive to administer, not less. Throw in the added expense of commerce across borders, and no protections against tarriffs from the commerce clause, and businesses in the state doing any business out of state will be crippled.
From my vantage point, it seems that many of the loudest mouths in Texas want to see their state turned into a third-world country any ways. I say let them go ahead and try. Set up an amnesty program for the first year or so, enabling the 12 intellectuals left in their state time to get out, and some of our crazies time to go in, and then say goodbye and good riddance.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
...and Space 1999, and 2001 AND 2010...
Nice GOP slant on the U.S. part of the story. The only people wanting to secede are Tea Partiers and last I looked they were 10% of the GOP. The reasons why Cali would want to go are things that can be dealt with nationally, i.e., legalize marijuana, gay marriage and whatever else the GOP is deathly afraid of yet cannot point to a rational reason why.
The breakup of the USA explicitly implies a new Civil War, hardly possible considering the heavy balance of military power in favor of Empire. The Powers That Be would rather slaughter 9/10th of the civilian population, more in keeping with the advance of the eugenics programs envisioned by the New World Order. "Hope and change you can believe in" has left the building, with a Unitary Executive even more powerful under Obama than existed under Bush the Lessor.
The future doesn't so much repeat the past as it does rhyme with it. Prognostications of the future 100 years hence tracks more closely with the dystopian science fiction novel by George Orwell's "1984". "If you want to know what the future holds for humankind, imagine a boot stomping a human face, forever."
War is Peace.
Freedom is Slavery.
Ignorance is Strength.
Honestly, if you think about the problem of a state seceding from the U.S. for more than a few days you begin to realize that it's genuinely impossible without a foreign government helping in a MASSIVE way, i.e., supplying all the things missing below; like the French (and some Spanish) did for us against Britain. That would not go unnoticed nor would it be allowed to even come close to happen, let alone actually happen. Here's what would be needed, immediately upon declaration of secession (because, you would NOT be given a grace period, folks!):
And the list goes on, and, on, and on... The real biggies are the ones listed above. Sorry, a foreign power is not going to mass troops and ships anywhere near us to support something like this without a BIG STINK! Besides, most of the people that want to secede don't like foreigners, so them having any hope at all of succeeding on their seceding would compromise their core principles to begin with. Idgits! Go ahead, secede! Morons! You're like a petulant child that threatens to run away from home, does it, and then comes back when he/she gets cold or hungry. Baaaaa! Do it! I dare ya!
Oh, and California grows a large percentage of our fruits and vegetables. Like we're gonna let those get away! Mmmmmm, avocados, artichokes, and garlic!
In 1900 some predictions were made by "most learned and conservative minds in America" about what life would be like in 100 years. Now that it's a decade past that deadline, let's take a look at how they fared:
http://www.yorktownhistory.org/homepages/1900_predictions.htm
Interestingly, they got some of them right. But these were mostly about the spread of technology that already existed at the consumer level, and all good futurists know that predicting price drops in manufactured conveniences is usually a safe bet.
Some of my favorites (with a few of my comments):
- Gymnastics will begin in the nursery, where toys and games will be designed to strengthen the muscles. A man or woman unable to walk ten miles at a stretch will be regarded as a weakling. (Ha!) ...coal will have become more and more expensive. Man will have found electricity manufactured by waterpower to be much cheaper. Every river or creek with any suitable fall will be ... making electricity.
- There Will Be No Street Cars in Our Large Cities. All hurry traffic will be below or high above ground when brought within city limits. In most cities it will be confined to broad subways or tunnels, well lighted and well ventilated, or to high trestles with “moving-sidewalk” stairways leading to the top. These underground or overhead streets will teem with capacious automobile passenger coaches and freight with cushioned wheels. Subways or trestles will be reserved for express trains. Cities, therefore, will be free from all noises. (Ha!)
- No Mosquitoes nor Flies. Insect screens will be unnecessary. Mosquitoes, house-flies and roaches will have been practically exterminated. Boards of health will have destroyed all mosquito haunts and breeding-grounds, drained all stagnant pools, filled in all swamp-lands, and chemically treated all still-water streams.
- Strawberries as Large as Apples will be eaten by our great-great-grandchildren for their Christmas dinners a hundred years hence. One cantaloupe will supply an entire family. Melons, cherries, grapes, plums, apples, pears, peaches and all berries will be seedless.
- There will be No C, X or Q in our every-day alphabet. They will be abandoned because unnecessary. Spelling by sound will have been adopted, first by the newspapers. English will be a language of condensed words expressing condensed ideas, and will be more extensively spoken than any other. Russian will rank second.
