the Future: your view?

[Goshin]

I'm interested in how people view the future... particularly the relatively near future, say 2030-2060, but especially the latter date.

Will it be much like today, just with better gadgets?

Will day to day life... that is, home, travel, work, recreation, communication, buying/selling/economics, etc... be substantially different but not radically so?

Or will the future be so very different that most of us would be shocked if we could preview it today?


I'm primarily coming at this from the angle of scientific and technological advancement, and its effect on everyday life. Also operating on the assumption that civilization will continue and advance at least as fast as it currently is... if not more so. I'd prefer if we kept the apocalyptic "we're all gonna die/ we'll be living in caves" stuff out of it.

What do you think? Explain your answer and tell us what you think 2060 will be like.

 

[MaggieD]

I'm interested in how people view the future... particularly the relatively near future, say 2030-2060, but especially the latter date.

Will it be much like today, just with better gadgets?

Will day to day life... that is, home, travel, work, recreation, communication, buying/selling/economics, etc... be substantially different but not radically so?

Or will the future be so very different that most of us would be shocked if we could preview it today?


I'm primarily coming at this from the angle of scientific and technological advancement, and its effect on everyday life. Also operating on the assumption that civilization will continue and advance at least as fast as it currently is... if not more so. I'd prefer if we kept the apocalyptic "we're all gonna die/ we'll be living in caves" stuff out of it.

What do you think?

By 2060, technology will advance in ways that seem like science fiction to us now. Of course, we won't be able to afford to buy them. By that time, the population of the United States is expected to have increased to 459,000,000 people (not counting illegals, btw). That's a 66% increase. If the U.S. Census Bureau is correct (or anywhere near correct), most of us will think we're living in a Third World Country.

Question: Where does the Census Bureau say we're heading by 2060? | NumbersUSA - For Lower Immigration Levels

 

[Paschendale]

Information will be beamed at us non-stop. All the knowledge of the human race will be available in an instant, all the time. Unfortunately, 90% of it will be advertisements. So really, we'll be living more and more in a manufactured dream world fed to us by people who want the deceive us and make us buy things, or view the world in black and white partisan terms, or just plain lie to us.

 

[Goshin]

By contrast, 50 years ago was 1960.

In 1960, flying around the globe on jet airliners was a relatively new thing, and relatively expensive. Now it is affordable to most people.

1960: Cancer or heart attack was pretty much a death sentence for the large majority. Lots of people died in their 50's, not so many lived to be 70.
1960: No cell phones. No pagers. Computers were something scientists used that filled a large room and mostly did equations. No Internet. The very idea that people would one day be carrying around small lightweight computers and using them in "cyber cafes" via "broadband" was so inconcievable it wasn't even in Science Fiction. The idea that someone could work at home on a computer, shop on the Internet and have it delivered and hardly leave the house would have seem crazier than The Jetsons. :lol:
1960: If you wanted to talk politics with a bunch of people, you had to go to the Barber shop. :lol:
1960: Human beings had gone into space, but it was a new thing; no one had yet been to the Moon, and many considered it an impossible feat.
1960: Cash was king; most small stores or shops didn't even take credit cards, and many didn't take personal checks.
1960: Most people thought Artificial Insemination was something strictly done to farm animals. Cloning and genetic engineering were science fiction and most people scoffed at the idea that they'd ever see it really happen.
1960: Hybrid electric cars? Why, what in the world would you need one for, when gas is so cheap? :lol:
1960: Most people work in manufacturing. Industrial robots are science fiction. The notion that in 2010 most people would use computers in their daily work was laughable. Stores used mechanical cash registers and mechanical adding machines.
1960: Space Stations are something you see on Buck Rogers, not on the news. No one had ever seen photos of Jupiter or Saturn close-up, or the surface of Mars. The existence of planets orbiting far away stars was something debated by long-haired egghead professors... the idea that we'd have PROOF of exoplanets by 2010 was something only found in sci-fi novels... most people would scoff.
1960: Smart bombs, cruise missles, predator drone aircraft.... fantasy. Exoskeletons were hardly even science fiction, now the US military is developing them. Bomb-removal robots: fantasy.
1960: The idea that practically every store and street corner, and every mile of Interstate, would have a security camera and recorder was inconcieveable, and would have been met with shock and outrage.
1960: If you wanted to find an old friend you used the telephone book, or hired a private detective. No Internet, remember.

I could probably keep this up for pages.... but I'll stop there for now.

