Twenty top predictions for life 100 years from now

Africa · 16-01-2012 4:38pm #1

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16536598

I'll be honest, I enjoyed the older guys ones. His was much better than this list.:

http://www.yorktownhistory.org/homepages/1900_predictions.htm

Predictions of the Year 2000
from The Ladies Home Journal of December 1900

The Ladies Home Journal from December 1900, which contained a fascinating article by John Elfreth Watkins, Jr. “What May Happen in the Next Hundred Years”.

Mr. Watkins wrote: “These prophecies will seem strange, almost impossible. Yet, they have come from the most learned and conservative minds in America. To the wisest and most careful men in our greatest institutions of science and learning I have gone, asking each in his turn to forecast for me what, in his opinion, will have been wrought in his own field of investigation before the dawn of 2001 - a century from now. These opinions I have carefully transcribed.”

During the Year 2000, we included Mr. Watkins research in our feature articles. We invite you to comment on these predictions, whether they have been realized in some way or how they can never be accomplished! In any event, we know you’ll enjoy these entries.

Prediction #1: There will probably be from 350,000,000 to 500,000,000 people in America and its possessions by the lapse of another century. Nicaragua will ask for admission to our Union after the completion of the great canal. Mexico will be next. Europe, seeking more territory to the south of us, will cause many of the South and Central American republics to be voted into the Union by their own people.”

Prediction #2: The American will be taller by from one to two inches. His increase of stature will result from better health, due to vast reforms in medicine, sanitation, food and athletics. He will live fifty years instead of thirty-five as at present – for he will reside in the suburbs. The city house will practically be no more. Building in blocks will be illegal. The trip from suburban home to office will require a few minutes only. A penny will pay the fare.

Prediction #3: Gymnastics will begin in the nursery, where toys and games will be designed to strengthen the muscles. Exercise will be compulsory in the schools. Every school, college and community will have a complete gymnasium. All cities will have public gymnasiums. A man or woman unable to walk ten miles at a stretch will be regarded as a weakling.

Prediction #4: There Will Be No Street Cars in Our Large Cities. All hurry traffic will be below or high above ground when brought within city limits. In most cities it will be confined to broad subways or tunnels, well lighted and well ventilated, or to high trestles with “moving-sidewalk” stairways leading to the top. These underground or overhead streets will teem with capacious automobile passenger coaches and freight with cushioned wheels. Subways or trestles will be reserved for express trains. Cities, therefore, will be free from all noises.

Prediction #5: Trains will run two miles a minute, normally; express trains one hundred and fifty miles an hour. To go from New York to San Francisco will take a day and a night by fast express. There will be cigar-shaped electric locomotives hauling long trains of cars. Cars will, like houses, be artificially cooled. Along the railroads there will be no smoke, no cinders, because coal will neither be carried nor burned. There will be no stops for water. Passengers will travel through hot or dusty country regions with windows down.

Prediction #6: Automobiles will be cheaper than horses are today. Farmers will own automobile hay-wagons, automobile truck-wagons, plows, harrows and hay-rakes. A one-pound motor in one of these vehicles will do the work of a pair of horses or more. Children will ride in automobile sleighs in winter. Automobiles will have been substituted for every horse vehicle now known. There will be, as already exist today, automobile hearses, automobile police patrols, automobile ambulances, automobile street sweepers. The horse in harness will be as scarce, if, indeed, not even scarcer, then as the yoked ox is today.

Prediction #7: There will be air-ships, but they will not successfully compete with surface cars and water vessels for passenger or freight traffic. They will be maintained as deadly war-vessels by all military nations. Some will transport men and goods. Others will be used by scientists making observations at great heights above the earth.

Prediction #8: Aerial War-Ships and Forts on Wheels. Giant guns will shoot twenty-five miles or more, and will hurl anywhere within such a radius shells exploding and destroying whole cities. Such guns will be armed by aid of compasses when used on land or sea, and telescopes when directed from great heights. Fleets of air-ships, hiding themselves with dense, smoky mists, thrown off by themselves as they move, will float over cities, fortifications, camps or fleets. They will surprise foes below by hurling upon them deadly thunderbolts. These aerial war-ships will necessitate bomb-proof forts, protected by great steel plates over their tops as well as at their sides. Huge forts on wheels will dash across open spaces at the speed of express trains of to-day. They will make what are now known as cavalry charges. Great automobile plows will dig deep entrenchments as fast as soldiers can occupy them. Rifles will use silent cartridges. Submarine boats submerged for days will be capable of wiping a whole navy off the face of the deep. Balloons and flying machines will carry telescopes of one-hundred-mile vision with camera attachments, photographing an enemy within that radius. These photographs as distinct and large as if taken from across the street, will be lowered to the commanding officer in charge of troops below.

