I’m afraid I’ll never see an end to this retarded PC bullshit.
Have a sense of humor.Didn’t you see the smiley?
Incontrovertible proof of intelligent life on earth.
A cloned prehistoric creature like a wooly mammoth or a dinosaur. And I really, really want to see one.
The Cubs winning the World Series. 
That and the whole space exploration thing, people on Mars, that sort of stuff.
Despite what you read in science fiction, the scale of the problem is a lot more daunting than it seems. The technical challenges, and the limits of human capability, make it very nearly impossible.
But at least we’re working on space exploration. Would you settle for one out of two?
I’d love to see a breakthrough in our understanding of the universe, along the lines of relativity. Possibly it would be so arcane that it would be almost meaningless to a layman such as myself, but still I want a big leap forward to happen during my lifetime.
I despair of seeing a source of clean, useful energy becoming available during my lifetime. Probably that means fusion energy, but it could be something else. I want my child to have a world of cheap, abundant energy that doesn’t threaten to destroy civilization.
Well, you just might. Both dark energy and dark matter are most likely (IMHO) just names for physics we don’t understand. Theoreticians are sweating away on this ( well, virtually sweating) and combined with data from new satellites like Euclid, we might be looking at a big leap forward in our understanding of the universe in the next, say, 20 years. Hang on, and you might be pleasantly surprised.
I fear not seeing this, too…and I’m not even 30, yet. 
I think you should recalibrate your bullshit detector. I didn’t think indian’s reply was bullshit at all.
Overhaul of U.S. currency and coins, including the elimination of the penny and dollar bill.
But, as of late last month, I do have a rapid transit stop within a couple of miles of my house, and when the next station opens next month–assuming it does open on schedule–it’ll be only a mile or so away. That is something I thought I’d never see.
That’d be nice. Although, see the 3rd point…
Oh, hell yeh. Depite the immediate impracticalities and relative costs, how I’d love to experience a new revolution in manned space exploration. sigh
I actually feel like we’re on the cusp of a new turn around. The baby-boomers are starting to fade in the increasing volume and signal to noise ratio of a more liberal outlook on this nation; overall at least. Perhaps the southern states still have a ways to go, yet. But haven’t they always? 
As for my own, oh how I pine for incontrovertible proof of intelligent life (shoot, I’ll take non-sapient life) of extraterrestrial origin.
An elephant fly.
This is one of those things, I think actually are likely in my ‘projected’ lifetime (I’m almost 40).
It seems very clear that the beginning state of the universe was ostensibly the four elemental forces of the universe combined. Gravity, Electromagnetism, the Strong and Weak nuclear forces were all manifest as one, according to all cosmological evidence.
There’s something familiar, yet elusive about the various flavors of QM, and the enigmatic duality of nature to be space and time, matter and energy, particle and wave, etc.
Looks like Quantum Chromodynamics is beginning to reveal some very interesting aspects of elementary particles. Leaving M-Theory/Superstring Theory behind for a moment, it’s only a matter of time before someone happens onto a Relativity-esque breakthrough. Something akin to the E8 theory, despite its current incompleteness with super-symmetry and non-chirality is very enticing. I think we’re all expecting something very elegant like that for a unified theory. But, another 20-30 years seems likely as computational power grows, and bright minds start to push against the edges of current models.
I consider that a challenge!
WOW. This post definitely gave me the chuckles. Poor Cubs!
This.
Also, that we will never have a true choice in transportation. I love rail, but would also love the ability to walk and ride my bike to work or for errands. I would also like to see bikes welcomed and encouraged on the road rather than put up with and terrorized by ignorant jerks.
I recently read a book published in the mid 1960’s, ‘Supersonic Flight’ by Basil Clarke, a sober and well-written study of supersonic flight both civil and military.
I considered starting a thread on it as its rather saddening to read of the hope and optimism people had back then regarding supersonic transport, the author takes it as a matter of fact that speeds will continue to get faster as time progresses until the upper-limit of atmospheric based transport is reached around the Mach-15 range (the author explains that in a plane like that the vast majority of the trip would be in high acceleration and deceleration phases with only about 15 minutes per trip at maximum velocity).
I wonder what the author would think of the situation today? (assuming he’s not still around)
Interesting thread and I’ll throw my two-penny in later, off to bed!
DH, I’d love to hear more details from you on that book-whenever you have the opportunity. Seems like a lot of things involve constraints like that-I mean we could go to Mars if we really wanted to, we had the money to burn, and the astronauts in question volunteered knowing the risks involved and the fair chance of ever coming back, but most people don’t want to (or don’t even care), we don’t have the money (nor will we see any significant return on investment for awhile even if we went), and the risks are high enough that it probably is a one-way suicide mission with current tech.
Well, here’s the book:
It’s definitely worth picking up if you have an interest in the subject. Its a little UK-centric as the author is British but thats not really a problem. Happy to answer any specific questions you may have.
I found it a rather melancholic read given that the dreams of the author and others of his time never came to pass. The world has improved in many ways certainly but I think we as a society have lost the sense of optimism of the past. If anything does us it in it’ll be cynicism as a people.
As for the subject of the thread I both hope and fear that we will see a true technological revolution in my lifetime, I hope we end up with a society like The Culture, I fear it will be something like the world of The Terminator and I imagine it will be somewhere inbetween with slow progress instead of a revolution…which means I probably won’t live to see it. 