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Ask HN: What are your predictions for the next 50 years?

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Re: Ask HN: What are your predictions for the next 50 years?

#61

Post by majewsky »

bksenior wrote: post #43
void_ita wrote: post #41

1) developers won't be needed anymore ( https://medium.com/thron-tech/as-a-service-offering-is-chang... ) 2) population decline will be huge, but not for the reasons most ppl talk about. It will be because we will reach a "good enough" sex robot and that will end most physical relationships between sexes 3) there will be just one or two languages in the whole world, with a huge loss in diversity from a culture standp…

Ive long said that a good enough/affordable sex robot is more dangerous to the western civilization than literally any weapon of mass destruction.

I want a scifi novel where those "good enough sex robots" end up being dropped into foreign countries as a weapon of mass depopulation.

Re: Ask HN: What are your predictions for the next 50 years?

#62

Post by gt2 »

virgilp wrote: post #38

True story: inspired by some dude on the internet, I thought I'd try my hand at "predictions". I made a post with my technology predictions for the next 10 or 15 years (not 50, I'm not THAT naive). I don't have a personal website, so I placed that post on Google+, to have it for future reference. Boy, do I suck at predictions.

What were they?

Re: Ask HN: What are your predictions for the next 50 years?

#64

Post by badpun »

estomagordo wrote: post #53
badpun wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Since at least medieval times, civilization as a whole has tended to move towards freer, more democratic societies - almost without any meaningful, lengthy changes. This is particularly true since the industrial revolution. (Correct me if I'm wrong above.) This is a very Eurocentric view. In the rest of the world, this mostly wasn't (and still isn't) the case.

Yeah, I realize I'm being rather eurocentric. The setbacks have been longer and more plentiful in Africa and Asia, but I maintain that the trend is also true there.

Where exactly? I'd say that democracies took root only in places (such as India, Japan) which were conquered and then organized by western countries. Other than that, not so much.

Re: Ask HN: What are your predictions for the next 50 years?

#65

Post by jvzr »

gt2 wrote: post #62
virgilp wrote: post #38

True story: inspired by some dude on the internet, I thought I'd try my hand at "predictions". I made a post with my technology predictions for the next 10 or 15 years (not 50, I'm not THAT naive). I don't have a personal website, so I placed that post on Google+, to have it for future reference. Boy, do I suck at predictions.

What were they?

Somehow, one involved Google+ staying alive.

Re: Ask HN: What are your predictions for the next 50 years?

#66

Post by pgcj_poster »

void_ita wrote: post #41

1) developers won't be needed anymore ( https://medium.com/thron-tech/as-a-service-offering-is-chang... ) 2) population decline will be huge, but not for the reasons most ppl talk about. It will be because we will reach a "good enough" sex robot and that will end most physical relationships between sexes 3) there will be just one or two languages in the whole world, with a huge loss in diversity from a culture standp…

> there will be just one or two languages in the whole world

In fifty years? Lots of people currently breathing will be alive in fifty years. Even if, starting tomorrow, every single baby was brought up speaking English or Chinese, there will still be lots of old people speaking other languages fifty ears from now.

Re: Ask HN: What are your predictions for the next 50 years?

#67

Post by ramblerman »

- VR will make it, and become commonplace

- Deep fake ai type technology will allow for quasi automatic generation of landscapes, castles and people making creating your own video game or movie a matter of story writing, and letting the computer fill in the details.

- China's growth will slow down drastically as more and more reach the middle class.

- Most middle eastern dictatorships will get into trouble with the loss of oil money.

- South America grows as a market, and becomes more stable

Re: Ask HN: What are your predictions for the next 50 years?

#68

Post by virgilp »

gt2 wrote: post #62
virgilp wrote: post #38

True story: inspired by some dude on the internet, I thought I'd try my hand at "predictions". I made a post with my technology predictions for the next 10 or 15 years (not 50, I'm not THAT naive). I don't have a personal website, so I placed that post on Google+, to have it for future reference. Boy, do I suck at predictions.

What were they?

Of course I would forget that.. that's kinda' the point of storing it somewhere where I could go back to it, many years later (also I wanted somewhere where it was stored with a verifiable timestamp so that I could share it X years later and make it obvious that it's not something I made up on the spot, but something that I truly predicted years ago)

(I'm pretty sure one of them was around the idea that "data science will be the new 'computer science' in terms of job attractivity", but I honestly forgot the others. There were something like "20 things" or anyway a fixed number of predictions, some that I felt were bolder and some that were "safe bets").

Re: Ask HN: What are your predictions for the next 50 years?

#69

Post by pgcj_poster »

- Google will continue to exist, but lose relevance to emerging companies, similar to IBM.

- Virtual reality headsets will replace both smartphones and desktop computers.

- Roe v. Wade will be overturned, but the constitution will be amended to protect abortion rights.

- Brexit will continue being delayed indefinitely.

- San Francisco will start its own Navy.

- White people will become a minority in the United States, but a majority in Japan.

- Cranston, Rhode Island exceed Paris, France in tourists/year, but not in total revenue from tourism.

- A saintly king[1] will take control of France, conquer Greece, and convert the entire world to Catholicism.

- The Higgs Boson particle will remain undiscovered.

- Ohio will become a Marxist-Leninist one-party state.

- The Jewish Messiah will arrive, and construct the 3rd temple. It will be converted into a Walmart due to lack of attendance.

- The Scandinavian language will split into three mutually unintelligible dialects: Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian. In Iceland, everyone will just speak English.

- North and South Korea will be re-united, but subsequently re-partitioned into East and West Korea due to partisan violence.

- Harvard and MIT will be combined into a single institution, which will exclusively grant degrees in "Religious Studies," "Computer Engineering," and "Religious Studies And Computer Engineering."

- London, Chicago, and several other major cities will cease to exist.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Roman_Emperor#Catholic_tr...

Re: Ask HN: What are your predictions for the next 50 years?

#70

Post by [deleted] »

username90 wrote: post #57
timonoko wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a personal computer in 1975. And radio amateurs had a pocketable device he could make phone calls everywhere in Finland. The coverage was probably better than cell-phones today, because at 7 Mhz. I also had internet address in 1985: timonoko@nokia.fi. Nothing much else has happened in last 30 years. https://www.flickr.com/photos/timonoko/102552851/in/album-72...

You having a computer or your friend having a cellphone didn't change the world, internet and cellphones becoming cheap and mainstream did.

[deleted]
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