What predictions do you have for the future?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Below are some things I believe will happen in the next decade or two.

1.Copyright infringement will become the next war on drugs, a pretext to harass citizens and expand law enforcement power and funding. You have a “crime” that EVERYONE is guilty of and that anyone can be falsely accused of as pretext to an arrest. Can you prove all of the files on your pocket PC or cell phone are not unauthorized copies? Of course you can’t. God help people if they bring asset forfeiture into it!

2.There will be a big push back to overbearing laws and employer demands, when right now employers feel it is within their power to demand employees not consume legal substances on their own time the push back is inevitable. I’m guessing it might be something like the 60s, but of course not exactly the same. I grew up in the USA and the feeling that police and the state are drooling at the chance to arrest you is very present in the USA, in most of the rest of the world you pretty much have to try to be arrested. I don’t know how long people will put up with that before rebelling.

2

You say you want a rev-o-lution…
Marijuana laws will be relaxed. Too many non-violent criminals crowding the prisons and tobacco companies have been poised to sell for a long time anyway.
“Less is more.” The (global) economy will further necessitate paring down for all, and it will become acceptable, even competitive.
Music, art and fashion will continue to appall and titilate.
People will become closer as we realize just how encapsulated Spaceship Earth really is.

3

Increasing acceptance of Gay Rights, with Trans acceptance becoming the next big debate.

More waste-to-energy applications, specifically dealing with bio-diesel and similar fuels.

4

I don’t really know what I believe will happen in the future. I do however know what I hope will happen in the future.

I hope that technology will bring us closer together in the sense that we can all see eye to eye on the most important issues instead of driving us apart. I hope we will stop competing/struggling/fighting eachother for the wrong reasons. I hope that rather sooner then later some sort of inner peace will come about, whatever the hell that means, but we sure could do with some I’ll tell you that much. I hope that some day we will realise that there is only one kind of shareholder in this world, and one kid only. I hope that one day we can all see beyond our pitty short lived lives and finally see the big picture.

I hope that some day someone will read this and not think ‘They already tried that in the past and it didn’t work out that well.’ because that’s just a horrible excuse. And for that matter I hope one day we’ll run fresh out of excuses and realise that the only thing keeping us from an utopian world is the definition and meaning we give to it.

I hope that we will realise that the only better world is a world in which we’re all of better. And in order to get to that better world we cannot resort to things like violence, oppression and hate, if it turns into that it will only defy the purpose. I hope that every sane, half educated and informed person cannot disagree or object to this better world because we got rid of all the lies and selfish motivation and there are no dark corners anymore to play our dirty tricks.

I hope that those wanting this better world realise it will not come in their lifetime and that this is not the place nor the time to act. We need to talk and keep talking with eachother, everybody. The road to this better world will be a long and arduous one, but that is not a problem because today we’re already caring for a better tomorrow.

But most of all I hope, with every fiber in my body, there’s enough time left.

5

I think, there’s a good chance, the ‘economic correction’ that will occur if Greece/Europe fails, is that we could see a devaluing of currency like during the depression. That this could come, when a large cohort of baby boomers have hit retirement, and sold their assets, to live off the interest on their investments means it could strike hard. Lots of people could have the carpet pulled out from under them. I don’t claim to know about such things, I just think the signs are there, that it’s a possibility.

6

Only little girls will ride horses.

7

More and more people will die, who have never died before.

8

All the predictions I have are about the future.

9

Short-term:
UNC will lose to Duke in the final seconds by one point.
Oh, wait… danggit, that was LAST night.
Ooops… my bad.

OK, Romney wins the nomination and loses to Mr. Obama by 12%.

Europe stabilizes but only after enacting significant austerity measures including limiting some social programs.
Greece votes to stay in the EU even after significant political opposition.

International terrorism will continue to be a growth industry, but the people of the USA will push back very hard if they feel that their individual rights are being abriged more than they have allowed up to now. If things get anymore restrictive, you will see a significant backlash.

China announces that it is planning a mission to Luna and also intends to have a permanent station there. Not a colony, yet. More like an Antarctic station. They describe this as a scientific mission.

