50 years from now

[Caimh]

Hi Folks,

What would you expect the biggest difference to be between life today and life in fifty years time?

I'm doing a show at the Edinburgh festival about predictions for the future and I'd be interested to hear any thoughts you have.

Cheers,

Caimh

[LionNo4]

The biggest diff for me in50 years time is that i will be dead,what a downer...

[rutineli]

LionNo 4 was right about that but in general I think that it will just be a lot hotter, dryer and more violent.  I would certainly prefer to be wrong and find that something had happened to make us all aware of love, kindness and respect, determined to share scarce resources and aid in the spiritual awareness and growth of our fellows,,,,,,but look around,,..................rutineli

[jno]

Yes, Edinburgh will be pretty tropical, and probably wealthy from selling water to the deserts that make up SE England. (So the Perrier award will really be worth something.)

[smudge]

Virgin will probably be doing trips to the moon!

[Caimh]

Well it's interesting you say hotter, dryer and more violent as in some scenarios the earth will have experienced a lot more flooding and hence be wetter and apparently global warming could trigger a new ice age. Even being more violent is difficult to really say, WW2 is the worst war the war has seen casualty-wise, it could be said we're getting less violent since then. I'd agree though are technical capabilities are always growing more and more deadly in that area.

[Chillum]

I bet you "Last of the bleedin' Summer Wine's" still on though.

[tartanwiz]

Quite simple. Human beings will continue to be violent, wars will continue and inequality will continue with some living in splendour while others live in squalor. Unless we sort things out, of course.

[gingerflaps]

in 50 yrs time there wont be any true english people in england, it will be portuguise, polish, arabs, ukrains, south africans, and lithuwainians. its already getting to be spot-the-english-person around where i live in lincolnshire now.

[Zen]

We will probably have a Muslim government!!!
No alcohol,as many wives as you like(Think of all the mother-in laws) Public executions,stoning etc.Chopping hands of thieves. It's the no Alcohol bit that really bothers me.

[Romeo]

Zen - I like the bit about as many wives as you like :-)

[jno]

gee, gingerflaps, you mean all the descendants of Normans, Romans, Huguenots, Dutch, Australians, French, Russians, Poles, Jews, Chinese, Celts, Romany, Angles, Saxons and Jutes etc etc are going to be swamped by foreigners? Something must be done!

[josieann]

Well what will it be like in fifty years time.  Well computers and technology has taken of in a big way in the past ten years so if what was planned happens there wont be a need for a workforce just a load of people looking at screens.  Money will be a thing of the past instead everything will be exchanged by credits to whatever you are capable of doing. The human touch would have gone with a nation of robot minded people. People dont have to think for themselves much now so I guess computers will do it for us.  Big Brother will definetly be able to track your every move and the powerful will become more powerful.  But just because I like to be optomistic I am sure we wll come to our senses.   Maybe just maybe we will not be eating little tablets as food its a possibility with all the warnings we have about the dangers of eating.   Maybe we will have a decade of getting back to basic i.e. caring for one another and have lost those that think they are superior to others just because they where born in a particular place or of a particulat colour.  

[ann_h]

New technologies will be commonplace and taken for granted, like flexi-screens where an entire laptop will roll up in your pocket, and have a touch key system.  I don't think most innovations here have a major impact on our days and quality of life now that the basic IT is here - what I mean is, mobile phones haven't made a REAL difference compared to ordinary phones, except that people can't have a wee in peace. A 60 inch TV is not essentially different from a 14 inch one. etc

I think the main REAL difference will be a reduction in general health and lifespan due to the last 50 years of greed, wasted resources and pollution, overpopulation; new superbugs, shortages of land, food and fuels.

Sorry to be pessimistic, but there it is!

[chinadoll]

We will all live in dormitories supplied by our employers and work for minimum wage and our kids will be given over to the company's creche to be brought up with the company work ethic ... our genetic info/social status/skills and shopping habits will be carried in a scanner readable chips embedded under our skin...we will work for the glory of the company.... we shall travel on holiday to our company resorts and buy company cars and work 10 hour days six days a week ... we will be constantly reminded of our glorious employers benevolence to us and urged to work harder... and we will enjoy it because the company will tell us we do....

[pigface]

I will have a robot to make me cups of tea in the morning.

[ICEMANSAV]

I might just of paid off my mortgage!

[tinkerbe1983]

I won't be so deliciously pert anymore :o(

[slimfandango]

There is one very definite prediction you can make: there will be discoveries made, things invented, and horizons passed that we have NO CONCEPT OF right now. It's not just that everything we know will get better: things will be different in a way we can't predict. This is one of the most important, enduring lessons of history, in my opinion. Any good science writer will offer a good retrospective: go back 50 years, and try to explain someone then the concepts of: quantum mechanics; the internet; neuroscience: personal computing; discovery of other planets; cloning; Michael Jackson.

They wouldn't begin to understand even how those advances might have been made.

Crucially, you then add into the mix the idea that technology is increasing at an exponential pace, and...there's just no predicting.

There'll be a damn sight more old people, that's for sure! Maybe 40% of the population over 65? And earth's population will just be through the roof (thanks JPII!)

[slimfandango]

If you get really stuck, you could always rip off "Dilbert's guide to the future" by Scott Adams! Terrific book.

[jno]

actually slimfandango, I think a lot of those things were predicted, at least speculatively, by science fiction writers. (I'm not sure about quantum mechanics, not exactly my specialist subject.) Always interesting too to see the things that were predicted and still don't look like coming true.