Discussed this on a bike ride recently. Main discussion was when you w***ed over a magazine. Thats middle aged men for you, full of the detail on the important philosophical things….

In the future I will find the sock that I lost, by which time I will have either misplaced or binned the other one.

I had the great idea of setting a bag aside for odd socks.  Every time I was left with an odd sock after doing the laundry I’d pop it in the bag until its pair turned up.

The flaw in my logic manifested itself when I suddenly realised, months later, that the bag now contained not just odd socks but also the ones which matched them and were only ‘odd’ in the first place by dint of me originally bagging the first one.  I’d been wondering “where the hell have all my socks gone?” for weeks.

In the future though searching for things may be redundant as Google/Amazon AI will just predict everything you are thinking or likely to want to search for or buy.

LOL. Like google lists all “restaurants” i.e. McDonalds AND Burger King.

One thing you can be sure of is that things will change but there will be an element of wrong-footing us. Remember when mountain bikes got steeper and steeper angles and longer stems and narrower bars? Or phones got smaller and smaller until we thought they’d be so small they’d go in our ears or something, instead of not fitting our pockets.

Meanwhile car sat-navs are getting bigger, but with shite touch screens that you can’t use and hands-free phone kits are redundant, not just because of built-in systems but because **** prefer to just text while driving with their knees.

There were pictures of self-driving cars in the Eagle comic in god-knows-when.

Meanwhile I’m still typing this on a keyboard at a desk which I drive to in a car that runs on decayed animals. Who knew.

First contact

Nature finding a way to thin out the human population (she’s making inroads now…)

Cycle and component manufacturers agreeing on industry standards – oops, getting carried away there, silly me 😬

We’ll have another referendum to re-join the EU

The future however is there for the moulding and it’s down to us all…

hhmm, I hardly think future generations will be able to quote my interweb ramblings from memory! 😆

I reckon future has heehaw to do with me, beyond the next, hopefully, 30/40 years, 50 if I’m really blinking lucky! 😆

Yeah, I remember those days, and getting a bollocking for trying to get out of it bouncing emails around servers to find one with an external gateway

*** X25 RESET

Where / when were you, out of interest?

Waterworld.

Teleportation like in the fly (only without the fly bit) will do away with all forms of transport and the need for medical assistance. Got a broken leg? Just teleport to fix it and because the teleporters break down at a genetic level you could take out any disease or physical disablement or you could change your dna to include wings or change the shape of your nose or become slimmer.

Awesome post Cougar, proper lol’d at that 👍

First Contact.. hmm good choice. Will Jody Foster be in it?

Traffic, a lot less. I don’t know why but I have the suspicion that traffic chaos is coming to an end. Could be the demise of the commute to work or large companies shedding workers or making them work remotely to save on costs or asset values as the price of property plummets… either a combination or workplace becoming largely a remote occupation.

Weather, becomes more unstable. Climate Change or a tilt shift in the earths angle could be catastrophic.. I predict a shift in polarity too by a few more degrees.

Blue Peter time capsule to be opened, and we stand back in awe at a crayon drawing done by Cougar.

What can we expect 100 years from now?

In no particular order.

1. Human population growth.

2. Mega cities in the west (already happening in the east).

3. Smaller new house with two rooms (one double and one single) becomes the norm.

4. Two main currencies that influence the world economy – USD vs RMB

5. Two major languages dominate the world – English & Chinese (Spanish/Latin relegated due to non-economy influence)

6. Technology advancement – we are all connected, traced and monitored via our DNA.

7. Ideology rejection – West vs East.  Freedom paralysis vs control progress (they are symbiotic).

8. More animals extinction.

9. Capital punishment is being brought back.

10. Medical advancement but also more new diseases appearing.

11.  Food shortages due to mismanagement or deliberate control.

12. More efficient clean fuel transportation (not necessarily electric).

13. Two superpower equally match – USA & China (with equal armaments whether it is the number aircraft carrier, nuclear subs etc all equal)

😀

USA has a civil war and splits in two; China implodes via social revolution; EU goes bankrupt.

British Empire starts running the show again.

Huzzah!

In the future all socks will feature homing beacons, except those on sale at CRC because of the added weight.

JG Ballard often said the future would be boring. He was better than most at predicting stuff.

USA has a civil war and splits in two

I don’t know whether the US’s demise would come at its own hands. If it continues to lose friends and make enemies it’ll less of a self-elected global police force and more of a global threat –  it might be the international community that intervenes and dismantles it.

I don’t know whether the US’s demise would come at its own hands.

Not just US but the entire Western World’s demise will come at their own hands.

chewkw makes some more reasoned points, serious points that we really ought to acknowledge.

Food poverty – a real issue for humanity. We only need a couple of strains of blight and that’s it. It’ll spread as we trade around the world and infect the food chain. Thereby rendering those that have access or control food production to limit both supply and quality to all, although we all know it’s the poor that suffer and we see this happening around us now.. so it’s nothing new.. but are we doing anything about it ? Yes the seed Bank is there, genetically modified is with us but we are sceptical of the latter and the former is only a reference point to be replicated by the latter.

