"Ten 100 Year Predictions that Came True"

[Edward]

If there is a nuclear war, I'm very glad I live and work where I'm likely to go out in the initial attack. I have no desire whatever to live in the sort of broken down "society" that would follow. There's a reason I grew out of being an anarchist by the time I was nineteen.

A prediction I made to my students today:

Within the next quarter century, traditional, linear television broadcasting will disappear for everything bar news and live (sports) events. Everything else will be pre-recorded and available on demand from databases. My idea of tv heaven.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Every nineteen year old is an anarchist. It's the ones who are still anarchists at forty-nine that you have to worry about.

As far as dystopias go, read "Earth Abides" by George Stewart. Probably the best picture ever painted of what would probably *really* happen if civilization suddenly was incapacitated. Stewart posits that within a single generation, humanity would revert to the Stone Age, and he paints it pretty convincingly. No zombies, mutants, or radioactive biker gangs, just entropy having its way.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

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While we're on the subject of predictions ... do you think that this very forum will still be in existence five years from now? Ten?

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I can see the day when books will be published directly to digital media without ever existing as a printed copy.

 

[LizzieMaine]

.
While we're on the subject of predictions ... do you think that this very forum will still be in existence five years from now? Ten?

Well, thirty years from now it'll be the Backwards Ball Cap Lounge, and will be dominated by people who consider the '90s to be the apotheosis of human culture. Fortunately, I'll probably be dead by then and won't have to worry about it.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Just like we have shows today like Mad Men that pay homage to the early '60s, can you imagine some show 40-50 years from now that will do the same for The Jersey Shore????

 

[Dixie_Amazon]

I can see the day when books will be published directly to digital media without ever existing as a printed copy.

(((Shudder)))
As much as I enjoy my computer I still do not like reading books on it. I would rather sit in my wing-back chair with my book and a cup of tea any day.

 

[Retro_GI_Jane]

- After the nuclear war, mankind will survive solely on prepackaged foods (which will contribute to the abovementioned rise in obesity).

And since apparently Hostess is filing for bankruptcy, unless what you've got stocked on the shelves stored for that day, the old joke about Twinkies and cockroaches being the only things to survive a nuclear holocaust may stay just a urban legend after all.

 

[sheeplady]

And since apparently Hostess is filing for bankruptcy, unless what you've got stocked on the shelves stored for that day, the old joke about Twinkies and cockroaches being the only things to survive a nuclear holocaust may stay just a urban legend after all.

I haven't had a twinkie in years- probably over a decade. Now I want a twinkie.

But I thought it was the cockroaches and Cher that were supposed to survive a nuclear attack? Or is that Madonna?

 

[Retro_GI_Jane]

But I thought it was the cockroaches and Cher that were supposed to survive a nuclear attack? Or is that Madonna?

For humanity's sake, I really hope that it's neither. lol

 

[Bluebird Marsha]

Some things are best left in "predicted, yet not fulfilled" category. Like the flying car. Think about it. Do you REALLY want to see Grandmother Tiffany out for her afternoon "drive" in her flying convertible, sometime in the year 2051? In a silver jumpsuit? Think of the carnage!

I forget where I read it, but there was something about how flying cars seemed likely after WW II because there were so many veterans who had been pilots during the war. It didn't occur to a bunch of folks that learning to fly is a bit harder than learning to drive.

And that gravity thing can be a real bummer.

 

[Sam Diamond]

um

 

[Sam Diamond]

A woman of 50 will be just as alluring as a woman of 25 by the year 2000!

yes please!

 

[Dan Rodemsky]

There are many women of 50 who are more alluring than a 25 year old. As for the flying car, the Moller Aircar, designed by a University of California professor, uses 5 rotary engines and a GPS/autopilot that only requires the "operator" to input the destination. It has flown but lacks FAA approval. It is capable of vertical takeoff and landing. The earlier flying car concepts required a runway.

 

[Shangas]

I think a streamlined floating car is more possible and practical than a flying car. Like some sort of personal conveyance based on electromagnetic levitation; also called "MagLev". It's what some trains run on these days. A similar concept on a larger scale could work for cars.