World of the Future?

[Siaos]

Events in the 2030s:
Antarctic Beach resorts thriving
Civilization 8: Almost bad as windows 8
Microsoft files for bankruptcy after failure of windows ME 2.0 and the Xbox Infinity fails
The Independant Republic of Texas declares the Vatican City populace are quote,"Faithless Heathens" after it finally declares Gay Marriage legal within its borders.
China declared most creative nation in the world, experts astonished
WoW player count passes world population, Aliens to blame?
Official Chance of Zombie apocalypse increased 0.02% up from 0.01%. Panic ensues in the US.
The US flag on the moon found to be knocked over, Chinese to blame?
New Infiniti Desuntus Economy-class car released, at the low low price of only $2,999,999.99, plus shipping and handling.
US government claims inflation is "Completely under control"
First Transexual Chimpanzee President of the UK! Journalists name the controversy which follows Transex Monkeygate.
First Black President of Brazil!
Apple releases the Apple IPhone 32, has wider screen, battery lasts half a minute long, and costs $100 more.
First Immortal Mouse created in small laboratory in Germany.
New Star Wars movies big success in box office.
Scientists continue to warn that the massive earthquake in California is "imminent", chased out of state by angry mob.
83 year old Barack Obama found annoying US republican senators with anecdotes about how their evil predecessors tried to stop Obamacare from being passed.
WWIII centered around the supposed assination of UK's new Transexual Chimpanzee president, Bobo.
Apple releases its first home console, the Iplay. Reportably only plays angry birds, and costs $300 dollars more than both the ps6 and Xbox Infinity. It outsells both by millions.
Homer Simpson runs for president in new Simpsons episode, millions of Americans vote for him the real election.
Max Berry's Jeniffer Government future comes true. Max Berry, "I told you so!"

[TaQud]

Events in the 2030s:
Antarctic Beach resorts thriving
Civilization 8: Almost bad as windows 8
Microsoft files for bankruptcy after failure of windows ME 2.0 and the Xbox Infinity fails
The Independant Republic of Texas declares the Vatican City populace are quote,"Faithless Heathens" after it finally declares Gay Marriage legal within its borders.
China declared most creative nation in the world, experts astonished
WoW player count passes world population, Aliens to blame?
Official Chance of Zombie apocalypse increased 0.02% up from 0.01%. Panic ensues in the US.
The US flag on the moon found to be knocked over, Chinese to blame?
New Infiniti Desuntus Economy-class car released, at the low low price of only $2,999,999.99, plus shipping and handling.
US government claims inflation is "Completely under control"
First Transexual Chimpanzee President of the UK! Journalists name the controversy which follows Transex Monkeygate.
First Black President of Brazil!
Apple releases the Apple IPhone 32, has wider screen, battery lasts half a minute long, and costs $100 more.
First Immortal Mouse created in small laboratory in Germany.
New Star Wars movies big success in box office.
Scientists continue to warn that the massive earthquake in California is "imminent", chased out of state by angry mob.
83 year old Barack Obama found annoying US republican senators with anecdotes about how their evil predecessors tried to stop Obamacare from being passed.
WWIII centered around the supposed assination of UK's new Transexual Chimpanzee president, Bobo.
Apple releases its first home console, the Iplay. Reportably only plays angry birds, and costs $300 dollars more than both the ps6 and Xbox Infinity. It outsells both by millions.
Homer Simpson runs for president in new Simpsons episode, millions of Americans vote for him the real election.
Max Berry's Jeniffer Government future comes true. Max Berry, "I told you so!"

you had me til when you said Max Barry's Jennifer Gov't comes trues. That will never happen because Max Berry never wrote that book, Max Barry did

[Mike the Progressive]

Half the cities along coastlines will be flooded, deserts will be where farms were, overpopulation will ravage Asia and Africa, shortages of water will cause wars to be fought over their locations, and humanity will finally realize its existence is a mere blip in the universe and "poof" we go, either through disease, famine or global war.

And all that effort to make the world a better place will have been for nothing.

No dragons?

Right. Forgot about those.

And genetically engineered dragons (by the Umbrella corporation) will lead a siege on the White House, where humanity's last hope remains with two enemies, who setting aside their differences, will have to team up to save humanity and the world.

[Breadknife]

I'd be a rubbish futurist, I think, at least professionally, but...

Technologically, there'll be so much more (potential) informational linking between peoples all round the world that global discussions will form a major part of the political climate. Some governments (and maybe not the ones you think, although probably them too) will attempt to stifle this, but the cracks will form in their respective national firewalls (and internal fire-breaks) as quickly as they get implemented. I predict an entire (black market, or at least covertly performed) industry around this, like a trade in mobile phones in just about any western prison.

That said, sovereignties of individual countries will remain sacresanct. Invasions ('for keeps') get rebutted at every level and (as per most places since WW1, although of course there are exceptions to that) the current international community oversight committee (probably the UN, although I could see it being vastly reorganised) will see to it that "honour" is maintained in inter-state conflicts. There'll probably be a number more "Peace Keeping Plus" missions, dangerously close to Regime Change, but by then lessons will have been learnt and hard and fast rules of engagement (and disengagement) will have been filed in (semi-)public places as a price for "going in there and sorting it out".