Sea contamination – poisonous seas are already with us, traces of plastic are now in every ocean and probably every water course near populated areas. It’ll only take a small increase and a contaminant to attach and we’ll all suffer. Seas will die, it’s happening now, and Water will become another supply/demand and control economic foil.

Politics – are we really moving into the age of the enlightenment ? Or are we moving to segregation on both economic and racial plains ? I think, let me qualify, I’d like to believe we are moving towards enlightenment and cohesion where racial motives and political career motives have no influence on the morality of the voter, nor the outcome of elections based upon lies and more lies.

Medical/medicine – the rise of the conglomerate will only continue to the point where medicines are the next economic social constraint. You either have the money to support a remedy for a cold or you don’t and it’s not available to all.. no longer free at point of treatment but a planned immunisation stream to those that can afford it. Those that can’t afford remedies will suffer in the same way are food and water restrictions. Medical science will however flourish with new treatments on anti-aging and recovery to the point of limbs being regrown and teeth being regrown too. Nano technology will be able to be employed to open arteries and clear clots, do internal minor surgery and administer replacement DNA material to infected areas.

If you are 50 today and are about to have kids, what would you like to see your kids doing/achieving in your later life?

Predictions for the early C22… it’s gonna be a close call as to how societies develop, which will depend upon food and water. Any **** up in the chain for either or both will determine how many hover boards are made and how many survive.

It is a certainty that the planet will go through its continuing life cycles and how this affects the resident life will depend upon the severity, extremes, yadda yadda. Anyway, get through that and in 500 years we enter the Age of Aquarius which as is well known, from there, we become awesomer  😆

Population boom and bust. Influenza is a huge threat.

Climate change will have a huge impact. Massive displacement and transit of population from parts of the world no longer able to sustain. Will this lead to a more globalised view of citizenship or a hardening of nationalism and immigration policies?. Desperate wars of survival between states and peoples?

In terms of food – shortages managed by by intensive production of nutrient algae/fungus processed into various mock food. Factory grown meat for the those who can afford. Real plant and animal based food only for the uber rich.

It’s always possible for a very serious shift in some of the things we take for granted – pensions/retirement unaffordable is easy foresee, what about welfare state more widely. But why should bigger things eg democracy continue as it is now – universal suffrage in the UK is only 90 (not 100) years old. Why do we think it will persist – if there is a populist lurch to the far right or far left leading to authoritarian nationalism – very popular it big chunks of Europe in the c20.

On the upside video games should be amazing – I got a Binatone pong console for my 11th birthday about 40 years ago – look where we are now!

I,for one welcome back our lizard overlords.

US/Chinese Pacific war in the next 20 years, either a phyrric victory for the US or turgid stalemate.  US implodes and becomes very isolationist and the Chinese Empire falters under ageing population and corruption.

Massive EU unrest due to uncontrollable migration and the erection of a Steel Curtain on the Northern Med.  Further problems with Russia (again imploding under corruption issues so blames the West for its ills)

Middle East erupts into small scale Nuclear War, Tel Aviv, Tehran, Riyad disappear.  Major powers step back and let them get on with bombing each other as oil losing importance but continue to flog them weapons systems.

In a lab in one of the major powers universities a nano tech system beaks loose.   Hopefully it’s China    where the security services have a spine, realise the extent of the problem and H Bomb their own city before the grey plague becomes unstoppable and all consuming.

Environment begins to become toxic to humanity, climate change models massively optimistic and truth is that at some point the negative feedback loops flip into horrific positive feedback.  Sea level rises, crop failures and limited wars cull mankind back to sensible levels,

Pretty much everything that happens in the next century, along with much of what is happening now, will be as a result of climate change and how countries, elites and populations react and adapt to it. Even if all emissions stop tomorrow, many of the effects are locked in. Without wanting to be conspiratorial, I reckon most world governments know this and are preparing and planning for it. Hence the trend toward isolationism and beggar-thy-neighbour policies. I fully expect this to result in war. Probably just a question of what type? Ironically a nuclear war could solve the climate change and population problems so I guess there’s an upside 🙂

I  think that people will begin to realise that it’s not the baby boomers (or immigrants) that have done for them but rather their employers screwing  down on ‘margins’, rent seekers exploiting people’s need for a roof, banks profiting from people’s poverty and the mass media filling their heads with custard and ‘identity issues’ to distract them from the reality of class division. Austerity is just another term for taking from the poor and giving to the rich but exploitative regimes cannot last forever and they won’t.

Even within the confines of capitalism, we could all live as well, at the very least, as the Danes, Norwegians and Finns but that won’t happen without a fight. Moaning about retirees is destined to deliver NO CHANGE and the current set up and the Daily Mail etc would be very happy with that.

