How do you imagine the world by 2050?

[fulano]

Who knows. At the very least I hope my mind is safely tucked inside some kind of machine where I can watch porn films looping forever in a perpetually young, horny body while I await for somebody to develop transversible wormholes.

Either that or cursing my kids after shitting all over myself 'cause that damn nurse fed me the wrong kinds of baby food...

 

[wulfy42]

It's only been in very recent history that the human race has had the ability to destroy all life on this planet. Before that all predictions of the end of the world were speculation on natural disasters, meteor hits or gods wrath.

Right now, this minute, someone out there could make a decision and destroy all life on this planet. Not just one person mind you, many people have that ability.

The truth is the end of the world is almost unavoidable at this point. Why?

Because even if some countries figure out a new source of power etc the world is not at peace and new technology will not be shared with everyone. It isn't being shared with everyone right now. Even if it was share there will be power struggles and eventually one of them will get out of hand.

The quote about war never ending? Thats pretty much true. The human race doesn't know how to work together. There are too many different cultures and governments on this planet with different ideas of what is right, different religions and with grudges against each other.

All it takes is one of them to release a biological agent on the planet that kills a ton of people and the result will be complete anarchy and massive war. The war will eventually involve nukes and when everything is said and done the planet will be irrevocably damaged.

Will global warming and the ozone layers depletion destroy the planet? Not by itself, not even close. In theory global warming could eventually make this planet unable to support life. The reason is that we added something outside the normal equation through the release of gasses over the last few centuries. This might upset the normal balance of ice ages etc and cause a constant cloud layer in our atmosphere. That in turn would trap heat and increase the temperature even more eventually leading to a planet that is too hot to support life.

I don't think that is what is going to happen though and it certainly will not happen in the next 40 years.

If we make it to 2050 I will be absolutely shocked. I predict massive wars will start within the next 20 to 30 years. Once the wars start it won't be long before the end because at this point we have weapons that are too destructive. The end is no longer something we need to guess about or blame on an angry deity. We hold the means for the end in our own hands and only our own self restraint is keeping us from using them.

Looking back at recorded history humanity has not been known for it's restraint at using weapons. I doubt that is going to change even with the much more serious consequences.

 

[SimuLord]

Mankind always muddles through---if anything, that was the core message of Fallout 3 (and the Fallout series in general). Even in the face of complete catastrophe humanity always finds a way.

Besides, I'm old enough to remember when people in the late Eighties were talking about the YEAR TWO THOUSAND and how it'd be a futuristic dreamscape (or cyberpunk nightmare where apparently the sun never shines). 2010's here and except for improvements in communication making it possible for me to have friends literally around the world, from Canada to Argentina and London to Melbourne and all points in between, it sure seems an awful lot like the world in 1985 when I was eight and thought Back to the Future was the coolest thing in the history of anything ever.

I'll turn 73 that year if I live to see 2050. I expect I'll view it remarkably like my grandmother (celebrating her 80th birthday next Sunday) sees 2010---as a "wow, so much new stuff, but people are still people and life is still life" state of affairs. There will be politics and war and essential human goodness and unspeakable human cruelty (to use my grandmother as an example, she was 15 when we nuked Japan and the atrocities of the Holocaust first came to light) go on. War? War never changes.

So I don't think it'll be that different from 2010, or 1910, or AD 10. Maybe on the surface it'll look revolutionary, maybe the major players will be different, but I have the utmost faith from 33 years of experience since my birth in 1977 that age brings perspective.

 

[Singularly Datarific]

about 40 years older, I presume.
NASA will still get a pitifully small funding, scientific interest will grind to a halt.

I doubt that scientific interest will fall flat. You see, science makes businessmen some serious cash.

Every electronic in your house had a research team behind it making sure that it was made correctly. And they got paid big bucks for it, too.

So, if anything, scientific interest will increase because of the growing need for technological innovation to compete in the marketplace. Public funded space and science programs like NASA might be doomed, but science as a whole will get more privatized.