I think life in 2060 will be substantially different due to technology.... perhaps even radically so.

 

[Apocalypse]

I'm still waiting for the flying cars by 2002 they've promised us back in the early 90's.

 

[Pinkie]

Lots of good stuff. Jet packs. No more cancer, AIDS, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, etc. Flying cars. No more fossil fuels. Computers in your eye, like a contact lens. Disposable clothing. Talking with at least some animals.

Be sure to contact me via a medium and tell me if I guessed correctly.

 

[Goshin]

Lots of good stuff. Jet packs. No more cancer, AIDS, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, etc. Flying cars. No more fossil fuels. Computers in your eye, like a contact lens. Disposable clothing. Talking with at least some animals.

Be sure to contact me via a medium and tell me if I guessed correctly.

I expect to still be around in 2030, God willing. In 2060 I'd be ninety-five.... seems unlikely but hardly impossible.

 

[Pinkie]

I expect to still be around in 2030, God willing. In 2060 I'd be ninety-five.... seems unlikely but hardly impossible.

Surely there'll be a Rapture before then?

 

[Real Korimyr #9]

By the year 2050, someone on this forum will have literally wiped their own ass with a computer more powerful than the one they are using now.

The awesome potential of all of the technologies we are developing now will be castrated by the heartless reactionaries and the soulless profiteers. Every generation is going to continue to have it a little better than the generation before them, but we won't solve any of the great problems of the human condition. We're not going to cure any incurable diseases. We're not going to eradicate poverty, or famine, or violence, or crime. Some of us are going to live into our 120s, and some of our children will live into their 130s, but no one is going to wake up every morning secure in the knowledge that senescence and senility have become obsolete. We're not going to build colonies on the Moon and Mars, or floating above the clouds of Venus. We are not going to use technology to make ourselves better, we're just going to keep using it to make ourselves more and more complacent.

There's absolutely no reason to fear the future anymore. All of the great minds have given up on inventing it.

 

[Real Korimyr #9]

Surely there'll be a Rapture before then?

There wasn't a single Rapture in the last two thousand years. What makes you think there's going to be one in the next fifty?

 

[Pinkie]

There wasn't a single Rapture in the last two thousand years. What makes you think there's going to be one in the next fifty?

There was a Rapture 2,000 years ago?

 

[Pinkie]

By the year 2050, someone on this forum will have literally wiped their own ass with a computer more powerful than the one they are using now.

The awesome potential of all of the technologies we are developing now will be castrated by the heartless reactionaries and the soulless profiteers. Every generation is going to continue to have it a little better than the generation before them, but we won't solve any of the great problems of the human condition. We're not going to cure any incurable diseases. We're not going to eradicate poverty, or famine, or violence, or crime. Some of us are going to live into our 120s, and some of our children will live into their 130s, but no one is going to wake up every morning secure in the knowledge that senescence and senility have become obsolete. We're not going to build colonies on the Moon and Mars, or floating above the clouds of Venus. We are not going to use technology to make ourselves better, we're just going to keep using it to make ourselves more and more complacent.

There's absolutely no reason to fear the future anymore. All of the great minds have given up on inventing it.

Crabby pants on today?

 

[Real Korimyr #9]

There was a Rapture 2,000 years ago?

How would you expect Jesus to come back before he ever left?

 

[Pinkie]

How would you expect Jesus to come back before he ever left?

Is this a trick question?

 

[Goshin]

Surely there'll be a Rapture before then?

"No man knoweth the day or the hour of the coming of the Son of Man..."


I have no idea. Might be tomorrow, might be next year, might be 2033, might be 2225, might be 9595 for all I know. It will be when it will be. Until then, carry on.




Not really the topic of this thread though, nor well-suited to a thread in the Science and Tech forum. Let's not get derailed, shall we?

 

[Harry Guerrilla]

I'm interested in how people view the future... particularly the relatively near future, say 2030-2060, but especially the latter date.

Will it be much like today, just with better gadgets?

Will day to day life... that is, home, travel, work, recreation, communication, buying/selling/economics, etc... be substantially different but not radically so?

Or will the future be so very different that most of us would be shocked if we could preview it today?


I'm primarily coming at this from the angle of scientific and technological advancement, and its effect on everyday life. Also operating on the assumption that civilization will continue and advance at least as fast as it currently is... if not more so. I'd prefer if we kept the apocalyptic "we're all gonna die/ we'll be living in caves" stuff out of it.