Australia suffers a years long drought that causes it to need international assistance in some locations.

Arctic ice floes will diminish in size so that the Northwest Passage will become useful for several months of the year. Polar bears will become an endangered species. (They are currently ‘vulnerable’, so this is actually an easy one.)

Tablet PCs will outstrip sales of laptops and become the standard method of transporting your computing environment. Docking stations will become common with widescreen TVs doubling as large monitors at HD definition and keyboard/mouse as wireless peripherals. These will also incorporate your texting/phone functions.

Low emission/high efficiency automobiles will become the standard rather than an outlier. SUV’s will be as rare as wood-sided station wagons. Electric scooters might make a comeback. Depends on how high the gas prices go.

Oh, and yes, gasoline/petrol will cost more than $5 a gallon.

Medium term:

Eventually, after being embarrassed by the ongoing development of the Chinese lunar base, a consortium is created by the USA and members of the EU along with Australia (just now recovering from the economic crisis caused by the Great Drought), South Africa and India to create a lunar base of their own. Russia apparently has been working on this for a while and intends to create a base of their own.

Almost all cancers are curable if caught early enough. Regular cancer screenings become a home applied test much as pregnancy tests are done now. Health care in the USA finally becomes universal under the ‘common welfare’ concept. Longevity climbs so that 100+ is the excepted norm for life expectancy. STDs, including AIDS are curable and, in fact, preventable via vaccine-like treatments.

A general increase in health leads to a strong growth trend in what is now called the 3rd world nations. This will lead to an increase in GDP for many of these nations and will propel them into what is now called the 1st world nations.

Life of some kind will be found on Mars by a robotic probe. Its genetic material will be similar but not identical to that found in all Terran species. There will be a heated debate about whether they came from a single source or from dissimilar ones. A Mars mission is planned but underfunded and almost stalls but is finally given financing from several multi-billionaires who made money during the tablet craze of the early decades of the century.

10

Cuts down on your accuracy rate that way.

11

It will all end badly, you mark my words.

12

War between the US and Mexico over their inability to contain the increasingly violent cartels to keep it from spilling into the US.

This is lead to a civil war in the US when the majority Hispanics revolt against the US war against what they will always consider their homeland. It will be bad.

13

Whoopee! We’re all gonna die.

14

Lennon’s got this right: in the future, there will be no countries–only one global government. I think nationalism is becoming largely irrelevant. Thanks to the internet, it’s pretty easy to see that people everywhere are basically the same and borders are unnecessary hindrances.

15

I predict that I will have chicken for dinner.

I disagree with the OP about comparing IP laws with the war on drugs. Creators of IP content are different than drug dealers; they want to have peaceful, profitable business model and they are going about creating it. Things like Pandora, Spotify, Netflix on Demand… all ways that the marketplace is adapting to, not fighting, the increased technological fluidity of IP content. My prediction is that this will accelerate, reducing barriers to entry (record label deal? what’s that?) and providing vast new markets for artists and vast new artists for consumers.

16

What are you refering to? Deflation in the US was something like 10% a year during the Great Depression. The currency became more valuable during the period, not less (and indeed, that was part of the problem).

17

Good point. I mean, take a sample of 20 typical citizens from Islamabad and the same number from San Francisco - could anyone hope to tell these groups apart by their appearance or beliefs? And surely what little difference remains is rapidly being washed away by the convergence of their societies.

Indeed, we can all see how the rock-solid EU sets an example of this for the world to emulate.

18

There will eventually be a one world government.
That government will turn out to be evil.
Shit will hit the fan.
Shit will get way worse.

Then the world ends.
You heard it here first.

19

Well, anyone can accurately predict the past, can’t they?

20

While you’re correct about adapting, the sad fact is that the change will mean fewer markets for artists and fewer artists for consumers. No one is interested in reading (or listening to the equivalent of) slush and the amount of noise and bad art will drive out the good. It’s already clearly happening in music after file sharing started (I predicted exactly what was going to happen: fewer big music acts, and those that succeed would be people who could gain attention by things other than their music).