What are you guys' expectations? Will it be as astonishing as 21st century was, if you look at the technology at the begining of 21st century and at the end of 21st century, we made an antonishing progress. Will it be similar this time or even better? What progress do you expect with respect to Transportation, Computing, Health, Power/Energy, Military tech, Space tech, Farming, Communication etc etc
What can we expect at the end of this century?
- Thread starter Deepak
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MulciberXP
Regular
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DuckThor Evil
Legend
Umm. We are currently living 21st century...
The main problem with this kind of expectations is that people always expect the earth-shattering ones to become common, while disregarding how the simple ones change things.
Everyone a spaceship? Don't count on it. A flying car? Not really. More home automation and better contact management? Definitely. Becoming immortally young? No way. Getting older, on average? Yes.
The first main breakthrough of the last century (or even a bit earlier) was replacing muscle power with engine power. The second was replacing mental power with computers. And the most noticeable ones are with communication: cell phones and the internet.
The thing that doesn't change is how people wnat to live their lives. They want to spend time with their family. The small things, like the washing machine, refrigerator, in-house lighting and electricity changed things far more than the big things, like going to the moon. Because that's not what most people do.
In short: regular people will have the comforts of the current wealthy, but unless there is another breakthrough that makes things more convenient and saves them time, not much will change.
For gradual improvements, we only need miniaturization or better power supplies.
The only unknown left seems to be health care and biologics. Can we design organisms that can keep us healthy, or replace factories for cheap? We might very well. That would increase the lifespan of our grandchildren and give them more material wealth than we can imagine. But it will take a long time.
Another interesting prospect is artificial intelligence and direct mind interfaces. But I mostly expect really useful and semi-autonomous robots on that account. Useful in the house and factory, but not much more.
So, the amount of quality time we can spend with our (virtually expanded) friends and family will grow, the amount of simple jobs will drop, and everything will be a bit better, cheaper and faster.
Everyone a spaceship? Don't count on it. A flying car? Not really. More home automation and better contact management? Definitely. Becoming immortally young? No way. Getting older, on average? Yes.
The first main breakthrough of the last century (or even a bit earlier) was replacing muscle power with engine power. The second was replacing mental power with computers. And the most noticeable ones are with communication: cell phones and the internet.
The thing that doesn't change is how people wnat to live their lives. They want to spend time with their family. The small things, like the washing machine, refrigerator, in-house lighting and electricity changed things far more than the big things, like going to the moon. Because that's not what most people do.
In short: regular people will have the comforts of the current wealthy, but unless there is another breakthrough that makes things more convenient and saves them time, not much will change.
For gradual improvements, we only need miniaturization or better power supplies.
The only unknown left seems to be health care and biologics. Can we design organisms that can keep us healthy, or replace factories for cheap? We might very well. That would increase the lifespan of our grandchildren and give them more material wealth than we can imagine. But it will take a long time.
Another interesting prospect is artificial intelligence and direct mind interfaces. But I mostly expect really useful and semi-autonomous robots on that account. Useful in the house and factory, but not much more.
So, the amount of quality time we can spend with our (virtually expanded) friends and family will grow, the amount of simple jobs will drop, and everything will be a bit better, cheaper and faster.
Robots will do just about everything that we don't want to. They'll mow our lawns, clean our houses, do our dishes, and basically give us the time at home to do what we want. Also, we'll look back on global warming the same way we now look back on global cooling from the 70's......
I wonder what our government will think up to scare us by then. My dream is that we won't have a government to send us off and get killed....maybe we'll have advanced to a point where we can run our own lives. Oh wait, I do that right now. Nevermind
www.freedomainradio.com
I wonder what our government will think up to scare us by then. My dream is that we won't have a government to send us off and get killed....maybe we'll have advanced to a point where we can run our own lives. Oh wait, I do that right now. Nevermind
www.freedomainradio.com
Well, I think there will be two primary issues that will be important for much of the century: religious extremism (particularly Islamic), and global warming. As for technology, I suspect that the biggest advancements will be in our understanding and implementation of biochemical processes. We will start actively modifying our own biology before the end of the century (note that we've already started doing it on small scales; look up genetic counseling), and we may even move to biological computers and other macroscopic biological machines.
Edit: Oops! Forgot a huge issue that we're going to be facing: energy. We're either going to solve our energy problems within the next few decades, or this century will see the beginning of a new dark age.
Edit: Oops! Forgot a huge issue that we're going to be facing: energy. We're either going to solve our energy problems within the next few decades, or this century will see the beginning of a new dark age.
cloudscapes
Regular
Frank brings up great points! another thing to consider is just because it might be technologically feasable doesn't mean it would or should be integrated in society. flying cars for example. I have no doubt in my midn that in a hundred years it will be possible to manufacter car-sized flying vehicles at an "affordable" price, but it would be a logistical nightmare for cities and laws. also, I'm not sure enough peopel are confident and skilled enough to want to take up flying lessons to make it a viable transport alternative. even if a computer did al lthe flying, there's that fear that if something goes wrong, you might not make it out alive!
Haha that is a 100% certainty. The only way it wouldn't be is if a worldwide apocolypse level catastrophe has happened.
No wait I take that back even then they'd still be around creating games for everyone to play while they're dying of radiation and viruses.
And they'll will celebrate by launching the Wii20, now in HD.
Freak'n Big Panda
Regular
No idea what we can expect but I hope we have some form of direct mind interface as frank mentioned. I/O devices are really holding us back.
Orgasmotron
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