Where would you see this world 50 years?

[Gold Vanguard]

Would technology be like that of movies such as flying cars? Would soceity have changed or would it still be the same as it is today? Would space travel be possible?

[ZemZem]

I see the world underwater.

[Ansem]

The world is gonna end in December 21st so...

[Maji]

Everything dead and destroyed, as well as bigger gaps between rich and poor that does not only stretch through one's own nation, but internationally. Granted, that's the way the world sort of is right now, I see it as a bigger problem later on.

If I could direct the future, I would love to see expanded outer space exploration, attempts to terraform Mars for shits and giggles as well as understanding gas giants more. Mayhap we can harness their gasses, and perhaps even find a better replacement for the dwindling ones we have on Earth?

[Rehab]

IIRC, the world is currently the least violent it has ever been in human history. Crazy, right?

I'd like to hope science and technology are advancing at a good enough pace that things will be better in a couple decades, once we ride out these economic rumblings. More things in abundance, more capabilities, hopefully more available. People are working on a lot of great things out there.

Edited July 23, 2012 by Rehab

[Wist]

I can't imagine society would change drastically on a global scale. Regional power dynamics might shift, perhaps dramatically in some cases, but on a fundamental level I'd be surprised if the next fifty years (even considering optimistic projections of technological advancement and international economic development) bring enough sweeping changes as to make society in any significant way alien from our own unless supra-state institutions gain pervasive footholds across continents and metanational corporations manage to wrestle political control away from smaller nations (which I doubt in such a short time-span, maybe even ever, but you're foolish if you even entertain the idea of trusting me on economic projections).

I imagine the biggest changes will be as a result of gains made in biotechnology, especially as relevant to food production, medicine, and bio-fuels (though I'd be surprised if green energy sources usurped fossil fuels). I also imagine that computers will be virtually ubiquitous and much more discreet (think in: cars, kitchen appliances, perhaps contact lenses, etcetera; outside of personal computers, which themselves are sure to undergo much greater diversification anyways).

Regardless of whether or not it is further explored for political purposes, to cater to wealthy tourists, or for proofs of concept, I can't imagine how manned spaceflight could prove viable for any sustainable economic purpose; I expect the temporary colonization of any extra-terrestrial body by scientists will be prohibitively expensive for a very long time (as sexy as the idea would be).

I suppose I'm actually pretty pessimistic on a lot of fronts... probably overly so (not expecting anything catastrophic though!, who knows what the tipping point is, but it'll be a while before any of the Antarctic ice shelves collapse), but in my early morning sleep deprived state I don't anticipate there will be any huge societal shifts or swings as a result of technological advancements or anything else without projecting another fifty years out or trying to find any evidence whatsoever substantiating my expectations.

[Rehab]

Regardless of whether or not it is further explored for political purposes, to cater to wealthy tourists, or for proofs of concept, I can't imagine how manned spaceflight could prove viable for any sustainable economic purpose; I expect the temporary colonization of any extra-terrestrial body by scientists will be prohibitively expensive for a very long time (as sexy as the idea would be).

I'm certainly not informed or optimistic enough to hope it'll come in the next 50 years, but have you heard/do you know anything about the potential of mining asteroids? This is all just going on the word of a SA user and my astronomy prof, but supposedly that might prove pretty profitable, once we have the capability. Which I assume is a lot of research and investment down the road, but could be a neat way to "take the slow boat across the stars," in the words of the SA user.

[MacLovin]

I'd like to see all known books put online, and I'd love to see Nintendo replace Disney.

Also, I want a relatively peaceful world, where the font of human knowledge is being expanded for it's own good.

[Wist]

I'm certainly not informed or optimistic enough to hope it'll come in the next 50 years, but have you heard/do you know anything about the potential of mining asteroids? This is all just going on the word of a SA user and my astronomy prof, but supposedly that might prove pretty profitable, once we have the capability. Which I assume is a lot of research and investment down the road, but could be a neat way to "take the slow boat across the stars," in the words of the SA user.

Yeah! But only a little bit, and you should probably trust your astronomy professor over me.

My limited understanding is that asteroid mining could hypothetically be a very lucrative enterprise given the concentrated abundance of precious and heavy metals in many of them, but only if a some very high hurdles in terms of implementation, energy demands, and material return (given Earth's gravity).

A common suggestion is sending out self replicating mining (and possibly processing) machinery, because that reduces upfront material costs (and the mass that has to be delivered to the asteroid in the first place) and grants autonomy to an infrastructure that increases its own productivity without further investment. But prolonged mining is energy intensive, as is processing ore, and then producing components for creating new machines (if this route is taken), and then the new machines need energy to operate as well. I have no idea what might be an efficient means of supplying that energy. Back to on-site production, even if all the child machines are slaves to the original they will need computers of some sort (though maybe at that point they'd be small enough that the mother machine could be stocked with them in advance). There are a lot of other suggested means of material extraction, but I know even less about their physical and economic requirements and I won't attempt to speculate.

As an Earth based venture, asteroid mining still strikes me as prohibitively expensive. It would be easier and cheaper to continue mining on Earth, and even if a gigantic billions of dollars chunk of precious metals were somehow brought to market their prices would plummet (I assume). I feel like I'm blaming everything on capitalism.

