The real future - Real world predictions for the world 25 and 50 years from now.

In My Humble Opinion
1

It’s interesting to me that when I watch a futuristic film like Minority Report or something similar that going 20 to 50 years out into the future allows for technological advances that seem near miraculous by today’s standards, especially in transportation. I then think about how technology really changes in real world terms.

I am 45 years old and was born in 1958. I remember when records were the dominant audio media when I was a youngster, then cassettes as a teenager, then CDs’ as a young adult and now digital data files. Technologies become ever more complex and diverge and reconverge in a variety of unforeseen ways. I don’t have a flying car but my Denali SUV has more computing horsepower onboard than the original space shuttle, and for that matter my new Palm Pilot Tungsten PDA which can network wirelessly, play digital music, keep appts, read ebooks and take voice memos probably does also. MY GMC Denali SUV has a satellite uplink and downlink to allow for phone calls and assistance conversations and 100 digital music XM radio channels, but it’s still a gas hog with a gas buring piston engine not fundamentally different in core technology than the ones used 70 years ago.

Anyway my (lengthy) point is that popular fiction and movies often suck at predicting the technological future with any accuracy and that the real world “miracles” and advances are often little things no one really foresaw… or did they? This message board is full of bright people working with all manner of advanced convergent technologies. What’s really going to be on the table 25 to 50 years from now. Do we really have any clue?

Forget about flying cars. Inquiring minds want to know what’s really up next. Any ideas?

2

B-52 bombers will still be in service.

A-10A attack planes will still be in service.

Ak-47 assault rifles will still be in widespread use worldwide.

We still won’t have nuclear fusion reactors.

China will still be communist.

3

In another thread, I predicted that sex dolls that are worrisomely close to the real thing will come into existence in the next 30-100 years, with the last 50 years of the 100-year range being fudge factor.

Technologies that are converging to make this happen:

  1. Development of robotic walkers for military and home apps
  2. Development of robotic hands for industrial apps
  3. Development of artificial skin for burn victims (already complete)
  4. Development of expert systems for specialized activities (such as sex). Already complete for complex activities like medical diagnostics.
  5. Development of extremely lifelike genital prostheses, already complete via latex molding
  6. Research into chemically duplicating human sex pheromones for a variety of purposes
  7. Development of lifelike, life-sized sex dolls already complete, Google sex dolls

I worked most of this out as a result of resarch for an SF novel about a woman who struggles to get an emotionally wounded man to part with his sex doll, called Jetta 2100. In the novel I predicted enormous advances in nanotech and AI which made the sex doll very human in appearance. But I think you could come pretty close in 30 years even without great advances in these areas.

4

I hate to be gloomy, but with each passing year it becomes more likely that someone will use a nuclear weapon, in either the context of a war or as a terrorist act.

This will lead to an acceleration of decontamination, monitoring and radiological cleanup tech. If the background levels of radiation rise any meaningful amount those who have the means will clamor for inexpensive detection equipment, formulas for decontamination, etc…

Which will be paralleled by an attempt to increase the efficacy of detection equipment dedicated to finding any radiological material; governments will want to hoard it and keep it out of the wrong hands even more once the “genie” gets out of the bottle.

5

excuse me, Google “Real Dolls” not “sex dolls”

6

I can see a niche market for late 20th Century unrealistic ones. :slight_smile:

7

Virtual sex (on the Internet) will become almost as good as the real thing.
-Mental illnesses will becomeillegal.
-Homeless people will no longer "grace"our city parks.
-People will work from home;very few will commute.
-Criminals will be able to choose "behavior modification"instead of prison terms.
-The USA will expand; likely new states willinclude:
-The canadian provinces of Nova Scotia, British Columbia, the Yukon, and Alberta.Also, Mexico (Durago, Nova leon, Tamuipas, Sonora), the Philippine Islands, and the (former) Panama Canal Zone.
-TV preachers will be ubiquitous, as many as 10TV shows/day!
-Gasoline will drop to 10 cents/gallon, as solar and hydrogen fuels take over.
-North Korea will become a US allied state.
-Africa will be depopulated; late rit will be subdivided and sold off to multi-national corporations.
-Disney World will build a combination theme park/cemetary for the die-off of the baby boomers.
-Sex shops will become common in the USA.
-A new snack food (from Asia), will be sold at McDonalds; ingerdients are said to contain ground dog meat!