There will still be terrorism. There will be a number of tragedies (probably with one or two being truly horrific) but there'll probably also be greater successes for the anti-terrorism departments, units and squads along the way.

There will still be painfully little space-exploration (although you now only need to be a millionaire to become a space-tourist, if you backdate to spending power without the last 25 years of inflation), and there's still nothing like matter transporters or Futurama Transport Tubes (except, possibly, as a faddy feature installed in certain amusement parks), with cars being essentially still boxes on wheels, but they will probably be mostly hybrid vehicles, now, and self-controlled. Even in motor-sports there is a Formula-Hybrid class, which is actually producing lap-times competative with the more traditional cars, although they still haven't sorted out battery-weight and are still relying on noisy engines to generate the power that goes to the wheels (only way more efficiently than currently possible)... but the FH rules require its cars to be able to carry a certain charge capacity, even if it isn't used beyond blowing it all to augment the generator current at the start of the race. Also, there are two FH races at every venue, one for driven cars (with strict rules meaning a minimal amount of assistive devices, now mostly limited to audio-prompts) and one for self-guided ones (with far faster lap-times and track speeds, which makes the few accidents that do occur far more spectacular, also... After which follows the legal sueing and counter-sueing between constructors, and usually a spate of hiring and firing of the specialist programmers who are now an essential part of that half of the race-team...).

There will be "archology buildings" in a number of major cities (Paris is resisting, while Greater Tokyo and its conurbative neighbours have built many of them, albeit quite a few being slightly off-shore, on stilts, with shock-absorbers in/on/under the stilts, or all three), and what with the 'on-line' boom many people rely on home (or apartment) deliveries of everything from food to furniture, something which only the newer archologies have managed to get round to creating enough cargo-lift space for. (Massive delays in others, meaning there's a surcharge for receiving groceries during peak-times, and you're advised to order them delivered in the small hours of the morning. The delivery companies are happy to oblige, as it saves them money, not having their delivery staff waiting around, so there's an entire night-industry grown up for home-deliveries, equivalent to the current early-morning deliveries to shops.)

English remains the top language, but has acquired a staggering number of loan-words from Korean. Literature is prolific, but as nobody can read absolutely every blog (or future equivalent, thereof), 'ancient' literature is one of the few things that binds us all, whether any particular person loves or loathes the classical writers like Shakespeare, Marlow, Beckett or Pratchett. Similarly audio-visual media has reached the stage where you'd be hard pressed to find two people in a thousand who have seen the same film (save for the few 'blockbusters' that are still heavily financed) given how many personal efforts are created by independant film-makers with the latest in mass-market recording technologies. Though there are exceptions, and "viral memes" (no longer usually refered to by this name, after the unfortunate episode five years from now, which We Shall Not Speak Of) reach absolutely everybody in the world (who cares) within 24 hours or less, before dying away completely within a couple of days when something else grabs everyone's attention.

(There was this one effort which was actually a real-time view of its own spread around the world, via a reporting system of who is tapped onto the stream, and where from, which essentially showed a planatary "Mexican Wave" once it started riding the early morning viewings of people (waiting for their shopping, most of them) and then subsided in any given time zone by mid-day. Because some people came back to have a look at it, a secondary 'dusk wave' also arose, and a third 'next morning wave' kept people interested, too, but interest then faded soon after. Every now and then, though, a group of carefully self-selecting people manage to get 'together' to view the still active 'production' at the exact same time in order to form very obscure "planetary graffiti", of various scales, with their lighting up various parts of the world, cities or city-blocks to form words and symbols. It's a niche pasttime, though, given the organisation it really needs to ensure enough of the right people are taking part, from the right places (and only the right places... some people are trying to organise a "troll vandalism" group that can muster enough people in the right places to mess up and even 'amusingly alter' other people's efforts. Few people will ever be amused, however.)


All that being said, there are still social problems and still famines in all the usual places (although mitigated by all-seeing media outlets, courtesy of personal 'web-glasses' and long-distance free wi-fi even in the poorest places, whenever they can overcome the rest of the world's "sympathy fatigue"), and a few new ones thanks to some necessary population movements because of other environmental factors.

Prince William is patiently waiting for King George VII to decide if he's had enough yet (although it's only been a couple of years since he gained the throne(s) due to him), meanwhile Pince George is dividing his time between flying UAVs for the European Air Force and leading his own "traditional" computer game production company (all profits to a certain charity, which anyone who has lived through the last 25 years will know all about, so I won't go into it here). There have been two further President Clintons in the White House and one more President Bush. It was a narrow thing, the last time, but the hopeful future President Johnson is determined to give it another go in the upcoming elections. (Maybe he can win over people who mistrust the name "Boris", this time round, and actually pursuade them that he's not Russian.) The leader of (what is left of) North Korea is still called "Kim <something-something>", but anyone who's been sleeping under that rock for 25 years would be quite surprised if they now woke up...

Oh, and China has split up. Not officially, but effectively so. Somehow it all still works (and financially, as a total entity, they're in even better shape than before). The construction of "New Hong Kong" is coming along nicely.


