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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.
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
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?"
From a canuck pov, California is a lot like Quebec. Both have large debts, highly self-inflated opinions of themselves, and have a highly convoluted parasitic nature with both the federal government and other states/provinces. If they went up and left, they'd be in a crash bankruptcy within 2 years, and be begging to come back, as their own entitlement programs would cause them to collapse from within. As it stands now, their own entitlement programs are causing them to collapse from within.
Om, nomnomnom...
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?
I predict there will be unrest in the middle east.
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.
Oops. Your conservative is showing.
California is the 8th largest economy in the world. Period. It would be a world power on it's own.
California would do quite well on it's own given it's natural resources and it's western US shipping ports.
California sees less return on federal dollars than is taken in taxes. (Who's the parasite, again?)
California's population and land size give it country sized problems with state sized control and funds.
Actually, California gets less back from the federal government then we pay out. We would be in much better financial shape if we didn't have to subsidize other states.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
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
What if all the middle class moved out
Both of them?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
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.
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...
No. Actually.
California is having budget issues mostly because the federal government is raping it, so that its wealth can be redistributed to Republican owned southern and midwestern states. Californians pay far more in federal tax than they receive back in federal benefits. If California was on its own and took those federal taxes itself, its debt would be gone almost immediately.
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.
You have such a deep misunderstanding of the real world, I'm surprised you can manage to get food into your mouth to survive. The article summary seems to have triggered your "I AM THE 99%" response. However you don't seem to understand the nature of wealth. People like you sit back and complain that the rich have all their money in the bank, so there isn't any left for you. The reality is that weathy people invest their money to remain wealthy. What the hell do you think a hedge fund is? Like most investments, it puts the money to work.
If a space elevator could ever be made profitably, those kinds of funds are the ones that would invest. Poor, aimless, unmotivated fools will never make it happen. No such venture was ever done for charity. Columbus was sponsored by the Portuguese crown in a search for wealth in trade routes. The Apollo program was sponsored by the USA so as to not fall behind in the USSR and risk the cold war. A space elevator represents a huge opportunity for wealth generation. You don't think greed would make it happen if it was possible? You're just plain wrong.
-d
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
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.
Actually, California gets less back from the federal government then we pay out. We would be in much better financial shape if we didn't have to subsidize other states.
This infographic says that California gets back 78 cents of every dollar paid to the federal government. Only 7 states have a lower ratio.
http://visualizingeconomics.com/2010/02/17/federal-taxes-paidreceived-for-each-state/
But the real question is, does California have what it takes to correct its massive apostrophe abuse problem? Or is that one inflicted on them by the Feds?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
California sees less return on federal dollars than is taken in taxes.
Really? You mean the government can't give out more money to the states than it takes in in taxes... oh right, I suppose it does that all the time.
California has a whopping 12.5% unemployment, and managed to double their state spending in 10 years. Let me repeat that: double, from 1998 to 2008. One does not have to be a conservative to realize that California has a spending problem. Everyone there realizes it. One of the highest tax rates in the country, and they still can't find enough money.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
- 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....
Just like Quebec, CA would split very shortly after leaving the union.
S. Cal would be completely dry. (USA would take the rest of the CO river for Vegas. N. Cal would shut down the ditch. Owens valley might have something to say as well.)
Perhaps Mexico will take S. Cal. They can have it.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
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.
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.
That's uncertain. The discovery of the New World led to disaster for the economy of Iberia; the market simply couldn't hand the collapse in the price of metals.
Virgin Galactic's goal is to send the exceedingly wealthy on suborbital flights for a thrill lasting a few minutes. It is not a good example of efforts to send mankind to the stars.
This is all based on the assumption that what is today, will continue forever, which is wrong.
California, which is the economic engine of the USA
As the acceleration of jobs leaving for China and India increase.... What is CA once the last manufacturing job moves to China and the last info/tech job moves to India? Well, they have a lot of farms, and ...um...
I'd like to point out too that California basically feeds the USA as well. Their agricultural output is vast.
Hmm thats a slight exaggeration, probably because they produce a bit more than, say, Nevada, or New Mexico, but ...
