I’ve seen a lot of people make fun of past predictions on what life would be like around this time. There have also been forgettable and unforgettable movies that got it wrong. Lets see if we can do better by trying to guess ten years into the future. All the way to the year 2020.
This board has been around for 11 years so far, so it’s possible that we’ll be around in 2020 to look back at this thread. So take this seriously if you want to get props in 2020.
My guess is that batteries will become obsolete by then. There have been pretty good advances in wireless electricity so far and it should become pretty pervasive in 10 years.
Let’s see - oil and gas are very expensive. Manufacturing is starting to move from Asia back to North America (for North Americans) because of the shipping costs outweighing cheap labour.
Airplane travel has become exclusive to rich people. Train travel is becoming more popular again. Large private vehicles have been outlawed.
The United States has a completely unwieldy, unworking, extremely expensive hodgepodge of medical system patches. Still isn’t working, still costing US American taxpayers far more than it should.
Nine out of ten of the last years have been the hottest on record. Global warming sceptics starting to re-think their positions. Polar bears fighting with grizzlies for territory.
Entire network programming schedule consists of “news” shows and reality shows. Entire new movie releases consist of old shows being re-worked.
Boomers that planned to retire at 65 still working at 70 due to not being able to afford to retire.
I predict if Climate Change goes the way many scientists are saying, be it human caused or not, it will cause major geological and atmospheric upset that will echo across the world, and nothing we attempt will manage to curb it one iota.
I predict Osama Bin Laden will still be at large.
I predict NASA will still be talking about eventually returning to the Moon and getting to Mars.
I predict Barack Obama will be looked back on as a disappointment, only because he didn’t live up to the unprecedented hype he had before his election, but he will have implemented a few policies that will fundamentally shape the status of America.
I predict the internet and video games will be even cooler.
I predict I’ll probably be dead by then, and not get to witness all of this.
I predict that 10 years from now, people will be bitching and moaning about having to mail in their Census forms. Especially being expected to mark their gasprace.
I think that the world will be pretty much as it is today but with a modest economic revival. A major switch to nuclear power will be under way, both for electricity generation and for marine engines. People will be working to 70 to fund their retirement. The U.K. will continue its slow decline.
And I’ll have won the lottery and decamped to NZ or Canada.
This post is the one that reinforces my belief that these threads are more a “comment on today” than a “comment on the future”, as all of these discussions (from past or present) have been.
Most people invovled in these threads just give their opinions on things happening today but turned up to 11 without really giving things thought. Almost like a “worst case scenario of today, 10 years ago”.
Try and think about society, and technology and advancements in both areas.
10 years in those fields can create a huge difference. But if you think global warming is gonna strike in a big way for each of the next 10 years, or that ALL tv shows and movies are going to be either news/reality/remakes, then you’re just making a comment on today.
How about, in 10 years time, 99% of film/tv will be in 3D, and most of it not requiring 3D glasses.
Social networking will become a lot more social and a lot more “every day” for most people. Think how different Facebook is to Myspace, now multiply that by 1000.
Imagine if you could advance Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Google Wave and Email by 10 years, and then merge them into one, that’s what will become the new phone number.
Considering what Nintendo has already done and what Microsoft are working on, I can’t even comment on video games. If we aren’t hooking something up to our heads or playing in virtual reality I will be REALLY surprised.
Please people. Anyone who is predicting MAJOR earth-shattering changes in the next decade is delusional. Do you not remember the year 2000? That was 10 years ago. Things are for the most part pretty much the same, although the economy sucks more now.
My predictions:
I second the social networking/media comment above. Not sure if it will become the “new phone number” but we will be on our way there.
Gasoline cars will still be the major mode of transportation. About 50% of them will use hybrid technology. Gas will be expensive.
Land-line telephones will not exist in any major way. Neither will cellular phones as we use them today. High-speed wireless internet will be the way we communicate and “cell phones” will all use VOIP.
Medical technology/treatment will be much more personalized based on analysis of a persons genome. It will cost significantly less than $1,000 to sequence a persons genome - probably in the range of $100 (hooray for my own work!).
We will not have a vaccine for HIV. We will have drugs available that make it a life-long manageable condition. These drugs will be expensive.
People will still be arguing about global warming/climate change.
The treatment and distrust of Muslims will continue to decline.
We will still be fighting the “War On Terror”
Osama Bin Laden will not be captured, and will have died of natural causes related to diabetes.
