The Future!

[SonicBoomS]

What do you think the future will be like a hundred or so years from now? I've always pondered what life will be like when we're all gone.... do you think there'll be flying cars, interplanetary space travel, cures for diseases, global peace, etc etc. I want to hear your guys' thoughts and fantasies on this

How do you see life in the future?

[Namluck]

The world is going to end in 2012, didn't you get the memo?

But really, I think in the future almost all technology, whether it be a toaster or toilet, will have more computing power than the desktop computers we use today. Eventually, natural gas will run out, causing wars. Eventually there will be either massive natural disasters, a world wide disease, food shortage, a world war, or a combination that will wipe out a majority of the population. There is an exponential growth of people and the world will need balance.

I don't believe that we will successfully leave our solar system for colonization, there is just too much distance between here and the next star and a lot that could go wrong on the journey. But colonization of the moon or mars could be possible.

And no, I don't think the world is really going to end in 2012.

[Tcyiora]

Ohh neat question! :D

Lawl I think that if the world were to end next year (4 months? O.o) we'd be seeing a lot of crap happen right now :P

Hmmmm in the future there would obviously be flying cars :P since they've already made flying cars ^^

I'd like to see the future to be really sleek, clean and also green ;)
Really nice houses with flat tops so that you could land your flying car on it ^^ so that way there is more room on the ground for other things besides roads
Obviously there would be robots... JET PACKS <3 do want. Aaaaannnnddd..... lots of cool high tech toys 8D

I'm going to live to see it D:< I don't care. I'm doing it.

[gagebass]

well personally i think the world doesnt have much longer but that is do to religious beliefs that i try not to express (have had trouble with a guild about that once) unless ask for them directly but i think that in 100 years there will be much more public transportation than there is now mostly trains a subways maybe more buses which would not mean much to someone who lives in a rural area which would be much more rare 100 years from now, with the influx of people moving out of the nearby cities and into the country side. out of what namluck listed (food shortage , war, disease) it will be the combination of all of them eventually (religious beliefs again ) but if i put those aside only war and disease. most people in England in the industrial revolution though that the population boom would cause that but it never happened. as for natural disasters mother earth will keep doing what she does if we are here are not . war and disease is all our future generations will have to worry about. war because human are unpredictable and will always butt heads as long as we are on this earth. disease because the bacteria are evolving constantly and eventually become immune to antibiotics and will spread like wildfire unless some wicked smart doctor does something


bleak outlook i know

[Aequitas Caeci]

We'll all be floating clouds of nanites with computer brains...the singularity is near:)

[Herithius]

I like the question too. Quite novel.

1) Technology - Thanks to this, it will be a vastly different experience. After all, think how the world was 20 years ago? No internet, no cell phones, no emails, NO MMORPGS!!! etc. Now they dominate our lives. Technology will be everywhere. From mobile, one eyed headset pieces to flat touch screens to cars that will do the driving once you input the destination. Can't forget 3D! I think this will be a huge addiction to those escaping reality. I'm constantly amazed by human ingenuity so I think there will be some remarkable innovations that will drastically change our lives. Will it solve a lot of our problems? Absolutely.... but not all and may create a few problems of it's own.

2) Globally - I think it will be a very tough time for humanity as the next 100 years are pivotal.

1800 - 978 million
1900 - 1.65 billion
2000 - 6.07 billion
2011 - 6.77 billion (current)
2050 - 9.15 billion (estimated)
2111 - ?????

Let's face it, the planet can only deliver so many resources that are sustainable / can only sustain so much. With a population that continues to explode in developing countries / advances in medicine create longer life, I think there will be a lot of suffering / inequality. If countries don't find a way to control their populations I think a lot of these people are going to live tough lives and globally the environment will take a huge hit. I'm hoping at the end humanity will reach a renaissance of understanding what it needs to do to thrive on this planet. Otherwise it'll get a lot uglier before it gets better. Humanity usually only acts when it's back is to the wall which it's "almost" at.

3) While space travel doesn't seem to be a reality beyond our solar system with our current understanding of physics, I'm hopeful that with our leaps and bounds with telescopes that we can maybe discover many Earth type planets and find out that in fact the criteria for a habitable, flourishing planet isn't quite as rare as previously thought. In the last 10 years alone astronomy has realized there are FAR more planets in the cosmos than previously thought which changes a lot of variables. Also will we get to hear some foreign radio signals? You never know....

[Nwahs]

"I don't believe that we will successfully leave our solar system for colonization, there is just too much distance between here and the next star and a lot that could go wrong on the journey."

People used to think that about crossing the oceans

[mrmarko]

Nwahs Nirom wrote:

"I don't believe that we will successfully leave our solar system for colonization, there is just too much distance between here and the next star and a lot that could go wrong on the journey." People used to think that about crossing the oceans

Indeed.

