Assume you miss 15 years and wake up in 2030. How do you think the world will change and what is the most shocking change?
I’d predict that computers will play a much much bigger role in our social lives. They will read body language, develop fairly accurate guesses about emotional states, provide advice on who/how to talk to people about emotional issues. It will probably rsvolutionize dating, friendship, treatment of mental illness, detection of abuse, etc. That will be weird for those of us who think of computers as mechanical emotionless machines.
Solar will have reached grid parity by then. If parity is $2 per installed watt and they are already at $4 it should be cheaper by then. So solar panels everywhere.
Weak ai will be everywhere and it’ll offer advice on almost everything.
Unemployment from advances in robotics will cause social disruption. Maybe the concept of a base living wage will start being tried in Europe.
Self driving cars will be on the streets and accepted by the populace. Although driving won’t be obsolete quite yet, the teenagers in 2030 won’t be learning how to.
Fashion will probably have changed in some way - wearable technology will have been semi-integrated into clothing. Already they’re working on screens that feel like fabric and are flexible, so I imagine that kind of computer will be widespread.
The music industry will have further disintegrated. I imagine that it’ll be mainstream and common for musicians to just sell their music directly to consumers, without any sort of middle man. Some sort of structure will have risen around this basic idea so that people aren’t just hit in the face with a huge mass of artists - there might be a rankings system of some sort to guide users. There will hopefully be more power in the hands of the creator than in the past, though. The publishing industry might be undergoing similar shifts, albeit at a slower rate.
All that said, the changes won’t be huge. 2030 isn’t 2100 or anything, and 15 years on you’ll be able to function fairly normally apart from a few snickers here and there.
Following the end of the five-day war in 2024, I guess I’m kept alive in my stasis pod until they figure out how to cure whatever ailed me, then they just thawed me out because I’ve got the only viable sperm left in the underground community. Which is kind of unfortunate, because I’m lying face-down in the gene pool, here, but whaddaya gonna do?
Marijuana will be legal everywhere in the US but Utah, Texas, and two random states from the Confederacy.
Gay marriage will be legal everywhere in the US and it’ll be hard to find anyone who admits they were ever against it.
The post office will be gone.
Wallets will only be carried by geezers. Drivers’ licenses (and state ID’s, as I think **Octarine **is correct about self-driving cars and fewer people learning to drive) will be in your phone, with your money, and your ‘keys.’
Wars will continue their trend toward being less and less fatal. Each year will see fewer and fewer deaths by warfare.
I don’t know if it’ll happen by 2030 - probably not - but my gut says that the second amendment debate in the US will finally be resolved by side-stepping it altogether. Technologies will eventually emerge, before anybody can get an amendment passed that modifies the second, to make guns not as much a threat. I don’t know what technology that is. Comfortable bullet-proof fabric? Small-space maneuvering drones that don’t fear guns and can move directly on an attacker? I don’t know…but something.
Climate change deniers will deny they ever were deniers, and will somehow be profiting from whatever economic opportunities arise from our predicament. They’ll win contracts through the old-boy network.
Flying cars and fusion energy, what else?
Seriously, reading this thread, it bothered me to think that 2030 is as close to today as 2000. So, I don’t expect more technological changes than there has been during the last 15 years, hence not much.
The most important change is that I will be retired or retiring
Silver jumpsuits.
Self driving cars exist.
Food in pill form.
Surround sound VR glasses begin to replace TV.
Single room dome houses with hidden appliances.
Personal Digital Assistants, with enough AI and voice recognition to actually accomplish simple tasks like making reservations, suggesting a movie, managing your schedule, with you doing nothing more than asking, as you would to a human assistant.
Silver jumpsuits, seriously, if people aren’t wearing silver jumpsuits all the time, don’t wake me up, I can wait.
