How long until this feels dated? Maybe I'm getting too jaded.
You aren't. Look at predictions about the future from 1916. They're the definition of quaint.
The World in 2076
11–20 of 69 posts
Re: The World in 2076
#12It's curious how these predictions always turn out to be based on the current technology, pushed to its limits. Kinda like sci-fi from the 1950s predicts advanced space travel but barely any computers in the early 21st century.
This is a great observation. I grew up reading books that said we would be living in torus shaped space stations and shuttling back and forth to the moon. As you pointed out, there was never any emphasis on computers in these predictions, just video conferencing at best.
The present is disappointing when taken from that perspective, but fortunately Elon Musk probably grew up reading the same books and dreaming about the same future.
Re: The World in 2076
#13Right now I'm more concerned about society changes than technology changes. Will we make democracy work for the average citizen? Will they have control of their data? Do we get to preserve our culture and the rights deriving from it given the continuing mass migration? Will we figure out basic income? If not, what's the job all those people are going to hold? Will we stop concentrating people in a few attractive mega…
You'll have to decide what an 'average' citizen is, first.
What's the average citizen will be like? Will we be homogenous on the scale of the world? One contry? One region? Will there be classes? How they will interact? Will they consider themself one society after all? Will there be large groups of outcasts or lowlives?
Will the illusion of "middle class" finally evaporate? Will it then be a standoff between several equally powerful society sides? Or is it winner takes all, not having to consider any losers anymore?
Re: The World in 2076
#14Re: The World in 2076
#15No singularity?
Would be a pretty short and boring prediction. Individual predictions for specific areas are far more interesting.
Re: The World in 2076
#16Right now I'm more concerned about society changes than technology changes. Will we make democracy work for the average citizen? Will they have control of their data? Do we get to preserve our culture and the rights deriving from it given the continuing mass migration? Will we figure out basic income? If not, what's the job all those people are going to hold? Will we stop concentrating people in a few attractive mega…
You'll have to decide what an 'average' citizen is, first.
Well, they have approximately one testicle and one ovary, slightly under ten fingers, and live some hundreds or thousands of miles beneath southeast Asia.
Re: The World in 2076
#17How long until this feels dated? Maybe I'm getting too jaded.
None of the things listed will happen by 2076. Unfortunately I will be too dead by 2076 to say I told you so, so I have to say it now.
None of this will happen by 2076. If someone finds this comment then, I told you so.
Re: The World in 2076
#18How long until this feels dated? Maybe I'm getting too jaded.
You aren't. Look at predictions about the future from 1916. They're the definition of quaint.
I've gotten the opposite impression. There was a set of drawings from 1910 predicting Paris in 2010. There were some obvious whiffs, but it broadly predicted automation, remote audio/video communications, and other things.
Re: The World in 2076
#19The anti-innovation backlash is the most likely thing to happen.
Today, politicians are winning the populace by lamenting on unfair trade deals, globalism and foreigners taking jobs. Those jobs are not coming back, if they are, certainly not to humans.
We will see a growing class of people who are economically useless. (read Professor Yuval Noah Harari new book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_Deus:_A_Brief_History_of_... ) And, no, the answer is not basic income. It's intelligence augmentation.
Intelligence is the only valuable currency nowadays and we are not acquiring enough of it fast enough compared to the machines.
Our only tool for intelligence augmentation is still education. Not good enough at all. It's already impossible to keep up; let alone learn something from scratch at a late stage in life and be expected to contribute something significant enough to derive long term economic advantage that can't be taken by a machine or globalists.
I think all other issues will fix themselves or reach a natural equilibrium (overpopulation, climate change etc.). But lack of intelligence is our doom.