But the speed of light poses a unique problem for space travel.

It's simply not fast enough to achieve any reasonable level of space exploration within the human lifespan - not to mention if anything goes wrong during the time required to travel vast differences.

The alternative would be sending people out in deep sleep when the technology was available - sadly if this was the happen we would most likly advance beyond the people we sent out (causing us to arrive sooner in the future than the people sent out in the past).

But I doubt we will make it past 50 years, some crackpot with a doomsday belief will cause Armageddon long before then.

I'm literally amazed we have managed to go this far without blowing ourselves up already.

[Lord Marvel]

I don`t want flying cars in future... there is enough fatal accidents while we are on ground...

Instead I would like to see cars that would use electricity/hydrogen, or some other harmless fuel.

I would like to see Moon and/or Mars colonized and prosperous trade established between colonies and Earth.

I would like to see brain/PC port created and being able to transfer our personality into WWW by this achieving something that may be called immortality


Those are the three thing I would look forward to most

I would also like to see that world would be without prejudice or hate... but this would take more than 1000 years to achieve probably... I really do wonder when people will have enough of all this hatred in world and will finally say "NO" to it... I would like to see it in my lifespan, but this is probably impossible

[Hart of Hircine]

I would like to see a world of space travel and colonization. Also I would like to see games that digitize your bodies but you don't die in game you just respawn. Also with the game thing when you your stats so to speak like endurace fatigue or strength increase so does your real life body but none of your so called powers come into the real world to make the world safe. Also when you die you become a permenit member of the web kinda like an ai or like that lady off of halo.

[Valtrics]

for those that don't know, I'm a major fan of the "Deus Ex" series. Again, if you have not played any of these games, I STRONGLY recommend it.

If the game does not look interesting, I encourage you to at least watch the 2 trailers:

My personal beliefs for the future: Deus Ex (I don't believe in EVERY point the game makes, but similar views). It's set in the the year 2020-2030, not so far away.....

[Legendkiller456]

Flying cars, blasters, lightsabers, the Force, and... oh wait that's Star Wars :P

[Adroc]

I think the only thing that can really save us is technology. Besides that, we are doomed to continue making the same mistakes.....which is a shame. Someone mentioned that traveling to the next start system is highly unlikely. But I believe that if mankind were to truly unite under the same cause we can do things like that. Finding solutions to these problems is a possibility. But I am not naive enough to believe we can just figure out some new tech....it would be something that takes time. But if you look at history and how far we've come in the past 100 years it wouldn't be too out of the realm of possibility for technology to continue to grow the way it has.

I believe that we will either become a greater humanity that helps one another or we will destroy each other. Like others have said, the planet will not be able to sustain life if it continues to grow the way it has. The movie Soilent Green comes to mind.

[Zoron Ror]

I hope nanotechnology takes off, I would like to see it put to use on curing diseases, prolonging life span, cleaning up the planet and terraforming Mars.

Hopefully we will leave the solar system and colonize other worlds and have a strong economy of trading between planets. I doubt this will happen in my lifetime though, although I hope to live to see an independent colony established on Mars.

The population is growing too fast, I hope there will be stricter controls on the number of children you're allowed. Third world countries also need more education on contraception.

[Captain Bubbles]

Herithius wrote:

1800 - 978 million 1900 - 1.65 billion 2000 - 6.07 billion 2011 - 6.77 billion (current) 2050 - 9.15 billion (estimated) 2111 - ????? Let's face it, the planet can only deliver so many resources that are sustainable / can only sustain so much. With a population that continues to explode in developing countries / advances in medicine create longer life, I think there will be a lot of suffering / inequality. If countries don't find a way to control their populations I think a lot of these people are going to live tough lives and globally the environment will take a huge hit. I'm hoping at the end humanity will reach a renaissance of understanding what it needs to do to thrive on this planet. Otherwise it'll get a lot uglier before it gets better. Humanity usually only acts when it's back is to the wall which it's "almost" at.

Zoron Ror wrote:

The population is growing too fast, I hope there will be stricter controls on the number of children you're allowed. Third world countries also need more education on contraception.

This is what concerns me the most. I foresee wars for resources... There just isn't enough room for all of these people on the planet. We need to stop making babies and it needs to be enforced, everywhere around the world. If we don't take care of that problem ourselves, nature will just flush us out...

Also, can you believe that there are educated people who don't believe in global warming and climate changes? These are the people that need to stop reproducing. I feel as a whole, we are pretty stupid and we should really try to not make it worse. I'm pretty harsh when it comes to this, but that's just 'cause I'm very opiniated.