What you mentioned about using asteroids as a "slow boat across the stars" is the idea of hollowing out an asteroid, spinning it, populating it, and then flinging it somewhere, either within the Solar System or beyond it, right? My suspicion is that mining asteroids will be much, much more feasible if for whatever reason people have other reasons to use asteroids, perhaps as ports, cities, farms, or space ships, especially if the materials extracted from asteroids were used for construction in space (because it mitigates the need to have an infrastructure for ferrying lots of mass to and from Earth). Supplying energy would still be a big problem (especially since strip mining obviously wouldn't be ideal), perhaps the biggest technical problem (I'm not at all qualified to make that judgment by the way), but there are a lot of comets and ice balls out there, so asteroid mining could end up focused as much on water and hydrogen extraction as on ripping up metals.

Is the idea of hollowing out asteroids something you've thought about or discussed in any detail? If some way can be found to overcome the need to produce tangible profit for Earth-born investors and establish permanent presences off-planet, inhabiting asteroids strikes me as a much more feasible future for colonizing space than living on and potentially terraforming Mars (though if the aforementioned economic hurdles can be overcome then maybe that would be a more reasonable proposition as well).

Sorry my posts are pretty much just blotches of vapid speculation. I always felt like a lot of people were overly optimistic about our prospects in space in the future, but that might just be an indication that I'm exceedingly skeptical. I'm curious what other people think about the economic viability of ventures like this.

I'd like to see all known books put online, and I'd love to see Nintendo replace Disney.

Also, I want a relatively peaceful world, where the font of human knowledge is being expanded for it's own good.

It would be really nice if every book were made available electronically. I hope that doesn't mean editions for history and reference books go away, though. If books disappear and online sources are always updated instead of replaced then we might lose some insight on how people thought about their history or society or language or what have you because indications of those things will have been displaced through incremental edits.

I also have a penchant for paper books and libraries, so....

[Zanarkin]

Either a complete fall out or still relatively the same except with new technology, gays are no longer seen as devils and attention has turned to some other group.

[Agile Tit-Tyrant]

Would technology be like that of movies such as flying cars? Would soceity have changed or would it still be the same as it is today? Would space travel be possible?

No flying cars. No space travel because it costs too much and doesn't do anything good for the common person.

People are working on a lot of great things out there.

Not enough people.

gays are no longer seen as devils

In places like public schools, they still are. Most christian/catholics too.

[Original Alear]

Most vaguely realistic argmageddon scenarios seem to involve the Earth remaining intact, so I expect we'll be in something like the same place, relative to the sun, right? If the destruction of the Earth does come this year, though, it seems like our only options are aliens, divine intervention, and all out nuclear war. The last seems almost as unlikely as the first two, which aren't even necessarily gonna involve the Earth getting destroyed, though since they're basically big unbacked question marks, I suppose we really have no way of gauging them.

[Ansem]

I see zombies. Someone will try to cure cancer and fuck up creating a zombie apocalypse. It's going to happen.

[Celice]

To be a bit more zeigesitly.

[Phoenix Wright]

No space travel because it costs too much and doesn't do anything good for the common person.

Maybe not in the short-run. Exploration only serves to benefit all of mankind. (Well, except when explorers wipe out the currently-existing tribes and such, luckily, there ain't much life outside of Earth in our solar system!)

Exploration and discovery are integral to the advancement and growth of our species.

Edited July 31, 2012 by Phoenix Wright

[Celice]

Not to mention much technological advances come from it which help the common man. Like, MRI technology, for example.

Actually, there's a habit of doing weird things you've never done to discover new things you've never seen. A strange concept, I know.

[marcus90]

Into my pockets.

[Nayr Farros]

This if I have anything to say about it!

[Sunwoo]

What I learned in class up to last week and today:

If our rate of consumption of Earth's resources continues at the current rate, we would need 2 Earths to sustain us.

If carbon dioxide continues to be pumped into the atmosphere at the rate it is now, we may have a concentration of 500 ppm into the atmosphere by 2050. For the record, in 2012 we are at an all-time high for carbon dioxide average concentrations for the globe -- just under 400 ppm.

If nothing changes, soon we will have no ice in the Arctic during summers.

2050-2012 < 50

I'm probably not remembering all the numbers correctly, because I am tired and do not feel like looking up the exact values at the moment. But the message is clear. We've fucked up our planet for too long and now it's biting us in the ass. I foresee that if we do not get our act together, this world will be out of its climatological balance in LESS than 50 years.

[Ein]

I'm hoping the Schwarzwelt shows up and engulfs the Earth.

Because we totally deserve it~

[Wen Yang]

I foresee all of us being extinct by then, most likely due to some ****-up of our own making.

"Us" being the human race, of course.

Then the cockroaches shall reign over the earth.

[Dr. Silent]

Some kind of natural disaster involving climate will most likely mess up technological advancement, methinks. Hopefully the world won't continue getting warmer, though. As someone who is interested in Arctic, sub-Arctic, and Antarctica ecosystems, and a personal fan of cold weather > hot weather, the world getting colder would be nicer, much nicer. Like it was in the Medieval period. Am I the only one who thinks the record-breaking winter of two years ago (and the fact that our last three winters have been colder than they have been in decades) isn't pointing to something like this happening?

I think a nuclear fallout that wipes out all life on our planet bar cockroaches and twinkies is highly unlikely. Don't think it's going to happen, myself.

Large-scale space travel is also highly unlikely, I'll say. And personally, I don't believe in it. Earth is where we, as humans and natives of this planet, belong.

[Freohr Datia]

Ehh

With cars and space I don't see much if any change at all because 50 years sounds kinda short imo. Maybe still some better gas mileage and whatnot but nothing drastically different.

Technology with computers and phones and ipods and whatnot, those change so much. Those will probably be really really different.

And maybe blu-ray will become a thing of the past like VHS has and I think regular dvds will get completely overrun by blu-ray dvd's and blu-ray will somehow be improved even more into something else in the future XD So blu-ray will become less expensive and more common