still won't pass a budget

[QUOTE=bobman0330;12076859]There's probably a 10% chance of some near-magical technological breakthrough that revolutionizes the way humans live. 15% chance of ecological or energy catastrophe that substantially lowers our standard of living. Otherwise, we will be considerably wealthier, but otherwise basically the same. The average Chinese and hopefully Indian will be as wealthy or wealthy as the average American today.[/QUOTE]
unless we have alternate energy this is impossible.

People way too pessimistic here. The march of technological progress will continue. Some bad **** will happen. We'll get over it. China and Brazil will be more powerful and have an emerging middle class but the US will still be #1 in influence.

computational and mathematical power will advance to unbelievable levels( unless you're a kurzweil fan- in that case they will advance to slightly less than your expectations) Healthcare will improve for the rich. Robots will assist people and have the intelligence of 5 year olds overall but better at math.All variants of Poker will be solved- 50 years from now not 25.
Energy will be fought over and occasionally bombs will drop on places with lots of wind and algae like bangledesh. Nigeria will continue to grow into an uber capitalist place and become a vacation destination. People will become integrated with microchips and there will be a backlash to this by groups that will be considered dangerous extremist over time. The next osama bin laden type dude will be anti microchip.
Plastic surgery will become closer to a type of fashion and some people will have really long arms.
the majoroty of countries presidents/rime ministers will be women. Donuts will be expensive.

Well, to answer this question we just have to look at the advancements we have made in the last 25 years.

25 years ago we had computer graphics like this:



Now we have game graphics like this:



Graphics which have been achieved now would have been only been vaguely imaginable in 1987. So 50 years ago these graphics would have been totally beyond anyone's imagination. In 1962 The Iphone would not have been conceivable. Even in 1995 the Iphone would not have been conceivable. And the digital distribution of TV shows, movies and songs, was not fully foreseen until after the invention of the MP3.

In fact, since the invention of the internet, it seems that technological advancement has been accelerating. The technological leap between 1987 and 2012 has been staggering. So what I'm saying is that it's very hard to conceive what will happen in the future

In the Jetsons which first aired 50 years ago, most of the stuff predicted in that show has been surpassed by modern society (except for their levitation/teleportation technology). The Iphone is vastly superior to anything foreseen in the Jetsons and internet ****s over everything in the jetsons.

My vision of the future:

Providing we can support our energy needs and be comfortable, I think instantaneous travel between continents is possible. Everyone will freely travel daily from continent to continent and mingle anywhere. The entire world will speak English or Spanish as their first language since these are the easiest languages to learn and already very dominant. Archaic Religions will probably be obsolete by 2062 as the world's living standards improve and people don't need to believe in them anymore. Nationhood will probably be done away with, the entire world will likely resemble one giant neighborhood.

Everyone's healthcare records will be stored in a chip embedded on the body.

Donuts are 50¢ at Safeway. They costs $1.50 at a donut shop.

This is all completely wrong. Go read some back issues of Wired. Hell, Dick Tracy had a wrist phone in 1946.

And the Jetsons had a robot maid, flying cars, machines that instantly styled your hair, etc.

Maxwell Smart had a phone in his shoe

no one can know obv, but i'll give it a try:

govs have become too bloated and are falling apart/fallen apart, internet/business/courts hold society together

incredible inequalities in the US lead to social unrest and perhaps the emergence of a truly populist political party

china keeps growing but at a slower pace

nanotechnology leads to incredible lifespans, our current social structure breaks down (marriages, nuclear families tough when u live to be 1k+)

energy crisis gets solved, trillionaires result

hopefully we fade blowing the place up

Israelis and Palestinians best of friends, unite to repel a Portuguese invasion.

Everybody will be an avid runner.

The future is now.

lolwut

also lol at your "it would be IMPOSSIBLE for people in the past ti imagine what we have now, but I'm going to predict the future today because I guess I'm just that much smarter than people in the past were."

Whatever it looks like, US troops will still be in Afghanistan.

I was about to say they had iPad's in Star Trek TNG, but yeah. One hilarious thing though is they don't have wifi in a lot of scifis. You can warp travel and teleport but if you want to download u gotta plug something in.

People will be really fat.

Yeah, I originally opened this thread looking for a Road Warrior pic. Thanks.

Happy to help.

My favorite thing in sci-fi novels from pre 1980 is that all data is stored on tapes. Apparently tapes are the pinnacle of data storage.

Because you're going there in 30 years no matter what technology we have?

http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/1...inserts-itself

TNG poker scenes are so awesome