Prediction #9: Photographs will be telegraphed from any distance. If there be a battle in China a hundred years hence snapshots of its most striking events will be published in the newspapers an hour later. Even to-day photographs are being telegraphed over short distances. Photographs will reproduce all of Nature’s colors.

Prediction #10: Man will See Around the World. Persons and things of all kinds will be brought within focus of cameras connected electrically with screens at opposite ends of circuits, thousands of miles at a span. American audiences in their theatres will view upon huge curtains before them the coronations of kings in Europe or the progress of battles in the Orient. The instrument bringing these distant scenes to the very doors of people will be connected with a giant telephone apparatus transmitting each incidental sound in its appropriate place. Thus the guns of a distant battle will be heard to boom when seen to blaze, and thus the lips of a remote actor or singer will be heard to utter words or music when seen to move.

Prediction #11: No Mosquitoes nor Flies. Insect screens will be unnecessary. Mosquitoes, house-flies and roaches will have been practically exterminated. Boards of health will have destroyed all mosquito haunts and breeding-grounds, drained all stagnant pools, filled in all swamp-lands, and chemically treated all still-water streams. The extermination of the horse and its stable will reduce the house-fly.

Prediction #12: Peas as Large as Beets. Peas and beans will be as large as beets are to-day. Sugar cane will produce twice as much sugar as the sugar beet now does. Cane will once more be the chief source of our sugar supply. The milkweed will have been developed into a rubber plant. Cheap native rubber will be harvested by machinery all over this country. Plants will be made proof against disease microbes just as readily as man is to-day against smallpox. The soil will be kept enriched by plants which take their nutrition from the air and give fertility to the earth.

Prediction #13: Strawberries as Large as Apples will be eaten by our great-great-grandchildren for their Christmas dinners a hundred years hence. Raspberries and blackberries will be as large. One will suffice for the fruit course of each person. Strawberries and cranberries will be grown upon tall bushes. Cranberries, gooseberries and currants will be as large as oranges. One cantaloupe will supply an entire family. Melons, cherries, grapes, plums, apples, pears, peaches and all berries will be seedless. Figs will be cultivated over the entire United States.

Prediction #14: Black, Blue and Green Roses. Roses will be as large as cabbage heads. Violets will grow to the size of orchids. A pansy will be as large in diameter as a sunflower. A century ago the pansy measured but half an inch across its face. There will be black, blue and green roses. It will be possible to grow any flower in any color and to transfer the perfume of a scented flower to another which is odorless. Then may the pansy be given the perfume of the violet.

Prediction #15: No Foods will be Exposed. Storekeepers who expose food to air breathed out by patrons or to the atmosphere of the busy streets will be arrested with those who sell stale or adulterated produce. Liquid-air refrigerators will keep great quantities of food fresh for long intervals.

Prediction #16: There will be No C, X or Q in our every-day alphabet. They will be abandoned because unnecessary. Spelling by sound will have been adopted, first by the newspapers. English will be a language of condensed words expressing condensed ideas, and will be more extensively spoken than any other. Russian will rank second.

Prediction #17: How Children will be Taught. A university education will be free to every man and woman. Several great national universities will have been established. Children will study a simple English grammar adapted to simplified English, and not copied after the Latin. Time will be saved by grouping like studies. Poor students will be given free board, free clothing and free books if ambitious and actually unable to meet their school and college expenses. Medical inspectors regularly visiting the public schools will furnish poor children free eyeglasses, free dentistry and free medical attention of every kind. The very poor will, when necessary, get free rides to and from school and free lunches between sessions. In vacation time poor children will be taken on trips to various parts of the world. Etiquette and housekeeping will be important studies in the public schools.

Prediction #18: Telephones Around the World. Wireless telephone and telegraph circuits will span the world. A husband in the middle of the Atlantic will be able to converse with his wife sitting in her boudoir in Chicago. We will be able to telephone to China quite as readily as we now talk from New York to Brooklyn. By an automatic signal they will connect with any circuit in their locality without the intervention of a “hello girl”.

