I will start a thread “Ask the 95 year old Doper”
President Spears.
Some of mine;
-nations will finally renounce war
-global warming fizzles: instead, Northern Europe, Canada, Siberia are covered with advancing ice sheets. iceland’s population evacuates
-tropical nations (e.g. Brazil0 are now big world powers
-nobody commutes to work-people either live close to the factory, or else work on-line
-lifespan is now 100 years
-ersatz “immortality” now available: you can have your brain downloaded into a massive supercomputer-theologians debate if this state is “heaven” or “hell”
Surprised nobody mentioned this, but I predict that in 2050, religion as we know it is going to be all but dead, at least in the western world. It’ll be supported by the holders-on from 2008, but the next couple generations of children are going to be mostly non-religious. I predict this because every single new parent from my generation (I’m 28) that I know are choosing to not force religion into their children’s lives, and a good 90% of people who are religious are that way because it was how they were raised, and more people than ever in my generation are realizing the flaws and impossibilities of the religion they were raised in (and most of the parents of my peers took it much less seriously than their parents did). As Atheism and Skepticism become more and more accepted and mainstream, there’s going to be little desire or fear to become or remain a part of a religion.
Also, I predict that there is going to more of source-to-brain media available…like being able to listen to music directly in your head, skipping the speakers and headphones. This could also work for cell phones, resulting in seeing people walking down the street and talking to themselves as part of every day life, not crazies.
Are you sure that the parents that you know are representative of young parents throughout the western world? At least you linited this to the west. You can’t say that’s true of the middle east, or Latin America. I don’t even think it’s true of the U.S. Evangelical Protestants and conservative Catholics make up a huge minority of the country, maybe even a majority.
This article from the February 2002 Atlantic Monthly predicts that, even if religion declines in the developed world, in the rest of the world it’s going to explode. And not necessarily traditional religions, either.
Work as we know it will be on the way out. A lot of the more traditional, menial and blue collar jobs will be further automated, and almost everybody will work in the service industry in some capacity.
The idea of showing up at an office to work will seem quaint. Very few people will ever have to “go to work”, since technology will allow us to do just about anything from anywhere. People will laugh at the idea of micromanagement – you will rarely ever meet your “boss” in person, so you will be paid solely for the results of your labor, and nobody will care how you actually get the work done or how much time you spend “working”. The days of the boss standing over your shoulder while you huddle at your cubicle and try to look busy will be long gone. The image of an executive in the middle of an important board meeting while reclining on a tropical beach and sipping a cocktail will become iconic.
(Needless to say, a lot of people’s psychological health will improve tremendously for this reason).
Almost everybody will be an independent contractor of some sort and work for many different companies/clients. You will be selling your services and brainpower, not your time, so you will set your own schedule and choose exactly how much work you’re willing to do, based on the amount of money you’d like to earn. The economic landscape will become much more intertwined and connected, and ideas like company loyalty (or even patriotism) will seem old-fashioned. The global economy will rule, and people will increasingly see themselves as citizens of the world.
People will have much more leisure time. There will still be workaholics who chose to devote their lives to their careers, but most people will probably be able to settle with something like 4-6 hours of work per day and still live comfortably. Of course “work” and “play” will become so intertwined that it will be hard to tell the difference anymore.
This increase in leisure time will only cause the entertainment industry to grow larger. We will spend a lot more time making and watching movies, music, literature, and art. Technology will allow just about anybody to direct a feature-length blockbuster, using realistic cg actors and sets.
The death of the office will allow people to live wherever they want, and population growth will force people into previously uninhabited regions. Cities will decline as people spread to the countryside, causing populations to be more evenly spread throughout geographic areas. New types of towns will be springing up: centrally planned, pedestrian-friendly, and no longer designed around automobile transportation.
I think as the cost of physical transportation goes up and the efficiency of computers and networks goes up, we will be living a lot more of our lives virtually. Telecommuting will be the norm for back-office jobs, rather than a rare privilege.
A possible cultural development is that the boundaries between life areas, which have already begun to blur, will continue to do so until they are no longer recognizable. Work, friends, family, leisure, and education will all be intertwined into a single entity. The same will be true of the virtual world and real life.
The US then will develop a giant hologram of Allah to beam into the skys in the middle east that will stare down at them for an hour or so and then say…“Knock it off”.
I don’t think they would like the reality if I beam them a message about the work week to the past when that was written. Not only does dad have to work more hours than then but mom has to get off her lazy, pampered as and hit the work-force full-time as well.
And it’s supposed to look like what? 
