Predictions for the next century

[chasbanner]

Predictions for the next century

I write this not because I have much fate in my abilities as a seer but because I enjoy seeing what people in the past predicted and I feel it fair to put this out so that perhaps someone fifty years from now might find it and enjoy seeing how wrong/right I was. Anyway here goes:

2017 Hilary Clinton president. Another bloody revolution in Africa. Justice League movie terrible, Global recession. Increasing tensions between liberals and conservatives. Someone builds like a giant modern pyramid thing. Drone hits plane. New “healthy” soft drink popular.

2020 War in Syria over. Greece leaves Europe. Putin still in power. Cheap Disposable I pads. Queen Elizabeth dies. One of world’s tallest skyscrapers collapses due to shoddy workmanship. Someone invents a social media even more superficial than twitter.
China increasingly aggressive. Virtual reality gaming popular. More war in middle east. Fake Superhero hoax. Second Star wars film less fun but more interesting. Third is something of a disappointment. Discworld movie. Vampire/superhero movie popular. New STD causes alarm.

2030 Another Democrat president. Africa grows as economic power, rising sea levels affect many major cities. Life extension tech available (for rich). Infertility rises. Fat is sexy. Rather lame flying cars (for non-pilots) sold. Global Tech company withdraws services in an effort to compel Americans to agree with its demand’s. Computers built that reach human intelligence levels.

2040 China becomes more liberal. European union collapse. Classical music hugely popular with the kids. Healthy Calorie-free chocolate cake invented. Colony on Mars. Colony is disaster. New safer drugs eclipse alcohol in popularity. Effective technological cure for obesity found. Most violent conflicts are dominated by military robots.

2050 First black female president. Nuclear device detonated in major city. Computers are made that don’t crash all the time. Cures for most forms of cancer found. Global warming means farms can be set up in Antarctica. Mind/computer implants common. Some cases Euthanasia legal in America. Treatment that serves as a faster alternative to sleep invented.

2060 States break off from USA to form new country. Moon base. 3d printer prints living human body. Some madman tries to kill billions of people to stop over-population. People using surgery to alter themselves form “Elvish” communities. space elevator. AI’s sneak around internet hiding in computers.

2070 A movement to give electronic beings civil right develops. Warts are sexy. Flying cars now really good. Some types of Genetic enhancement on babies legalised. 50% of US population unemployed. A.I.s play a significant role in government.

2080 Someone invents a procedure that lets people look however they please. At the same time every decides that looks are no longer important. Disaster on Moon base. Undersea city built.

2090 Asteroid mining. Ozone layer fully recovered. Some new bad thing like global warming or acid rain turns up.

2100 Tonnes of robots in space. Body hair is sexy. Physicists almost destroy world. Jurassic park.

[arthwollipot]

Fortunately, we'll be able to come back and check very little of this for accuracy.

[Razmoudah]

Well, I have two things to nitpick with you on those predictions.

First, we'd need to start small-scale asteroid mining just to come up with the degree of resources needed for the multi-decade project of building a space elevator.

Second, before body-hair would become main-stream sexy (there are some people who do like it now) we'd have to change the common attitude of humans sharing a common evolutionary ancestor with apes and/or chimpanzees, as the primary momentum behind the 'hair-free is sexier' shift was that evolution concept so people took lots of body hair to mean those who weren't as 'evolved' as the rest (never mind how many Hank McCoy equivalents there have actually been to disprove that, the attitude still persisted). Not to mention, when you look at most of the main-stream 'sexy' traits for women it basically comes down to a teen (almost a pre-teen really) with boobs, a very long-standing holdover mentality from the ancient days when girls were married off as soon as they were old enough to have kids (and occasionally before then). Yes, legally that isn't allowed anymore, but if you can figure out how and were to look there is an insane amount of that attitude still around in many main-stream venues. Now, if you give it an additional century, then I could see it happening.


I may or may not agree with the validity of other various points in your predictions, but those were the only two that had a requirement that distinctly had to come first that just isn't plausible in the time-scale used.

[chasbanner]

Razmoudah: ok, thanks

arthwollipot: ?

[arthwollipot]

arthwollipot: ?

Well I for one probably won't be alive in a century. Not unless there's some serious life-extending technology developed pretty darn soon.

Which is good, because it means that you can make predictions for what things are going to be like in the future and have no concerns about how accurate your predictions might be. Even fifty years from now, the probability of this forum still existing and these predictions being in a format that someone can actually read are very small. I'd say that you could get an accuracy check for about ten years, maybe fifteen, and then only if someone happens to remember to come back and check them. Beyond that, all record of your predictions will most probably simply vanish.

So you can predict whatever you want, really. That's got to be good for the prediction business.

[yomikoma]

Mars colony before moon base before undersea colony? That seems backwards, at least in terms of difficulty.

[Razmoudah]

Yes and no. The logistics of getting resources there would make the undersea city the easiest with the Mars colony the hardest. However, there is more ice present on Mars than on Luna, which means that technologically it is easier to build the Mars colony (actually, if it wasn't for the logistical nightmare of getting the resources there we'd already be building one, as we've managed to real-world solve the rest of the problems). Also, depending on the depth of the undersea city the degree of pressure the structures, or if we went dome then the dome, would need to be able to withstand, especially with the effects of ocean tides and such, as well as needing to be able to isolate damaged outer areas so that they can be repaired without it flooding the entire city, makes it technologically far more challenging. We've managed to theorize ways to attempt it, but no venture capitalists have been willing to come forward to finance testing those theories (it doesn't help that you'd need the wealth of a small to moderate nation, it is literally cheaper to build the structures for Mars if we could get at least the basic resources transported there that are needed to enable Mars to continue gathering the resources needed on its own, or else mine them from the asteroid belt and ship them down to Mars). The primary problem is creating structures strong enough to take the pressure while containing a gaseous atmosphere inside that has a pressure index comparable to being in the 0-500 feet above sea-level range. It is many times easier to do the opposite.

[Drachefly]

Space elevator where? On Mars, we might get it sooner than that. On Earth, it's barely on the edge of theoretically possible, what with radiation wrecking its strength.