Prediction #19: Grand Opera will be telephoned to private homes, and will sound as harmonious as though enjoyed from a theatre box. Automatic instruments reproducing original airs exactly will bring the best music to the families of the untalented. Great musicians gathered in one enclosure in New York will, by manipulating electric keys, produce at the same time music from instruments arranged in theatres or halls in San Francisco or New Orleans, for instance. Thus will great bands and orchestras give long-distance concerts. In great cities there will be public opera-houses whose singers and musicians are paid from funds endowed by philanthropists and by the government. The piano will be capable of changing its tone from cheerful to sad. Many devises will add to the emotional effect of music.

Prediction #20: Coal will not be used for heating or cooking. It will be scarce, but not entirely exhausted. The earth’s hard coal will last until the year 2050 or 2100; its soft-coal mines until 2200 or 2300. Meanwhile both kinds of coal will have become more and more expensive. Man will have found electricity manufactured by waterpower to be much cheaper. Every river or creek with any suitable fall will be equipped with water-motors, turning dynamos, making electricity. Along the seacoast will be numerous reservoirs continually filled by waves and tides washing in. Out of these the water will be constantly falling over revolving wheels. All of our restless waters, fresh and salt, will thus be harnessed to do the work which Niagara is doing today: making electricity for heat, light and fuel.

Prediction #21: Hot and Cold Air from Spigots. Hot or cold air will be turned on from spigots to regulate the temperature of a house as we now turn on hot or cold water from spigots to regulate the temperature of the bath. Central plants will supply this cool air and heat to city houses in the same way as now our gas or electricity is furnished. Rising early to build the furnace fire will be a task of the olden times. Homes will have no chimneys, because no smoke will be created within their walls.

Prediction #22: Store Purchases by Tube. Pneumatic tubes, instead of store wagons, will deliver packages and bundles. These tubes will collect, deliver and transport mail over certain distances, perhaps for hundreds of miles. They will at first connect with the private houses of the wealthy; then with all homes. Great business establishments will extend them to stations, similar to our branch post-offices of today, whence fast automobile vehicles will distribute purchases from house to house.

Prediction #23: Ready-cooked meals will be bought from establishments similar to our bakeries of today. They will purchase materials in tremendous wholesale quantities and sell the cooked foods at a price much lower than the cost of individual cooking. Food will be served hot or cold to private houses in pneumatic tubes or automobile wagons. The meal being over, the dishes used will be packed and returned to the cooking establishments where they will be washed. Such wholesale cookery will be done in electric laboratories rather than in kitchens. These laboratories will be equipped with electric stoves, and all sorts of electric devices, such as coffee-grinders, egg-beaters, stirrers, shakers, parers, meat-choppers, meat-saws, potato-mashers, lemon-squeezers, dish-washers, dish-dryers and the like. All such utensils will be washed in chemicals fatal to disease microbes. Having one’s own cook and purchasing one’s own food will be an extravagance.

Prediction #24: Vegetables Grown by Electricity. Winter will be turned into summer and night into day by the farmer. In cold weather he will place heat-conducting electric wires under the soil of his garden and thus warm his growing plants. He will also grow large gardens under glass. At night his vegetables will be bathed in powerful electric light, serving, like sunlight, to hasten their growth. Electric currents applied to the soil will make valuable plants grow larger and faster, and will kill troublesome weeds. Rays of colored light will hasten the growth of many plants. Electricity applied to garden seeds will make them sprout and develop unusually early.

Prediction #25: Oranges will grow in Philadelphia. Fast-flying refrigerators on land and sea will bring delicious fruits from the tropics and southern temperate zone within a few days. The farmers of South America, South Africa, Australia and the South Sea Islands, whose seasons are directly opposite to ours, will thus supply us in winter with fresh summer foods, which cannot be grown here. Scientist will have discovered how to raise here many fruits now confined to much hotter or colder climates. Delicious oranges will be grown in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Cantaloupes and other summer fruits will be of such a hardy nature that they can be stored through the winter as potatoes are now.

Prediction #26: Strawberries as large as apples will be eaten by our great great grandchildren for their Christmas dinners a hundred years hence. Raspberries and blackberries will be as large. One will suffice for the fruit course of each person. Strawberries and cranberries will be grown upon tall bushes. Cranberries, gooseberries and currants will be as large as oranges. One cantaloupe will supply an entire family. Melons, cherries, grapes, plums, apples, pears, peaches and all berries will be seedless. Figs will be cultivated over the entire United States.