What do you think? Explain your answer and tell us what you think 2060 will be like.

The future Conan, lets travel all the way.....to the year 2000. :2razz:

Seriously though, things will get much better, but knowing what there will be is nearly impossible.
Trends and moods change, no idea what could be in development during that time.

 

[Goshin]

The future Conan, lets travel all the way.....to the year 2000. :2razz:

Seriously though, things will get much better, but knowing what there will be is nearly impossible.
Trends and moods change, no idea what could be in development during that time.

Awww, yer no fun.




C'mon, speculate! :lol:

 

[Harry Guerrilla]

Awww, yer no fun.




C'mon, speculate! :lol:

Nuclear fusion will be available, biomechanical medical and non medical devices will be widely available, possibly the use of nanotech being real...
The state of government, have no idear.

 

[Goshin]

Nuclear fusion will be available, biomechanical medical and non medical devices will be widely available, possibly the use of nanotech being real...
The state of government, have no idear.

Nanotech is one of the most fascinating possibilities out there. I suspect the fact of it will lie somewhere between the "Ultimate Anything Machine" and the suggestion that is is an overhyped dead end.

I think THIS sort of thing might well have a HUGE impact on society, especially economics but also politics and war and everything else imaginable, if it pans out....

 

[Pinkie]

I wonder if money will still be in use.

Paper and coins, I mean.

I think not.

 

[Goshin]

I wonder if money will still be in use.

Paper and coins, I mean.

I think not.

Not in their current form, too easily copied already. You might carry a "cash disk" (like a thumb drive) with a pre-loaded amount of cash you can transfer to another person/store's disk without going thru a bank, protected by biometrics... but paper and coins I doubt.

Except gold and silver coins, of course, as collector items and bad-times-backups.

 

[Goshin]

Nanotech, biotech, genetic engineering and gene therapy, medical advancements and, naturally, the ongoing progress in computers/communications networks/automation/software/AI/etc... those are going to be huge.

Unless our ongoing experiments in high-energy physics (ie the big collider in Europe, etc) reveal some new field of physics, I think most of the next 50 yrs advancements will be in "soft" technologies like those above, rather than antigravity, warp drive, teleporters and other space-opera staples.

 

[Canell]

1960: No cell phones. No pagers. Computers were something scientists used that filled a large room and mostly did equations. No Internet. The very idea that people would one day be carrying around small lightweight computers and using them in "cyber cafes" via "broadband" was so inconcievable it wasn't even in Science Fiction. The idea that someone could work at home on a computer, shop on the Internet and have it delivered and hardly leave the house would have seem crazier than The Jetsons. :lol:

On the other hand, George Orwell predicted the future even earlier. What do you think a telescreen is? It's your laptop with embedded microphone and camera, connected to the Net. How about the mobile phone? It's not only the perfect tracking device (GPS like) but also the perfect eavesdropper, cause most people keep it within reach. Orwell even predicted the political tendencies - global socialist-fascist super states (see what Putin announced this week), cunning elite, dumb people, media brainwashing, bread & circuses culture, etc.
I'm not very optimistic.

 

[The Mark]

Not in their current form, too easily copied already. You might carry a "cash disk" (like a thumb drive) with a pre-loaded amount of cash you can transfer to another person/store's disk without going thru a bank, protected by biometrics... but paper and coins I doubt.

Except gold and silver coins, of course, as collector items and bad-times-backups.

Interestingly enough, I think that's the system that was used in the Star Wars movies...or something similar....

Edit: The "cash disk" you mention, that is.

 

[Fiddytree]

I'm interested in how people view the future... particularly the relatively near future, say 2030-2060, but especially the latter date.

Will it be much like today, just with better gadgets?

Will day to day life... that is, home, travel, work, recreation, communication, buying/selling/economics, etc... be substantially different but not radically so?

Or will the future be so very different that most of us would be shocked if we could preview it today?


I'm primarily coming at this from the angle of scientific and technological advancement, and its effect on everyday life. Also operating on the assumption that civilization will continue and advance at least as fast as it currently is... if not more so. I'd prefer if we kept the apocalyptic "we're all gonna die/ we'll be living in caves" stuff out of it.

What do you think? Explain your answer and tell us what you think 2060 will be like.

Given how slowly history changes or changes not at all, I am more apt to say that most of the changes will be minor. Technologically, a few things may happen that an transform the world, but it will always be tempered.