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- Hot and Cold Air from Spigots. Hot or cold air will be turned on from spigots to regulate the temperature of a house as we now turn on hot or cold water from spigots to regulate the temperature of the bath. Central plants will supply this cool air and heat to city houses in the same way as now our gas or electricity is furnished. Rising early to build the furnace fire will be a task of the olden times. Homes will have no chimneys, because no smoke will be created within their walls. (They sort of got the end result right, but not the means)
- Vegetables Grown by Electricity. In cold weather he will place heat-conducting electric wires under the soil of his garden and thus warm his growing plants. Electric currents applied to the soil will make valuable plants grow larger and faster, and will kill troublesome weeds.
- Few drugs will be swallowed or taken into the stomach unless needed for the direct treatment of that organ itself. Drugs needed by the lungs, for instance, will be applied directly to those organs through the skin and flesh. They will be carried with the electric current applied without pain to the outside skin of the body.
- There will be no wild animals except in menageries. Rats and mice will have been exterminated.
- To England in Two Days. Fast electric ships, crossing the ocean at more than a mile a minute, will go from New York to Liverpool in two days.
Prophets always make the same predictions: we'll have better versions of
What are you saying? Prejudice will kill them after we color them purple?
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
100 years from now?
Well, in only 25 years from now, whites will be a minority in every previously all white country on Earth. Won't that be great.
In 35 years from now, the muslims and other non-white parasites will have murdered us all, and plunged all those previously white countries into the Dark Ages, and China will just walk in and take everything.
But I forget! We're not allowed to discuss this, are we...
If the human species isn't completely extinct by then the survivors will likely be living in conditions similar to those which existed in the 14th century. I'm glad I won't be around to see that.
Yes, traffic jams will still be a problem. The roads built have mostly been set in stone, so to speak, such that the same roads will exist 500, 1000 years and beyond.
The 405 freeway will get worse. Imagine what it will be like in 3012? 16 lanes wide...
A hundred years from now,
If things don't blow up, most people will live in conditions we consider to be poverty with regard to food, water usage, and vacation today.
However, there will be a lot of electronic entertainment and it's possible that via direct input to the brain we'll have the experience of great vacations and fine food which would mitigate that.
We'll have so many people crammed on the planet that a decent lifestyle will be impossible unless we find a way to directly manufacture food from energy.
If things do blow up...
We'll be mostly dead from bio warfare
Or actual warfare disrupting food transportation resulting in the death of billions.
Or a small scale nuclear war with similar effects.
Or a mass dieoff when the oceans finish collapsing, some kind of virus kills our monoculture crops, and we just can't produce enough food and distribute enough water to keep things going.
And it's increasingly likely the future will be as predicted in the 50's. An eternity of the boot of the rulers on the face of humanity without end as the weapons become good enough and the social control systems become effective enough that revolution is no longer possible.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
By traveling through the lymphatic system, or actually through the flesh, or starting on top of the flesh and only eating until it hits blood vessels, which would be enough to annoy you severely, at the very least. Or by eating the laser, or some essential part of its mechanism.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
The United States breaking up? That would require that nations still existed. Companies will have taken over the role of national governments long before 2112.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
I dunno. I live on the east coast of the US, and most of my produce has stickers indicating it came from South America.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
busy day for you there, damn_registrars? six comments as damn_registrars, and two as logical_failure, all in one day - did you call in sick to work or something?
"There is already some weather control technology for mediating tornadoes, making it rain and so on..."
Mediating tornadoes? WTF are they talking about? There's exists no such thing!
Even the technology for "making it rain" is not at all that useful or significant. What a complete
crap article.
want us to believe their 100-year predictions? What horseshit.
Immortal telepathic cyborg overlords will overthrow governments, force human peons to farm ocean while their robotic henchmen impregnate hapless human females.
All I know is that in 100 years this article is going to be all the rage with the Retro Future crowd.
Here in OZ, Western Australia has threatened to secede from time to time. They believe that they generate a lot of revenue from mining, and would be better off without us easterners. The truth may differ, depending on whose numbers you read. I give them about as much chance of splitting as California in the near term.
Just like the 60's! And the 80's! Finally, those underwater farms are finally here! So...what..another century from when we were supposed to have them the first time?
"Yeah...it was the numbers that were irrational, not the murderous cult of vegetarians...." -- Hippasus of Metapontum
No Arab oil, No Dubai.
I just want to know what technologies will be still be around in 10 years if I am still working.
