hi there!

hilbert's hotel, hm? nice one... i like the idea of having an intellectual discussion with people and opinions from all over the world. so here's my thread:

what do you think is the most probable vision of future?

please read on. future in context of one century, approximately. vision refers to our daily life, our work, our lifestyle, what people talk about.
if you want, you can give a short historical approach of what will have happened in 100 years from now.

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the most probable future that i expect to come i've read in a book called "der mastercode" by scott mcbain. in his book he describes a world which is centered around and focused on a computer system called "mother". mother saves every information about our single least important detail of life. where you buy your shoes. where you get your water from. the world is classified by people's net worth.
leaving the last detail unnoticed, the technocentrical world seems very probable to me. i've watched development of the internet and its possibilities for quite a while now (not at last because i'm also a regular user). grabbing one's information from here and there, building one's own information centrals. "web 2.0" is a big step in this direction, heading for our individual experience of the virtual world.

2007 - windows vista comes out. the .net framework 3.0 leads to an overwhelming diversity of software products

2010 - more than 50% of all people are involved in some kind of online community

2021 - microsoft loses its monopolistic position when the von neumann computer design architecture gets outdated and replaced by a more modern, nanotechnological approach

2057 - grey goo of the virtual world.

what do you think?

I think developments in all areas will be going slightly less fast than expected by most. In the eighties people had predicted we'd be walking in a star trek like environment by now. Well, yeah, touchscreens and that kind of stuff are here alright, but the overall environment hasn't quite changed that much. The overall difference between the 19th century and the 20th century has been bigger.

I think in certain areas there will be scientific breakthroughs, but I'd expected more groundbraking stuff already actually.

- I think by 2025-2035 there won't be any car running on gas, because it's gone by then. There may be flying cars. Prototypes of near fully automatic hovercars (not hovercraft, these things work with rotorblades) are already being tested bigtime.

- I think the North Korea problem will be solved within 10 years from now. How much longer can they withstand the economic isolation anyways?

- I think environmental problems will become more important than any ongoing war by 2050. Perhaps clean water will become a global issue, but that would be quite a pessimistic view, but perhaps realistic?

- The speed of light barrier turns out to be none-existant by 2060. At that time, it's only possible for unmanned vessels to reach that speed.

- Perhaps there will be settlements on the moon and/or Mars by 2075.

- I don't think that there will be a World War III between 2006 and a hundred years from now. And I strongly doubt it will be a nuclear war too, it would be quite stupid to do so, only a suïcidal nation would start or want that.

Cheers

which area will be the most powerful, the richest? i tend to think it'll still be the western world, europe. not only is this the case by now but it has also the most advantageous political system.
@phemox: you're indeed right, i'm also of the opinion that cars'll run without gas. hydrogen will serve as energy "source" for both fuel cells and fusion power (estimatedly 2030).

I think China and other asian countries will outgrow the western 1st world countries within half a century. Not sure if they're going to become the richest, but sure as hell there influence is going to be BIG. (yeah, I better continue learning Chinese )

Cheers

the positive first: 2063/4/5 - first warp flight and day of the first contact

seriously: aren't we running into a world of social and economic contasts, of cultural, political, and religious ignorance which will probably lead into a new world war?

@dabro0zar: that was exactly what i meant, i'm not sure whether our current culture can stand all this development. it's like with india's economy: it has an outdated infrastructure which can't bear the booming economy, if you get what i mean...

I do think that China, India, and probably Brazil will become very important global powers.

However, I also thnk there is another thing which is especially important; the rise of smaller developed nations in other parts of the world. Areas that were once considered backward or "third world" will become important global economies.

Chief among these I think is Iran, which is already poised to become a regional superpower. Iran's industrial output is increasing by leaps and bounds, it has an educated middle class, and a stable psuedo-democracy. I predict that within 10-20 years Iran will be a leading world power, competing in the global economic market, and a military giant as well.

As far as Africa goes, I still have a very gloomy outlook here; Africa has so many deep problems that it may take centuries for dramatic improvement. However, there are certain pockets of hope; some nations have had democratic elections, and there is some development in industry and foriegn business investment. Some parts of Africa may become important low-cost manufacturing regions, in the way parts of Asia are now.

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Climate will continue to warm up in the near term, which will cause some problems but may also have benefits, such as longer growing seasons, better shipping routes, etc.

Traditional oil reserves will all peak by 2015, and will begin to run out at an accelerated pace due to massive world demand, bolstered by a rising developing world.

New energy technologies like fuel cells, solar, ethanol, etc will be widespread and economical by 2015.

Flying "cars" will become available for the general market in areas like Europe, Japan, and the US sometimes around 2020. They will be noramly be controlled not b the driver but by an integrated navigation computer and a global traffic control system.

what will be happening with the now considered wealthy states? how will they develop further, or will there be a retarding?

i think for a world state to grow or at last to make nations grow closer there'll be the need for a way cheaper method of transportation. it's still seldom that someone is visiting india just because one's interested in its people and culture. that will also help averting conflicts.

I think some of the now wealthy nations will get problems in the near future. Perhaps even my own country. In the longrun, we are quite expensive and our government focusses to much on services instead of products. Quite a few things can and are done cheaper in other countries. I do think some wealthy nations, like the Netherlands, will get into trouble at one point in time. I'm not pessimistic, but I do think our economy might already have had it's 'best time', just a feeling I have.

Quote:

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i think for a world state to grow or at last to make nations grow closer there'll be the need for a way cheaper method of transportation.

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What do you guys think about current borders? Do you think there will be something like one big United Europe someday? Or perhaps a United Middle-east?

Cheers