Once the aquifer dries up, wait for the next big drought so the rivers run dry, and that's the end of that. Which is not so bad, because you can rely on the vibrant factories and office buildings full of programmers, err, wait see above.
Sure, some big cities full of people. What happens when the big earthquake hits? Hmm. Well when a big hurricane hit N.O., we abandoned them and its still in a tailspin at a fraction its current size. After the cities in CA are perma-depopulated, what next?
There's no reason to conclude that the US wouldn't just simply use military force to preserve the union
What if "we" wanted to get rid of CA? You're assuming only a healthy vibrant state can/could exist. Imagine straight line extrapolation of no more agriculture, no more industry, no more people in the cities after the earthquake, everyone who can move, has left ... We've bought land from other countries, who's to say we wouldn't sell CA to MX for barrels of oil? Or a 99 year lease agreement? Imagine a piece of land with no realistic future economic value mostly populated by citizens from a neighboring country, you need something from that neighboring country, they offer up a "lease" or "trade" or something like that, secession doesn't have to be violence from outside the power structure, it probably will be from within the power structure. Maybe we'll make a treaty that CA and the SW is "NAFTA-land" in general and a new province of .mx in practice, legally technically remains our land, outsource management of everything outside our .mil bases to .mx, in exchange we get first dibs on whatever oil they have left. I could see that happening. Not a shot would be fired, just a bunch of treaties and trade agreements...
100 years from now for all practical purposes we'll have just as many languages with over 100,000 speakers as we do today.
And COBOL programmers will still be in demand. No I'm not kidding.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
virgin galactic may or may not fit into my world view - but i can assure you it definitely does not fit into the world view of the wealthy investors, who are making much more money in high frequency trading automatically, than investing in virgin galactic et al and waiting them to turn a profit.
https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=high+frequency+trading
Read radical news here
You completely miss the point. California, and most of the "blue" states, are "giver" states - their citizens and businesses pay more in federal tax (income and otherwise) than they receive back as services. California receives $0.78 (in things like highway dollars and education) per dollar of tax paid. source. For fun, compare "red" states with "blue" states. About 75% of Bush and Gore's electoral votes came from taker and giver states, respectively.
The GP's point was that if those 25c no longer "left" the state, California would be better off.
The best part was you complaining about ignorance and being "factually wrong".
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
Yeah, don't bother looking up the statistics or anything. Just make a sarcastic comment to insinuate you know what you're talking about.
In 2005, California paid $290 billion in taxes and received $240 billion in federal spending. California's deficit currently stands at $11 billion. Now, I'm no mathematician, but I'm pretty sure 290 - 240 > 11.
First, the GP said nothing about the state budget.
Second, that's a perfect example of the broken window fallacy. The citizens pay the Federal Government, and in so doing, give it money that cannot be spent for other things. The correct question is how much the citizens of California as a whole send to the federal government versus the amount that the federal government sends back. The answer to that is "a lot more", with the sole exception of the last couple of years (in which California has gotten more than it sent in, but so has every other state). In most years, California gets back somewhere in the ballpark of eighty cents for every dollar it sends to the feds.
Again, the amount is immaterial. What's important is the cost-benefit ratio. The blue states, on the average, get far less benefit for their federal tax dollars than the red states. This is fairly well established and can be trivially proven by examining the numbers.
Unless, of course, you consider the security benefits. Consider how the wide difference in wealth between the U.S. and Mexico has caused serious safety problems near our Southern border. Now consider what would happen if the Southern U.S. were similarly poor because California stopped propping them up. And that is why the argument of California getting less out than it puts in falls flat—not because it isn't true from a purely numbers point of view, but rather because there are unquantifiable externalities that the argument fails to take into account.
That's grossly incorrect.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
It sits in giant vaults so Uncle Scrooge can swim in the coins.
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.
As a Canadian currently living in Quebec... I don't think you're right. California seems to be reasonably productive, at least compared to the rest of the US. It has a large debt, but so does the rest of the country. I believe they even pay out more in taxes than they take in from the feds.