I saw an ad for a FORTRAN programmer on Slashdot.org today, I maybe I was too haste in removing FORTRAN and InstallShield from my resume. Either that or a 1000 people applied for that one opening.
Times are though. Technological acceleration and the exponential character of innovation seem to dictate that it's impossible to predict where we are going.
People seem to think that 2012 is just '1962 but 50 years in the future' and 2062 will be '2012 but 50 years in the future'.
It didn't. And it won't. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. You are not special. The US is not a special empire. You will not curb change and innovation. Huge armies of people in the 1st world are working in a field or function that didn't even exist 32 years ago. Think about that for a minute.
When i was born in 1979 my parents could not foresee me sitting at home behind a device more powerful then all computers at that time combined reading an article about how all this current technology will be laughable in about 10 years time.
Policymakers should be aware that things change rapidly. Predicting the future might be impossible, predicting that things will be different isn't. ie. Thinking about reforming pension might have been unnecessary and ridiculous the last 50 years, it won't be the coming 50. Same goes for things like work, energy, medicine and transportation. Basically everything.
In the future things will change and people will progressively lack the foresight to adapt to it.
Haven't you seen the fifth element?
Oddly were not Iraq, a civil war in the US would not be something that would be evaded by a quick move up to Cleveland.
The US has an amazing amount of resources, military, and educated people.
And we're good at war.. not the nation building security stuff, the stuff where we turn a country's infrastructure to pudding.
Selling real estate? The banks wouldn't be able to communicate, and even if you went with paper cash, the other side would flood the market with fake cash, destroying the currency. Then you need to worry about the odd biologist going full monty with a terror weapon, some nasty contagion, or perhaps a pest that can only exist in certain climates. Adding a plant virus to an insects saliva isn't as remotely out there as a person would hope.
We have robotics, and the people who can use them effectively.
Have you seen the samsung sentry bots that SK has built?
A laser guided projectile isn't beyond the skill of a skilled hobbyist in the US.
A real US civil war would be a nightmare, and that's assuming that everyone keeps the good sense to lock down nuclear weapons.
Obvious extrapolations that completely underestimate the approaching technological singularity and the exponential growth of knowledge resulting from strong AI.
Predicting the future a century from now is pointless, since it is quite unimaginable. Our descendants then will look back on us as short-lived barbarians, unimaginably violent and self-destructive. They will have redesigned human DNA to create Homo sapiens II.
Are you kiddin' me? Did you get an economist to sponsor this story? The monetary is destined to fail, it is a paper debt based currency with no relation to anything in the physical world. We will have migrated to a resource based economy way before the next century. See more at: http://www.thevenusproject.com/en/the-venus-project/resource-based-economy. Money holds us back as a species. We have the resources if managed efficiently and effectively to overcome all problems together. What we don't have is the money to do so. Aids isn't cured because there are so many companies profiting heavily from treatments. It's the same all over, profit makes the world go round.. but maybe not for long, if you want it.
*Monetary system
an empire in decline, like theirs has been for a century. And that they'd even still exist, were it not for Canadian assistance during the war.
Texas isn't going anywhere, either.
Couldn't the rest of the US just agree to sell Texas to China to clear off some of the national debt?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Because of human nature, all past governments have eventually been consumed by another future human government. Mankind has been in turmoil for well over 6000 years. This is not going to change. You are no better than your predecessors.
The only way it can change is with our creators help (here goes the flames! I said creator!). He's the one who made us, and he is the one that will eventually fix it. Read Rev. 21:3,4 & Psalms 37:10,11. The fix will occur in our lifetime...we just need to be patient.
Gymnastics will begin in the nursery, where toys and games will be designed to strengthen the muscles. A man or woman unable to walk ten miles at a stretch will be regarded as a weakling. (Ha!)
I'd estimate that the average American can already walk 10 miles at a stretch, they just don't know it. Human beings are amazingly efficient walkers. I watched a mid 40's woman, ex-smoker, in apparently average shape (overweight), hike 8 miles in one day, in the Appalachians, wearing ~40 pounds of camping gear, and rising 2500 feet in elevation. On a level path on a mild day with aqueduct hydration and a bag of GORP, 10 miles is easy. Finding the motivation to do so is much harder.
I wonder if that wasn't the case 100 years ago. I was more amused by the idea that baby toys would be more like dumbbells. instead we went the other way and they are now all designed to strengthen the brain instead of the body. Imagine if all our babies were like this kid: http://filmdrunk.uproxx.com/2009/04/real-life-mutant-baby-is-super-strong
I watched a mid 40's woman, ex-smoker, in apparently average shape (overweight), hike 8 miles in one day, in the Appalachians, wearing ~40 pounds of camping gear, and rising 2500 feet in elevation.
