The future

[1D-1()T]

So, hello. I am creating this thread to see what you guys think the future will be like. By the future I mean the relatively near future, nothing much further than the next 50 or so years. (Does that still count as near future? To me it seems like a fraction of a blink of an eye, but alas, I am an astronomer, and also a dreamer)

I admit, I'm making this because I've been reading to many articles/papers predicting a breakdown of our civilisation within 50 years. (Also, a lot of them are by NASA, its almost like they are trying to convince us to buy into spaceflight or something:sticktongue:)

...Anyways... Where do you picture the world in the near future?

[Nibb31]

Any predictions of the future are going to be wildly wrong.

http://thesoftanonymous.com/2012/08/19/imagining-the-year-2000-in-1900/

When I was a kid in the 1970's, we were told that by the year 2000 there would be colonies on Mars, we would all be commuting in flying cars, and our meals would be made of protein pills. Yet nobody ever predicted the Internet.

However, I would suggest that in the next 20 or 30 years, the trend will go towards more virtualization and dematerialization. Both oil prices and technology will make physical travel obsolete. We would no longer need to physically go anywhere because we will be able to work and visit everything and everyone in the cloud. All this space malarkey will become obsolete because if we wanted to muck around in microgravity or go visit Saturn or Europa, we could just don our VR goggles (or plug our implants into the cloud) and go there by telepresence. There would be no point in sending humans to the Moon or anywhere else, because it will all be mapped in hi-resolution 3D and simulated in a computer.

[xcorps]

I admit, I'm making this because I've been reading to many articles/papers predicting a breakdown of our civilisation within 50 years.

People have been predicting the end of the world for a loooooong time. The end of civilization in 50 years? Unless some pandemic worse than the Spanish Flu suddenly springs up, I don't see it happening. Economies collapsing? Sure. Governments falling? Absolutely. Massive worldwide changes in standard of living? Yep.

But not an end to global civilization. Unless China gets really really stupid.

[Tommygun]

I think globalization will continue to the point that national boundaries and citizenship may become increasingly blurred.

Demographics will continue to shift and change countries in new ways. I also think the gap between the rich and poor will widen to historic highs before it gets better and how it changes may or may not be violent.

The cost of living will also go up as cheaper fuels start to run low. I also think world population may peak before 50 years is up and start to very slowly decline.

Electronics will also be more integrated into our personal private lives for both good and bad, but at some point I think people will start demanding more privacy from advertisers and corporations.

Oh and we'll finally get flying cars....they will cost as much as a stealth fighter and have a battery life of fifteen minutes.

Future investment tip: Buy into armored roofing companies.

Edited May 13, 2014 by Tommygun

[NASAFanboy]

By 2050, I can reasonably believe that the United States has sent one, if not more expeditions to land on Mars and return to Earth and probably may even have established an semi-permanent research outpost there (More reasonable estimate would be around the years of 2059). Space travel would still be astronomically expensive, but VASMIR tugs lower the time and cost tremendously. On the Moon, the Chinese, Europeans, Russians, and several American companies (SpaceX, Bigelow, Golden Spikee, Moon Express with NASA partnership) have established bases on the Moon from the year 2030 onwards. Depending on Congress, the ISS may still be in orbit, but would be heavily aged and too dangerous to support crews for extended periods of time more than a year.

Flying cars will not be an reality. Even thigh as of 2014, there is more than several patents for flying cars, they will not be produced for mass use by 2050 due to hard to enforce traffic laws and potiental for terriosm.

Virtual reality will be in its first stages of becoming lifelike, and may possibly even become a social hangout where meetings and social hangouts are conducted

[1D-1()T]

Hmm, interesting points. I was largely basing my conclusions on two things. One was the shortage of helium, and the shortage of phosphorus. Helium being used in liquid form to cool all manner of technology, and phosphorus being used to make fertiliser. Easily accessible and dense phosphorus may run out in the 30's, where we will have to produce more food, with less land, without the benefit of modern fertiliser. Admittedly, with better distribution of resources this problem may be reduced. But, withstanding significant advances in space flight, or the discovery of vast new deposits of resources, I feel **** is about to get real.

But then again, these problems have been predicted, and wether they would have come to pass or not, there will be those who work to avert such things.

Okay, I'm trying to finish this off but I have more to say. I have very little doubt that all of those above have lived upon this earth for longer than I, and have more experience, having seen those promising the future or predicting the end, and have come to see that they are often wrong. But what of the little boy who cried wolf? Okay, done now, have a nice day.

[Idobox]

Fossil fuel shortages will cause massive societal shifts, with food production dropping and big cities as well as suburbs becoming unsustainable, we will return to a model with a lot of smaller, high density cities, and a lot of farmland close by, and a significant part of our expenses will be food.

In terms of technology, the main predictable shift will come from medicine and biology. We will one day figure out gene therapy and organ printing/xenograft, as well as improve neural implants to the point where senility and other brain diseases are the main killer. And yes, it means we'll have cyborgs. Hell, we already have people walking around with retina implants and bionic arms and legs, exoskeletons are on the way and one day will come where these artificial organs are better than the natural ones.

Another massive change will come from 3D printers and similar technologies, and the shift has already begun. Think of the small print shop that sells custom tshirt, or that laptop you ordered built to your specs, well the trend is going to continue, with a lot of tiny companies filling niches and taking orders for custom made stuff. You also have large impact on companies, because they will have the option to use a 3D printer rather than have a massive stock of spare parts. These technologies also allow to make things that can't be done by casting or milling.

[Vanamonde]

Lots of badness just erupted all over this thrread. Locking while we look it over.

Okay, upon review, this thread will stay closed, as politics is a forbidden topic on the forum. Sorry to cut off the discussion so abruptly, but things went pretty seriously off the rails, and it got ugly.

Edited May 13, 2014 by Vanamonde