What will life be like 100 years from now?

[brizzledrizzle]

The Victorians predicted this - Brexit anybody?

What do you think your country will be like 100 years from now?

We're all black. Advances in genetic engineering allowed humanity to incorporate chloroplasts from plants into our own DNA resulting in people who can photosynthesise sunlight into energy.

Farming and the world economy is changed completely without the need to farm for subsistence the world population has boomed and moved southwards. Meat is largely lab grown with only a small part of the population still eating meat from animals.

National borders have become largely irrelevant as workers become split into highly skilled mobile workers, service workers providing a luxury non machine mediated services and a large body of largely unskilled people supported by a universal basic income.

The near miss asteroid in 2030 sparked a new space race as humanity came close to being wiped out. A Chinese/Indian/European consortium has developed habitats in asteroid belt after the US attempted HE3 mining on the moon but never got it to work.

This space race combined with a willingness to adapt to environments rather than adapt environments is causing species divergence with the asteroid dwellings engineering for small sizes, redesigned sinuses and digestive systems and other microgravity adaptations.

The increasingly irrelevant national governments are laying claim to the inner planets but lack the political will or capital to implement the ideas while private consortiums are eyeing up Venus as the first planet to colonise.

Back on Earth the environmental adaptations have spurred a new class of religious and doctrinal wars fighting over the right to modify oneself and the use of technology with radical neo-luddites clashing with religious groups backed by the last of the US petro-dollars.

AI tells us what to do - when to get up, what to eat, how to live our lives on a daily basis. Humans are now 35% plastic.

Diet is vegan and mostly consists of soya, mung beans and bamboo sprouts with government-prescribed vitamin supplements plus whatever you can get to grow in the two raised beds in your back garden you're allowed to grow fruit and vegetables in. Insects are much rarer so you need to pollinate your own fruit and vegetables or choose a variety that doesn't need pollination. What "animal" protein there is has been created in a lab. Solar panels become a much more common way of generating power but are limited in number per person.

"Extreme" weather events happen every three to four months. You don't venture outside much unless you are completely covered up, whatever the weather. You get accustomed to floods, acid rain, random heavy snowfalls, and burning hot summers. Electrical equipment fails periodically and load-sharing is a common way of dealing with this. People live in temporary structures for many reasons - ease of getting away when disaster hits, ease of rebuilding, and the fact that bricks and mortar have become so expensive by then that only billionaires can afford to live in them. Also, half the coastline in Britain and elsewhere will have either fallen into the sea from erosion or been flooded by then.

The gap between rich and poor is so large that 1% of the population lives in lavish, gated palaces protected by armed guards while 99% of the population ekes a living from the land. The 1% don't think there is anything wrong with this arrangement. They have all the benefits of the work being done now into DNA and other research so when they have children they are perfect little mini-mes, prodigies from the start.

Entertainment remains very much as it is now.

Quite a few TV series and films that are probably pretty much on the mark when it comes to predicting the future - without some of the slightly wackier technology. (Though who would have thought just thirty years ago that an ordinary person would be able to carry the Internet around in the palm of their hand...). Travellers (Netflix); Firefly; Children of Men; The Hunger Games...I could go on all day, but what they all share is that, basically, things get much, much tougher for the majority.

Oh, yes, and also, people will talk about the 21st century as "the good old days".....when they're not calling us the Age of Consumption or the Age of Excess, that is...!

When I was a child predictions for the future included video phone calls, flying cars and holidays on the moon.
So far only video phone calls have come to fruition.
I think there will something that no one predicted which will make or cause a huge change.
Who predicted the internet would change the world within a couple of years of it being available?

Or it could be pretty much like it is now with a few more technical advancements...

Similar to The Terminator or Mad Max

Like something that escaped from the deepest darkest recesses of Margaret Atwood's imagination

When I was a child predictions for the future included video phone calls, flying cars and holidays on the moon.

I think we had the same book - green A4 hardbook?

Brizzle - maybe, hahaha!
We never thought video phone calls would happen and they did, so maybe the other predictions will come true as well.
Driverless cars have gone a bit quiet lately - I don’t rally fancy one, I mean who will I backseat drive to?

What do you think your country will be like 100 years from now?
It will be quite a lot smaller, eg. Cambridge will be on the coast.

Have I Got News fit You is on it's 465th series.

*for

When I was young Blue Peter said we would have a machine that did all the housework for us. A roomba is not enough.

Hopefully in 100 years they will have got it sorted.

We're still desperately trying not to destroy ourselves as a species. It's a battle between the individual and collectivism. We're still unsure what's best but, given the massive die-offs we are fighting as westerners to throw ourselves to the stars.

To get ourselves out there.

It's become a fight for the future, not the now.

This is an interesting (if scary!) thread.

Climate change will cause major problems in countries near the equator. Richer countries will help out when there are droughts but resist the huge wave of migration and there will be a lot of deaths.

Lower birth rates, maybe a one or two child policy in most countries.

Rich people will choose the egg and sperm they want for their kids (or maybe even go further than that and genetically engineer) so their kids are automatically the "best" they could be.

Lots of life-extending treatments and most cancers are curable... if you have the cash.

No antibiotics.

Euthanasia commonplace.

Too many people and too few jobs thanks to AI. Work is predominately casual and there is trading etc..

More polyamorous relationships.

Much less meat consumption, but we will probably start eating insect protein.

No high streets anymore and a lot of urban sprawl over the parts of the UK that aren't covered in water.

Forgot to say there will be no petrol cars, only electric ones and owning your own will be rare. People doing a lot more from home in general. No more fossil fuel burning in most countries but lots of nuclear power & nuclear accidents. Russia, and China the main world powers.

Climate change causes extreme weather, droughts, lack of food, people starving, people dying.. this will lead to rioting and the collapse of economies. We abolish money and capitalism and live in a different society based on resources. Everyone grows their own fruit/veg in gardens or allotments, meat/dairy is not available or very limited. The government issue you with your basics like clothes, furniture, housing etc
AI does everything for us and people do jobs because they want to benefit the community not for monetary gain

Interesting idea for a thread.