Well, consumer goods will, and have been, driving a serious force of scientific advances, although I suspect sciences that are purely for research (Particle Accellerators; anything that you cannot benefit yourself in any immediate way) will be shunned into nonexistence.
As it is, hardly anyone seriously cares about scientific discovery, regardless of money, and I do not expect that to get better.

 

[Ham_authority95]

about 40 years older, I presume.
NASA will still get a pitifully small funding, scientific interest will grind to a halt.

I doubt that scientific interest will fall flat. You see, science makes businessmen some serious cash.

Every electronic in your house had a research team behind it making sure that it was made correctly. And they got paid big bucks for it, too.

So, if anything, scientific interest will increase because of the growing need for technological innovation to compete in the marketplace. Public funded space and science programs like NASA might be doomed, but science as a whole will get more privatized.

Well, consumer goods will, and have been, driving a serious force of scientific advances, although I suspect sciences that are purely for research (Particle Accellerators; anything that you cannot benefit yourself in any immediate way) will be shunned into nonexistence.
As it is, hardly anyone seriously cares about scientific discovery, regardless of money, and I do not expect that to get better.

Whatever. The future will always be better than the past unless you look at it in a hopeless, pessimistic way like you're doing...

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

I can't really imagine it: one point is a lot can happen from point A to point B, and because I bet you a lot of stuff in a time past 2050, someone will unearth this thread and read it, and laugh at out thoughts.

I'm a bit paranoid now. Or was. Or will be.

 

[Admiral Stukov]

I hope for technolgical enhancements of the human body.
Personally I can't wait for the day I get to truthfully utter the words; "My vision is augmented."

 

[blankedboy]

What we need is some very real, very sad genocide. Or infertility. If we can half or third the world's population over the course of a couple years, then we should be good. And use the Chinese child policy - no more than 2 children per family, with the obvious exception of triplets.

If that doesn't ensue, then, well, there go our resources.

Just nuke the African continent, nobody likes those guys anyway. Hell, as long as North America, Europe, and Australia are still around I'd be happy.

I said genocide, not racism.

 

[Kortney]

Pretty much the same as it is now. Little things and technology will have become more convenient, androgyny will be huge but apart from that it will be pretty much the same.

Just nuke the African continent, nobody likes those guys anyway. Hell, as long as North America, Europe, and Australia are still around I'd be happy.

And let's hope this guy is gone by then.

 

[wagglelance]

Not trying to troll but this is the world in 2012 and there after.
http://goodtimeglory.com/category/shorts/

 

[Singularly Datarific]

about 40 years older, I presume.
NASA will still get a pitifully small funding, scientific interest will grind to a halt.

I doubt that scientific interest will fall flat. You see, science makes businessmen some serious cash.

Every electronic in your house had a research team behind it making sure that it was made correctly. And they got paid big bucks for it, too.

So, if anything, scientific interest will increase because of the growing need for technological innovation to compete in the marketplace. Public funded space and science programs like NASA might be doomed, but science as a whole will get more privatized.

Well, consumer goods will, and have been, driving a serious force of scientific advances, although I suspect sciences that are purely for research (Particle Accellerators; anything that you cannot benefit yourself in any immediate way) will be shunned into nonexistence.
As it is, hardly anyone seriously cares about scientific discovery, regardless of money, and I do not expect that to get better.

Whatever. The future will always be better than the past unless you look at it in a hopeless, pessimistic way like you're doing...

Well, the internet is where I unload my pessimism and imaginatively bleak futures.
To be honest, our generation will hopefully become a decent power in the years to come, whether we like it or not, so it is up to us to make that future awesome.

 

[Ham_authority95]

Well, the internet is where I unload my pessimism and imaginatively bleak futures.
To be honest, our generation will hopefully become a decent power in the years to come, whether we like it or not, so it is up to us to make that future awesome.

That power is ours! *Cheesy fist-pumping*