Crystal balls might be as useful in predicting the future for those born this century than much else, so what do you think lives will typically be like in 2100 - for any particular nation or people? I very much doubt that I could have imagined where we are today as a child, so I think 2100 is a reasonable point in the future to speculate upon.
Some background might be useful for those still quite young, if they might not have appreciated the changes made in the last century or so.
When I was growing up as a child, TV was not as universal as it is now (I think I was eight when he got our first one - having a B&W 10" screen), radio was common for our entertainment (valve sets being the norm since transistor radios only came about in the early 1950s), and the gramophone was perhaps the means for music to be expressed and promulgated - with the mechanism (needle on rotating vinyl disc) perhaps typifying the rather ancient technology still in existence then. Computers and the internet would have been unimaginable to many then even though some, who might have read science fiction, might have had an inkling that such was possible.
Regarding wages and prices - which as a child, looking back on previous times, the past just seemed so quaint - we have just had more of the same. For example, I knew that wages and prices for previous generations had been so much lower than the current times, but the same has happened over my life (inflation being what it is), in that my first weekly wage on leaving school was only £6 7s 6d, the bus to the library for example was a penny halfpenny (12 pence to a shilling and twenty shillings to the pound), and so on.
Scientific progress (and technology), resulting in things like understanding DNA, seeing the extent of our universe, technological advances resulting in things like microchips, nanotechnology, reactive materials, lasers, and so many others, was a developing area rather than being well established, but now it is expected for discoveries to be made almost every day. What can we expect of such in the future?
For the purpose of this thread we can suppose that any religious predictions either don't happen or are delayed for some reason, and that we do survive any potential life-extinction events that might possibly put an end to our progress or anything else (like climate change) that might severely limit such.
So, where do you think progress will be made, how do you think lives will change, and what might have the most impact? Given that computers, mobile phones, and the internet have likely made the greatest difference for so many over the last several decades amongst many other changes.
Here are a few predictions (many more available of course):
Utopia: Life in the Year 2100 — Greg School
The Future Machines of the Year 2100
These 7 charts show what life will be like in the year 2300
Life in the year 2100
(So much prettier too )
And some predictions from the past:
Robert Heinlein's predictions for the Year 2000 (from 1952)
Some background might be useful for those still quite young, if they might not have appreciated the changes made in the last century or so.
When I was growing up as a child, TV was not as universal as it is now (I think I was eight when he got our first one - having a B&W 10" screen), radio was common for our entertainment (valve sets being the norm since transistor radios only came about in the early 1950s), and the gramophone was perhaps the means for music to be expressed and promulgated - with the mechanism (needle on rotating vinyl disc) perhaps typifying the rather ancient technology still in existence then. Computers and the internet would have been unimaginable to many then even though some, who might have read science fiction, might have had an inkling that such was possible.
Regarding wages and prices - which as a child, looking back on previous times, the past just seemed so quaint - we have just had more of the same. For example, I knew that wages and prices for previous generations had been so much lower than the current times, but the same has happened over my life (inflation being what it is), in that my first weekly wage on leaving school was only £6 7s 6d, the bus to the library for example was a penny halfpenny (12 pence to a shilling and twenty shillings to the pound), and so on.
Scientific progress (and technology), resulting in things like understanding DNA, seeing the extent of our universe, technological advances resulting in things like microchips, nanotechnology, reactive materials, lasers, and so many others, was a developing area rather than being well established, but now it is expected for discoveries to be made almost every day. What can we expect of such in the future?
For the purpose of this thread we can suppose that any religious predictions either don't happen or are delayed for some reason, and that we do survive any potential life-extinction events that might possibly put an end to our progress or anything else (like climate change) that might severely limit such.
So, where do you think progress will be made, how do you think lives will change, and what might have the most impact? Given that computers, mobile phones, and the internet have likely made the greatest difference for so many over the last several decades amongst many other changes.
Here are a few predictions (many more available of course):
Utopia: Life in the Year 2100 — Greg School
The Future Machines of the Year 2100
These 7 charts show what life will be like in the year 2300
Life in the year 2100
And some predictions from the past:
Robert Heinlein's predictions for the Year 2000 (from 1952)