Get organised to get results and change will come. Sit on your arris and you’re ****. The future won’t just happen, it has to be won.

Well this thread has taken a cheery turn 😩  what happened to the Star Trek future?

… problem with Star Trek futures is that we are basically stuck on this planet which we are screwing up. Faster than light travel is not possible and a few dozen people living on a mars colony is not going to help.

Basically without concerted and collective effort to indentify and mitigate the environmental impact we are having on the planet things could get grim…

Food poverty – a real issue for humanity. We only need a couple of strains of blight and that’s it. It’ll spread as we trade around the world and infect the food chain. Thereby rendering those that have access or control food production to limit both supply and quality to all, although we all know it’s the poor that suffer and we see this happening around us now.. so it’s nothing new.. but are we doing anything about it ? Yes the seed Bank is there, genetically modified is with us but we are sceptical of the latter and the former is only a reference point to be replicated by the latter.

insect burgers!

If we’re comparing to tv/movies then I’d say Buck Rogers or Demolition Man is closer to the mark than Star Trek. Or The Day After. I’d say Robocop too but that already come true 🙂

Cheery?

I think as the thread wore on it became more serious because we started to view reality, not some fantasy world.

Its just a pragmatist view of mine, one held since the 70’s yet here I am tapping on a computer in the bog.

As for the government knowing such outcomes, I think they’ve both designed the outcome and planned for it.

We’ve all seen films of segregation and/or dystopian future worlds. It’s ingrained into our psychology that at some point mass destruction will happen, or some planned destruction of populations. Just a matter of time and lack of basic human necessities is all that’s needed to tip the balance.

30yrs ago if you’d have asked me the same question, I would have then said “I don’t see any further for the human race than 2010” One for that fact that the date seemed so far away and unachievable and Two I honestly thought we’d be in a pit due to some nuclear war.

Yet here I am (again) tapping on a computer in the bog.

It does us good to be a little fatalistic, grounds is back into reality once in a while.

二十年来，我们都会说中文

I’m amazed that no one has mentioned interplanetary habitation yet. I think it’s inevitable that we will start to populate Mars, thereby reducing some of the human pressure on Earth.

i also suspect that someone, at some point, will press the red button.

If you want a more optimistic view, read the book Post-Capitalism by Paul Mason. It’s not about the future per se but it does at least offer an alternative to the ‘consume everything as if it’ll last forever perpetual growth suicide mission’ which the human race is currently pursuing. There’s not a lot of evidence though that a post-capitalist fantasy land awaits us. More like a robocop+ scenario.

And Mars? Come off it. We can’t even agree to use renewable energy, let alone join together to do something on the scale of colonising other planets.

STW website finally working.

I think I’m a naturally pessimistic person when it comes to this stuff. When I was a kid/teenager in the 70s early 80s the chance of dying in a nuclear armageddon seemed a real possibility.

<span style=”font-size: 0.8rem;”> The difference with nuclear v climate change is that climate change is incremental and will have incteasiingly severe consequences if nothing is done, where’s nuclear destruction requires an action in the hands of a small number of self-regulated structues (give or take the odd North Korea). </span>

If we ever get to the point where we can make somewhere as uninhabitable as Mars viable for significant numbers of people then surely we will have sorted out the issues that are making our planet less habitable.  I think  Mars will only ever be mall experimaexpe and very grim colonies – just think about being locked in a semi temporary structures for the rest of your life).

The only way to address the global issues are through internationsl collective action and regulation. Not popypop ideas in a Trump/Brexit world.

On the flip side, people and structures are very resilient and the incentive to solve problems the ought technology increase as the problems increase.

Interplanetary colonisation?

No, I don’t think there is the current appetite for such mass participation. Humans like familiarity, few exceptions to that. Science base and materials mining I can see happening, but that comes at a price of exploration and extraction and transportation.. I don’t think there are many people/organisations willing to predict both capability and cost estimates. When humans have a track record of mass underestimating capability and employing functions at a planned cost base.

The current science project of the Sun monitor satellite has been planned for 20 odd years and cost £bn(s) and what will be gained from the experiment? Some stats, pretty pictures and an understanding of solar winds. Which begs the question why it got its funding if there isn’t some such organisation pushing for the data… because perhaps the planning is already underway for nutrient shortages caused by climate issues ??

Dunno.

But yeah STW to have a functioning website would be a step forward into the future world 😜🤠

So let me get this straight, you guys think your great grandkids are gonna prance around in robot suits on Mars, eating insects in the wake of a government initiated mass extinction event?

Freaks

Well you have your ear close to the ground and do more in depth investigation and analysis than the rest of STW put together. You tell us what’s going to happen.

You tell us what you know will happen?

FIFy

Oil lobby keeps lobbying, Arms Manufacturers keep arming, temperature keeps increasing, sea level keeps rising, coastal nuclear reactors keep reacting.

Everyone lets it happen and pays the price