I strongly suspect that that hiker was too sore to even get out of bed the next day...
The context of that 10-mile-walk prediction is that a much higher minimum fitness level would be in place today, such that walking ten miles is not something that would yield a solid week of groaning just to stand up. Few of us are in that kind of shape (me included, sadly).
- T
One thing I've noticed... going north in Canada is often a lot like going south in the U.S. (not in a good way)
New Hampshire will be the first to secede.
Mark my words.
Part of the Second American Revolution!
So... Switzerland has only 44'000 something square kilometers, Texas has some 600'000. How should Texas not be able to search and partrol borders? Switzerland has a paranoid border patrol and we even keep them employed into the Schengen Treaty. I am dead sure Texas has enough Oil left for itself, enough Silicon Valley, enough solar installations or the possibility, enough banking, insurance, infrastructure and attitude to secede. If you compare Switzerland with Texas, then Texas has obviously the better starting position, be it energy, society (homogeneity etc.) or place on earth. good luck!
You can't really predict anything, you can only project with some level, X, of certainty.
We've had the technology for decades. Between regulations and supplementing light and heat, we may have hit a few problems. A tidal generator would be needed for most operations below 2m of water.
"Yeah...it was the numbers that were irrational, not the murderous cult of vegetarians...." -- Hippasus of Metapontum
If Texas split, West Texas would be separate with the capitol of West Texas being Midland/Odessa (El Paso has more people, but they are brown and count against it). San Antonio would be capital of South Texas, Amarillo or Lubbock would be capital of Panhandle Texas, Longview (or Beaumont) for East Texas, Houston for Gulf Texas and Fort Worth for North Texas (Dallas is happy being "near" everything and the center of nothing, see where the Dallas Cowboys and Texas Rangers play), and of course, Austin Central Texas. These states of Texas would administer themselves much like states int he US do now, very subserviant to the federal TX government (rather than a confederation of independent states, which was more the original US idea). I think it would work, and I don't think the borders are that much an issue. For one, just like Canada and the US have a "weaker" border than US/Mexico, Texas wouldn't have that big an issue with Louisianans casually crossing or such, unless there was some massive problem with the US that caused movement (which would be as big or bigger a problem for Canada).
Learn to love Alaska
What kind of article predicting the future 100 years leaves out widespread robotic automation and augmented reality? These are technologies that are maturing right now.
Even some of these you seemed to have singled out as incorrect, are more correct than incorrect.
For example, on the gymnastics one, you cut out: "Exercise will be compulsory in the schools. Every school, college and community will have a complete gymnasium." That part definitely has come to pass. Also, the general thrust of the whole thing was correct. Physical education in the current era has more emphasis than it did in 1900. You are sort of thumbing your nose at the idea that an emphasis on gymnastics will begin in the nursery as we live in an era where the government is promoting a Let's Move initiative for children.
For the fruit one, while most did not happen in a widespread, practical way one did. Practically all grapes bought these days are seedless. In addition, some of these, if not broadly adopted are also not unheard of. We can grow huge fruits if there was any practical reason to, for example, strawberries the size of apples. I'd also be willing to bet fruits are bigger than they used to be in 1900, but there isn't much of a point to grow them monstrously big.
To England in Two days sounds silly at first, but if you read the description of the craft it describes, "supported upon runners, somewhat like those of the sleigh. These runners will be very buoyant. Upon their under sides will be apertures expelling jets of air. In this way a film of air will be kept between them and the water’s surface. This film, together with the small surface of the runners, will reduce friction against the waves to the smallest possible degree" sounds a lot like a hovercraft. The passenger-grade hovercraft linked to can do 83 knots or about 95 miles per hour. New York to London is about 3500 miles. So, it would take 37 hours roughly to travel on this ship from New York to London, or in other words, two days. So, really, the prediction came true, it just didn't end up being a popular mode of transport since we have faster and easier ways to traverse the distance.
He may also only be about 50 years off on the no-cars-in-cities prediction.
All in all these predictions were remarkably accurate and even a few of these "wrong" ones came pretty close.
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
I think El Paso would go to Mexico or New Mexico, in case of a subdivision. No reason at all to keep it in Texas, and, other than the easy route through the mountains (it's called "el paso" for a reason), no reason to keep it in America. It's really East Juarez.