Computers will be CRAZY fast with multi-terabyte memory capacity. Video games will be out of this world.
Television will be broadcast over the internet (no more cable or satellite) - most TV will be available in 3D.
I can think of others, but this is what comes to mind right now.
Checks will be obsolete technology. Swipable credit cards will be things your grandparents use. Your phone/camera/online-surfing device will also be your credit fob, using NFC technology for your purchases.
Humans will win the war in the coming animal uprising, but will lose the peace. Animals and humans will be more divided than ever.
That’s not ten years in the future, that’s now. There are already a wide enough variety of families of effective HIV drugs that someone could be on them theoretically indefinitely, and they’re not even all that expensive (granted they’re not cheap). I’m not even sure I agree on the bit about there being no vaccine as there are currently three separate lines of research professing to be leading to a potential cure, and I’m willing to be one of them will pay off.
In the broad sense I agree with you. Current drugs certainly put off the inevitable for decades - I’m not knocking them. But the have nasty side effects and eventually stop working.
I am envisioning a drug regime that is much less toxic and essentially works forever, and that prevents transmission to others by keeping viremia levels undetectable. HIV infection will have the same stigma as type 1 diabetes - something you live with that causes inconvenience, but doesn’t have major effects on your life beyond that.
And I am not so confident of having an effective HIV vaccine in the next 10 years. 25 years, maybe. I don’t work on HIV but many of my colleagues do. Maybe I’m wrong - I hope so!
Obama’s presidency (two terms) will be looked at nostalgically (already). He will be talked about as a guy who tried to get beyond political labels, and 2011-2015 as a time when politicians tried to reach across party lines for the good of the people. It will be contrasted with ‘now’ (2020) where things are so divisive.
Gays will have legally recognized civil unions recognized by federals legally - for income tax, for example - as equivalent to marriage. More than half of states will afford same-sex civil unions the same status - for property ownership, rights-of-survivorship, and other legal areas where gay relationships currently are legally inferior.
Whatever technology I own for playing music, video, and surfing the internet will be an obsolete laughingstock.
The Chicago Cubs will still not have won a World Series.
Toys R Us will not exist. K-Mart will not exist. Fuddruckers will not exist. Boston Market will not exist.
Americans will have government healthcare as an option. Nobody in mainstream politics will be arguing for getting rid of it.
The Yellowstone volcano (or one of the other Super volcanoes) will erupt between now and then causing nuclear winter world wide and only the well connected (Bill Gates, Hank Paulsen, Kobe Bryant, Pat Sajak etc) will survive living in the underground cities that already exist worldwide.
The rest of us will commit suicide in large numbers and those who don’t will eat the dead bodies since no other food will be available because the billions of tons of ash in the air will wipe out all food supplies since nothing will grow in the cold dark climate.
Before the volcano, we will have a COMPLETE economic meltdown, unemployment will hit 75% and most of us will live in FEMA camps, very much like the Nazi concentration camps.
There will be a country-wide smart card for all your transit spending (and NYC’s second ave line will still not be open). There will be a similar system in place to replace sports/concert paper tickets.
Music and movies will be 100% sold and distributed online. No more jewel cases. Hard drives will be large enough and cheap enough that you won’t need to archive anything on CD/DVDs anymore. However, for hardcode media-geeks like me, 20TB still won’t be enough.
Nobody will be using video phones (video conferencing, which already exists in the present, will still be around though). The current wow factor boom of 3D will have worn off, and everything will be in 2D again. CGI-animated films will be indistinguishable from live action, and MANY more live action films/tv shows will be totally filmed on a greenscreen stage.
The Arctic ice cap is gone in summers and the sea levels have risen. The global warming deniers blame it on something else, anything else that won’t affect corporate bottom lines.
GM, Ford, and Chrysler will merge.
The Detroit Lions will still not have made a playoff appearance.
Paper currency will no longer be accepted for business transactions.
At least one terrorist nuclear attack will have taken place.
NASCAR will have one standard car / engine, one company will build them identically, and they will be issued to the teams via random lottery. Since this will take most of the drama out of racing, NASCAR will also merge with professional wrestling and use modified Roller Derby rules.
Computer generated imagery will be advanced enough that Hollywood will no longer use live actors in movies. Or actual scenery. All will be CGI.
Advancements in Virtual Reality, coupled with the above-mentioned CGI, will change pron from watching to <ahem> participating.
For some strange reason, the population growth trend goes from over- to under-.
