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Steve Wozniak Predicts The Future (usatoday.com)
USA Today asked Steve Wozniak to predict what the world will look like in 2075 -- one hundred years after the founding of Apple. An anonymous reader writes:
"He's convinced Apple, Google and Facebook will be bigger in 2075," according to the article -- just like IBM, which endured long past its founding in 1911. Pointing to Apple's $246.1 billion in cash and marketable securities, Wozniak says Apple "can invest in anything. It would be ridiculous to not expect them to be around... The same goes for Google and Facebook."
Woz predicted portable laptops back in 1982, and now says that by 2075, we could also see new cities built from scratch in the deserts, with people wearing special suits to protect them from the heat. AI will be ubiquitous in all cities, as consumers interact with smart walls to communicate -- and to shop -- while home medical devices will allow self-diagnosis and doctor-free prescriptions. And according to the article, Woz "is convinced a colony will exist on the Red Planet. Echoing the sentiments of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, whose Blue Origin start-up has designs on traveling to Mars, Wozniak envisions Earth zoned for residential use and Mars for heavy industry." (Though he doesn't have high hopes that we'll ever meet aliens.)
Woz is promoting the Silicon Valley Comic Con next weekend. (Not coincidentally, its theme is "The Future of Humanity: Where Will We Be in 2075?") During the interview, Woz pointed at a colleague's iPhone, smiled broadly and said it "shows you how exciting the future can be."
Woz predicted portable laptops back in 1982, and now says that by 2075, we could also see new cities built from scratch in the deserts, with people wearing special suits to protect them from the heat. AI will be ubiquitous in all cities, as consumers interact with smart walls to communicate -- and to shop -- while home medical devices will allow self-diagnosis and doctor-free prescriptions. And according to the article, Woz "is convinced a colony will exist on the Red Planet. Echoing the sentiments of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, whose Blue Origin start-up has designs on traveling to Mars, Wozniak envisions Earth zoned for residential use and Mars for heavy industry." (Though he doesn't have high hopes that we'll ever meet aliens.)
Woz is promoting the Silicon Valley Comic Con next weekend. (Not coincidentally, its theme is "The Future of Humanity: Where Will We Be in 2075?") During the interview, Woz pointed at a colleague's iPhone, smiled broadly and said it "shows you how exciting the future can be."
In many ways Putinist Russia is Tsarist Russia. The broad outlines of Russia's current governance and foreign policy would be immediately recognizable to people in 1911. The thing they would not have predicted was the 62-year hiatus in the middle of the 20th century.
On the other hand, the long-term demographic problems facing Austria-Hungary were known and both Russia and Germany were trying to get their ducks in a row in case the empire collapsed. Much of the lead-up to WWI, and the Balkans wars. was states jockeying for position in a post-AH world. It was widely assumed that Austria-Hungary would not survive in its (then) current form much beyond the death of Franz-Josef. Even his heir was openly talking about radically restructuring the empire.
Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
Well, they didn't exactly do too bad for themselves. IBM is roughly 30% larger today than they were in 1975, accounting for inflation (~6x the size by pure dollars). Maybe they didn't rule the playground, but they grew even larger and more profitable.
A world market crash as rogue agents from various countries manipulate high speed trading markets for immediate gains, destabilizing the currently in-place market balance agreements between the top trading organizations around the globe. Apple shares will plummet to $1 per share, at which point Apple will be bought out by Costco, and the iPhone will be marketed in bulk packs of 25 and as a loss leader for Costco Internet Services. Costco Internet Services will actually be a division of Amazon run on the AmeriNet network, the internet no longer being what it is today but more like AOL once more.
We'll have flying cars, but only the elite and shipping & transport companies will be able to afford or use them. They'll also be fully autonomous with security programs backed by massive AI complexes that actively defend themselves from hacking, usually by taking down an entire countries internet structure for a short time. Its simply more efficient that way.
Home computers will no longer be a thing in the US, as cardboard boxes won't have electrical outlets. The good news is that Apple and others don't accept rat pelts and grass clipping as currency anyways. Rednecks will be extinct as well, having been replaced by literally everyone else in the US and out-competed for food.
The maker community will have been completely bought out by the Corporations, and their projects all promptly shelved in an effort to prevent the Third Corporate IP sueball war.
Generation of power at home will be flat out illegal in every country. You will buy your electricity and heating gas and like it, or die.
Laser weapons will finally come into their own, and Trump's descendants will carve his name in 30 mile high letters on the face of the moon, in homage to Chairface Chippendale. The use of laser weaponry will then be banned in all countries by mutual agreement treaty.
We won't make it to Mars. We'll have had our first contact with advanced alien species before 2075, and they'll have established a cordon around our planet to keep us all here until we die off naturally, thus preventing the spread of our insanity to the universe at large. They will however rebroadcast our sitcoms, removing the laugh tracks and billing them as documentaries, as a warning to other species not to interact with us.
The reason our parents could afford a house on a working class wage and we cannot is simply that we earn less than they did. Yes, I'm not kidding here, in buying power we're worse off than our parents were. Well, most of us at least. A select few are actually better off. Then again, it's that select few that probably don't even notice it.
Our running costs also went up. And I'm not even talking about fluff like that we "need" cell phones and internet. Even if you dump that, we're nowhere near the expense level our parents dealt with. Yes, part of it is convenience. Most of it, though, is planned obsolescence. I do remember my dad repairing our TV, our washing machine and various other electronic devices around the house. Today, when one of them breaks, all you can do is throw it away and buy a new one. And not because you're too stupid to fix it, but because it CANNOT be repaired. Generally, the amount of things you can actually do yourself, build yourself and fix yourself has dwindled into insignificance. I remember my dad actually gathering his buddies and build an extension to our home. Can't do that no more, new building codes and other laws demand that you hire some "professional" to do it.
Professional only means here that he's doing it for money. Not that he has any fucking clue.
The list goes on. It's frustrating to know that you're reduced to being a consumer. And this learned helplessness is branching into other areas of our life. More and more people live by the creed of "can't do it anyway, why bother trying".
In all aspects of their life.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
1. Batteries 5x better. I think that is the most realistic of the list. Li-air certainly but maybe zinc-air might dwarf that. 2. Mech Muscles. I think that is reasonable but may not be widely deployed. 3. Solar is already pretty damn cheap at $1/watt. Couple with 5x batteries and today's tech is fine. 4. Fusion will be just 50 years away. Modular fission will be all the rage. 5. Probably but it doesn't really matter.