Quebec on the other hand has always been a gimme province, has a population who prefer not to work all that hard (not saying there's anything wrong with that, provided you can pay for it yourself) and systemic corruption levels FAR above the rest of Canada. They're also isolationist, and anti-English, which can't help when all your neighbours and potential trading partners are English speaking countries.
Quebec can't even keep their bridges and highways from falling apart, and that's WITH subsidies from the rest of the country. California has excellent highways.
Just because someone holds a position for a second doesn't mean the money is not at risk and has not left the fund.
Further hedge funds and high frequency trading rarely coincide. Money must be invested to earn returns. HFT doesn't change that.
You clearly _don't_ understand and should stop embarrassing yourself until you learn some things.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
According to the libertarian (and Koch-funded) Tax Foundation, California has paid more into federal coffers than it has taken in federal spending since 1986 ( http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/22685.html page 5). And its share that it has given has grown in relation to the amount that it has taken.
There are eighteen states that actually pay their own way, or better, according to the latest data they have collected
( http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/266.html they're in the process of collecting funds for an updated look at more recent numbers). Seventeen of those states went for Obama / Biden in 2008.
One does not have to be a conservative to pass judgment on states leeching government money, but it helps perhaps to be in one when 94.4% of the states that do pay their own way went Democratic in the last Presidential election.
The question is therefore not "why is California spending so much more?", but why are the Red States outstripping California's spending with nothing to back up THEIR leeching ways, playing bootstrappy cowboy at the expense of people in LA, New York, Chicago, etc.?
Shiny. Let's be bad guys...
Sure, space elevators would enable huge profits, but the risk is too large and the cost of investment astronomical (pun intended) for a private entity.
There's much safer investments here on earth for the 1%
John Galt and his innovations only exist in the fevered imagination of randians...
No sig for the moment.
Exactly. Building a space elevator, while I'm certain is completely possible from a technical point-of-view, would require an enormous amount of money, and it'd be a while before any profits are realized. Investors are very short-sighted; if they can't realize a profit in 3-5 years, then they have no interest.
California sees less return on federal dollars than is taken in taxes. (Who's the parasite, again?)
You sure about that? Hint: look at all the Federal expenditures in California, including welfare.
Yes, we are sure. Our federal tax imbalance is similar in size to our budget deficit.
You could at least base your claims on logic and numbers instead of emotion and expectations.
[1] 2009 Tax Burden Report
[2] 2006 Tax Burden Report
[3] Tax burden by state, 1981-2005
[4] California 2011-12 Budget Outlook
.:Semper Absurda:.
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.
Columbus was sponsored by the Portuguese crown in a search for wealth in trade routes.
You might want to revisit the history books on this one...
Columbus was sponsored by Queen Isabella of Spain. There were several reasons for this sponsorship, though Columbus's personal wealth and power certainly came into play. At the time, the Ottomans and other Islamic nations controlled the trade routes to the east. Europe wanted the spices and medicines available in China. One of the hopeful outcomes was an allegiance with Murtada Khan of the Golden Horde. Murtada had expressed an interest in Christianity. With the recent defeat of the Moors in Spain and expulsion of the Jews, Spain was looking for new allies to continue the Christian assault on Islam and the capture of Jerusalem. Then too, I've also heard the rumor that King Ferdinand just wanted Columbus out of Spain so he would quit flirting with his wife. However, I've not found much to support this.
Given the events of the time, I'd say that religion and politics were the primary motivators, with profitability being a nice side-effect.
Request a Linux Shockwave player here: http://www.macromedia.com/support/email/wishform/
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.
-
- 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.
Precisely, my good man! The automobile is nothing but a play thing for the rich, and such a foray shall never result in an improvement of the technology, nor greater economies of scale, nor any other positive externality.
This is my footer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
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.
California sees less return on federal dollars than is taken in taxes. (Who's the parasite, again?)
You sure about that? Hint: look at all the Federal expenditures in California, including welfare.
OK, let's look at, say, the 2006 report from the Tax Foundation. What it says about Federal expenditures is
The 2010 Consolidated Federal Funds Report does mention Temporary Aid to Needy Families and several other programs that I guess are what you're referring to when you say "welfare".