Not much change in the last 15 years? True, in terms of actual technological knowledge gained, past decades were better, but the applications of that knowledge have been huge. Particularly the growth of the internet and conventionality (is that even a word?) of social networks and such (whether that’s a good thing is another debate, of course, but it’s certainly change). The way people socialize has transformed - to me, that’s much bigger and more dramatic than just gaining more hard information. I mean, in 2000 could you reasonably expect a grandparent to be active on a Facebook-equivalent?
Climate change accelerated to create mass starvation in most second and third world countries. Food and water riots are everyday news. Disastrous storms and flooding have become commonplace. Low-lying cities and agricultural areas evacuating around the world.
On the plus side, now that massive climate change is inevitable, even the United States, the last hold-out in the first world, is swiftly moving to embrace alternate energy technologies. The discredit incurred by climate change deniers and fossil fuel diehard defenders has made it possible at last for the stranglehold reactionaries have had on US politics to ease to a surprising degree. Even universal healthcare is now presumed inevitable, ushered in by our first lesbian president.
North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming have been abandoned to the buffalo.
[ul]
[li]Self-driving autonomous electric or fuel-cell cars will be available, if not ubiquitous. [/li][li]Nearly ubiquitous voice recognition software for things like drive-thru windows and controlling your home entertainment unit.[/li][li]Much more automation in general- self-stocking stores will be starting to become common, mail/package delivery will be common, but not ubiquitous, etc… [/li][li]No real division between the Internet, video games, television and movies at home; all content will be streaming, and you’ll be able to fire up Word or Excel on your cable box/PS6/Xbox3 as well as play whatever the latest games are.[/li][li]Social conservative issues will have changed- gay marriage will no longer be the lightning rod it is today, and marijuana will be legal at a Federal level, but not in every single state, although I’m betting it’ll be decriminalized in almost all by then.[/li][li]I expect there to have been some sort of major upheaval in China; either due to slowing economic growth, or due to a growing desire on the part of the people to have a say in their governance.[/li][li]I think the EU will have undergone some growing pains; there will likely be a few new nations and a few former nations who couldn’t hack the EU fiscal policies.[/li][li]I expect the Israel/Gaza situation to be pretty much the same as it currently is.[/li][li]I think the country’s political landscape will change in that minorities will become a bigger part of the populace, but I also suspect that with that, we’ll see a certain fragmentation of what were once relatively monolithic voting blocs. For example, there are a LOT of relatively conservative Mexican-Americans who may vote Democrat because that’s the way the rhetoric has played out so far, but I suspect if they’re a larger chunk of the pie, they’ll quit voting so monolithically.[/li][/ul]
Stuff that’s a little less of a foregone conclusion, but that might happen:
[ul]
[li]The US may get bit on the ass by a future war through drone/automated adventurism, in that we’ll get in over our heads because we’re willing to commit drone and automated forces in situations where we’d think twice about committing actual infantrymen or pilots.[/li][li]Nuclear power may become more prevalent if oil prices end up higher.[/li][li]I suspect that something along the lines Waze may end up as a public network for driving, in that accidents, slowdowns, road closures etc… will be automatically reported and cars’ navigation software will automatically suggest the fastest/shortest route. Unfortunately, I also suspect that this network won’t have the police speed trap reporting like Waze does.[/li][li]I’m hoping (but not holding my breath) that there’ll be a grass-roots sea change against the current US work mentality, and that workaholics and overly career focused people won’t be seen as the model of success to aspire to, but rather as kind of unhinged people, and that the people who balance work, family and leisure will be seen as what to aspire to. [/li][li]I think that e-books, newspapers and magazines will continue to rise in popularity, and that print media won’t die out entirely, but will be more of an enthusiast/niche market- kind of like cassette tapes and vinyl are today for music.[/li][/ul]
There will be 4 more presidential terms between now and then. Candidates will be prepping for the 2032 race.
I predict candidates will be promising:
Jobs! Good paying jobs!
Less waste in government!
A strong economy!!
Accountability!!
Change!!!