8

And here I thought we were supposed to predict where the MTV show The Real World will take place in 20 to 50 years.

Real World Antartica

Real World Submarine

Real World Abandon Missle Silo

Real World Space Station.

9

Polyamory will become a widely-accepted practice, and more and more unhappy married couples will realize that enforced monogamy is just a plain stupid idea.

There will be at least one serious attempt at election reform, most likely a movement to elminiate the electoral college or enact instant runoff voting.

A video game company will design a home console with a built-in cheat device…no more futzing around with clumsy peripherals and disks. This console will also have a cable modem connection, allowing it to instantly download new codes as soon as they’re released. The company that releases this system will make a fortune.

Every independent or small-market arcade in the country will vanish, but the big chains (and a few big indies like Hawaiian Brian’s) will continue to flourish.

Someone will find a way to make plant fuel cheap and easy to produce. Unfortunately, a myriad of political factors and the powerful oil industry will prevent it from actually becoming economically viable for many years to come.

Tiger Woods will succumb to the combined effects of never-ending unbelievable expectations, worsening health, and lack of motivation due to the countless millions he already has, and retire before age 40.

There will be a dropoff in porn spamming, as a lot of porn dealers start to realize that cluster-bomb tactics simply don’t work (especially with customers with specific tastes). There will be enough diehards, however, to ensure that it doesn’t completely die out.

A small, clandestine company with numerous anonymous bases will start mass-producing a simple device which can completly flush out the contents of the uterus. It will disguise the obvious abortifacient use by advertising the other uses (athletic events and whatnot). This spells the beginning of the end of “Right To Life” movements worldwide, as they’ll no longer have any big, obvious targets to picket or harass or bomb.

Rush Limbaugh will retire, then make the shocking announcement that all he ever wanted was to get filthy stinkin’ rich. Now that he has, he no longer gives a damn about flag burning or feminazis or tax cuts or obscene art or any of that other crap the stupid Republicans go quntiple ape-feces over. (It’s gonna happen, I just know it… :D)

10

Communications:
Software will be sold on a subscription basis. You’ll download the application and install it once, but you’ll need to keep up on the monthly payments to keep using it.
It is unlikely that computers will be replaced by hand-held units. The smaller screen size and awkward interface would be too problematic. Palm pilots will continue to merge with cell phones, though, until they’re the same thing.
Hard discs and compact discs should soon be replaced by memory cards.
Appointment-based television viewing will disappear. On-demand services will take over. Advertisers will have to get out of television and into places where it’s not just a guy with a remote control… like the movie theater.

Transportation:
Because of energy limitations, we’ll see an apparent regression here. Bicycles, rickshaws, and possibly even horses will be used to get around cities. The majority of families will no longer own a car. Transportation will become so expensive that telecommuting will be the norm, and going to an office will be considered an extravagance.
Incidentally, I was skeptical about virtual sex, but the high cost of transport could very well fuel a boom in downloadable orgasms.
Space travel will not have made any real steps forward. The most a manned flight will do, 50 years from now, is go around the world at high altitudes. Same as now. It’ll be cheaper, but still inaccessible to John Q Public.

Medical:
Heart disease, cancer, and the like will generally be nuisance chronic conditions.
But a disease like SARS will become a five-year event. Fifteen-year events will send some parts of the world back into the dark ages and cause political turmoil all over the world. Thirty-year events… don’t wanna think about it. But disease will soon replace terrorism as the major threat to national security, as terrorism has replaced nuclear war. OTOH, disease could very well cause terrorism and small scale nuclear attacks…

Political and Economic:
The republican party will split due to an eventual conflict of interest between fiscal and social conservatism.
Marijuana will be legalized - and not just for medical purposes, because the courts will not be able to spend a lot of time making that distinction.
Alcohol will be completely banned in several American states.
China will get Taiwan and let go of Tibet. One thing that won’t change - the average American won’t care.
America will decline from its economic leadership of the world. For a while, there will be no clear successor. America won’t decline gracefully, so I’m afraid this is gonna be a mess.
Meat will become a very scarce and expensive product. So get that fat and cholesterol while it’s still available, cause it’s going soon…

11

As above, but with large-scale use of bioweapons.

10 years, tops.