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Your visions of the futureThank you for your emails and here are some of your many predictions about the future:
My prediction for the 21st century is that we find a cure for all the major illnesses. There is also a good possibility that some people will be living in outer space or colonising the planet Mars.
Kelly A. Kostecki
As someone who grew up at the dawn of the sputnik age, my guess is, by the end of this century, human society will build an inter-galactic autobahn to travel at nearly the speed of light to distant stars and planets.
By the year 2100 the people of the developed world will be living in a computer based society, where reality has been replaced by virtual experience. Every aspect of our lives will be virtual.... It will just be cheaper to enjoy virtual reality as it will be as real and vivid as the real world. This is based on the ever-increasing growth of computing power and the likely advent of quantum computers combined with advances in neuro-technology and greater knowledge on how the brain works.
The most exciting discoveries of the new century will be in the sciences of mathematics, computing and biology. This may not affect the average person but will open up whole new fields of research and understanding.
Mars landing:2061 (century after Gagarin).
Moon ignored until closing years of century.
Chinese astronaut in space by 2005.
Chinese space station: 2030.
Totally effective baldness cure:2015.
First entire human organ grown from stem cells: 2030.
Perfection of artificial: heart: 2025, eye:2035, womb:2050.
GM crops accepted by public:2030.
First female American President: 2009.
First female Russian President: 2085.
Fusion power comes on-line: 2050.
United States abandons death sentence: 2035.
First terrorist use of nuclear weapon:2040.
First successful human head transplant:2075.
I think the future will have many humans inhabiting space stations, and other humans inhabiting other planets... I think that the major cities in earth will grow in population, there will be no cars and mass-transit will take over. Also houses will be controlled by one central computer, that greets you as you walk in, and feeds your pets for you.
I believe that solar or space energy can play a remarkable role in the future. I look forward to see solar cell roofing or just a dish antenna supplying the power needs of home or office.
K. V. Parameswaran
Computers as we all know them will be smaller but will be in everything we use. Net access will probably be similar to the movies, TV quality picture and CD sounds transmitted via the web for phone, conference meetings etc.. Cell phones, well they'll be built into watches or if this wearable PC thing takes off they'll built into that, to make web access possible.
By 2100 everyone will be permanently online, with the option to exist in a virtual world as an alternative to real life. The government will have outlawed all drugs that are not for medical use (i.e. nicotine, alcohol, caffeine) and the western world will be very clean with society divided into three races - the genetically engineered, the traditionally "normal" people and those who are genetically engineered disasters and beyond ‘repair'. All three will avoid each other completely.
2050: China as second superpower
3000: Nations on Mercury, Venus, Earth, Moon, Mars, and Asteroids; colonies on Jupiter, Saturn, etc.; robot probes to nearby stars.
In the year 2100, I think the job market will be quite different. Computer technology and robotics will be so advanced that many jobs will cease to exist, Delivery vehicles will drive themselves (and won't need rest-periods or a paycheque), all manufacturing will be handled by robots. All goods handling and assembly work will be automated, as will the vast majority of accounting and 'paper-work' tasks. If we are not careful this would lead to mass unemployment.
I predict that by 2100, the USA will be in a state of total chaos, with major civil unrest. Spanish being the majority language, the well off white Americans, not taking to kindly to this, will suggest the country be dived into "English" USA, and Spanish/Mexican USA and a call to expel all foreign workers.
Bill Gates takes a premature retirement from business and goes for meditation classes!
No more petrol powered cars. All vehicles will be powered by solar energy or nuclear fusion. Legislation will increasingly be passed on a 'one person one vote' basis via the Internet (or 22nd century equivalent) rather than the Houses of Parliament. The computers of tomorrow will be electro-biological organisms rather than silicon chips. There will be a continuous human presence on Mars.
The world will be one nation.
Sophisticated sailing ships will start to replace fossil-fuel fed commercial freight and passenger transportation on the seas. As telecommuting takes over, people will move out of cities and into smaller, stronger communities. Mainstream neo-classical economics will finally be sidelined as people realise its complete inapplicability to the real world. People who make/grow things will be rewarded more greatly than people who simply trade in money.
Well, we can all dream.
I think just before the year 2100, lots of programmers will be employed to fix date rollover bugs in software.
One day, instead of library cards stamped with a date, sitting in the pocket inside the book, an invisible ink marking will gradually appear on the cover of the book saying "This book must be returned in three days." Printed cards in pockets with manually-stamped dates, seems rather, well, dated for the 21st century.