Does any of that help you?

[Gernonai]

Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be relearned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.

You sir, have just won.

Anyway, we will have reached and passed the peak oil point, so either we will be living in a dystopic hell-hole where society has collapsed, or we will have made use of alternate energy sources and adapted.

[Fartsniffage]

No dragons?

Right. Forgot about those.

And genetically engineered dragons (by the Umbrella corporation) will lead a siege on the White House, where humanity's last hope remains with two enemies, who setting aside their differences, will have to team up to save humanity and the world.

Just so long as one of the enemies is wearing a tight strappy top, I'm don't with that.

[Mike the Progressive]

Right. Forgot about those.

And genetically engineered dragons (by the Umbrella corporation) will lead a siege on the White House, where humanity's last hope remains with two enemies, who setting aside their differences, will have to team up to save humanity and the world.

Just so long as one of the enemies is wearing a tight strappy top, I'm don't with that.

They are all wearing leather. Even Ralph, the morbidly obese guard.

[Fartsniffage]

Just so long as one of the enemies is wearing a tight strappy top, I'm don't with that.

They are all wearing leather. Even Ralph, the morbidly obese guard.

Meh, I've watched worse films...

[Rio Cana]

In 25 years, many will be speaking Mandarin. Also, most will know which nation this anthem belongs too.

Anthem - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HCUcZr7v3k

[Mike the Progressive]

They are all wearing leather. Even Ralph, the morbidly obese guard.

Meh, I've watched worse films...

So have I, which is really sad (and depressing) when you think about it.

[Fartsniffage]

In 25 years, many will be speaking Mandarin. Also, most will know which nation this anthem belongs too.

Anthem - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HCUcZr7v3k

Anyone who watches the World Cup already does.

[Bentrada]

I think of computer chips millions of times more powerful though much smaller, US losing global superpower status, N.K attempting to launch a nuke against some nation, and landing on Mars.

This is 25 years in the future not 100. Millions of times more powerful? Take a look at 1988 and 2013 and I like to use that as a bit of what it could like like from 2013 to 2038. It's a nice pacer.

Millions of times yes.

[Floribbea]

With 3d printing technology, I'm thinking the United States will be a manufacturing leader. Africa won't be better off than it is now, places like Florida, New York City, and the Netherlands will begin flooding. North Korea will probably have tried to start a nuclear war. Apple and Microsoft will keep trying to release new bits of technology. Hopefully homosexuality will be legal all throughout the US, and a few other countries. The 1,000,000th TET thread will be released (what number are we on now?). Maybe a moon base, first flight to mars, and mining corporations begin to mine asteroids. Hurricanes will definitely get worse, New Orleans will probably get the worst of it and be abandoned. Religion will still exist, but hopefully it won't have such a big presence in politics. China will be bankrupt, with them building all the time, and losing manufacturing. India will reach one billion people. China might start a war, possibly with the United States. Snow will be a rare commodity.

[Fartsniffage]

This is 25 years in the future not 100. Millions of times more powerful? Take a look at 1988 and 2013 and I like to use that as a bit of what it could like like from 2013 to 2038. It's a nice pacer.

Millions of times yes.

Based on what?

[Rio Cana]

In 25 years, many will be speaking Mandarin. Also, most will know which nation this anthem belongs too.

Anthem - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HCUcZr7v3k

Anyone who watches the World Cup already does.

True. But in the US and its territories, Balompié (Soccer) is not really followed like in other parts of the world.

[Divair]

I'll just leave this here.

[Frisivisia]

Boring, less catastrophic than we think, more than we want, Republican Party sinks into obscurity.

[The Serbian Empire]

In 25 years, many will be speaking Mandarin. Also, most will know which nation this anthem belongs too.

Anthem - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HCUcZr7v3k

It's Brazil, huehuehue!

[The Truth and Light]

I'll just leave this here.

Divair: the most resourceful man on NationStates.

[Divair]

I'll just leave this here.

Divair: the most resourceful man on NationStates.

Hardly.

[Avenio]

It'll be hot, dry and crowded.

[Fartsniffage]

I'll just leave this here.

I see your post and raise you this.

[Las Palmeras]

I wouldn't pass the Voight-Kampff test...it's not my fault I'm bad at expressing myself.

In 25 years, many will be speaking Mandarin. Also, most will know which nation this anthem belongs too.

Anthem - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HCUcZr7v3k

It's Brazil, huehuehue!

I'd have imagined the Caipirinha Dance.

[Fartsniffage]

I wouldn't pass the Voight-Kampff test...it's not my fault I'm bad at expressing myself.

I'd probably fail too...

You’re in a desert walking along in the sand when all of the sudden you look down, and you see a tortoise, crawling toward you. You reach down, you flip the tortoise over on its back. The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can’t, not without your help. But you’re not helping. Why is that

I don't think curiosity would be an answer that wouldn't get me shot....

[Blazedtown]

In 25 years, many will be speaking Mandarin. Also, most will know which nation this anthem belongs too.

Anthem - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HCUcZr7v3k

I highly doubt that.