Prediction #27: Few drugs will be swallowed or taken into the stomach unless needed for the direct treatment of that organ itself. Drugs needed by the lungs, for instance, will be applied directly to those organs through the skin and flesh. They will be carried with the electric current applied without pain to the outside skin of the body. Microscopes will lay bare the vital organs, through the living flesh, of men and animals. The living body will to all medical purposes be transparent. Not only will it be possible for a physician to actually see a living, throbbing heart inside the chest, but he will be able to magnify and photograph any part of it. This work will be done with rays of invisible light.

Prediction #28: There will be no wild animals except in menageries. Rats and mice will have been exterminated. The horse will have become practically extinct. A few of high breed will be kept by the rich for racing, hunting and exercise. The automobile will have driven out the horse. Cattle and sheep will have no horns. They will be unable to run faster than the fattened hog of today. A century ago the wild hog could outrun a horse. Food animals will be bred to expend practically all of their life energy in producing meat, milk, wool and other by-products. Horns, bones, muscles and lungs will have been neglected.

Prediction #29: To England in Two Days. Fast electric ships, crossing the ocean at more than a mile a minute, will go from New York to Liverpool in two days. The bodies of these ships will be built above the waves. They will be supported upon runners, somewhat like those of the sleigh. These runners will be very buoyant. Upon their under sides will be apertures expelling jets of air. In this way a film of air will be kept between them and the water’s surface. This film, together with the small surface of the runners, will reduce friction against the waves to the smallest possible degree. Propellers turned by electricity will screw themselves through both the water beneath and the air above. Ships with cabins artificially cooled will be entirely fireproof. In storm they will dive below the water and there await fair weather.

Last week we asked readers for their predictions of life in 100 years time. Inspired by ten 100-year predictions made by American civil engineer John Elfreth Watkins in 1900, many of you wrote in with your vision of the world in 2112.

Many of the "strange, almost impossible" predictions made by Watkins came true. Here is what futurologists Ian Pearson (IP) and Patrick Tucker (PT) think of your ideas.

1. Oceans will be extensively farmed and not just for fish (Jim 300)

IP: Likelihood 10/10. We will need to feed 10 billion people and nature can't keep up with demand, so we will need much more ocean farming for fish. But algae farming is also on the way for renewable energy, and maybe even for growth of feedstock (raw materials) or resource extraction via GM seaweed or algae.

PT: Good chance. According to Dennis Bushnell, chief scientist at the Nasa Langley Research Center, saltwater algae that's been genetically modified to absorb more nitrogen from the air than conventional algae could free up to 68% of the fresh water that is now tied up in conventional agriculture. This water could go to thirsty populations.

2. We will have the ability to communicate through thought transmission (Dev 2)

IP: Likelihood 10/10. Transmission will be just as easy as other forms of brain augmentation. Picking up thoughts and relaying them to another brain will not be much harder than storing them on the net.

PT: Good chance. Synthetic telepathy sounds like something out of Hollywood but it is absolutely possible, so long as "communication" is understood to be electrical signals rather than words.
Brain

3. Thanks to DNA and robotic engineering, we will have created incredibly intelligent humans who are immortal (game_over)

IP: Likelihood 9/10. It is more likely that direct brain links using electronics will achieve this, but GM will help a lot by increasing longevity - keeping people alive until electronic immortality technology is freely available at reasonable cost.

PT: Good chance. The idea that breakthroughs in the field of genetics, biotechnology and artificial intelligence will expand human intelligence and allow our species to essentially defeat death is sometimes called the Singularity.

4. We will be able to control the weather (mariebee_)

IP: Likelihood 8/10. There is already some weather control technology for mediating tornadoes, making it rain and so on, and thanks to climate change concerns, a huge amount of knowledge is being gleaned on how weather works. We will probably have technology to be able to control weather when we need to. It won't necessarily be cheap enough to use routinely and is more likely to be used to avoid severe damage in key areas.

PT: Good chance. We will certainly attempt to. A majority of scientists in the US support a federal programme to explore methods for engineering the Earth's climate (otherwise known as geoengineering). These technologies aim to protect against the worst effects of manmade climate change.
Continue reading the main story
More readers' predictions

English will be spelled phonetically (jim300)
Growing your own vegetables will not be allowed (holierthanthou)
The justice system will be based purely on rehabilitation (Paul)
Instead of receiving information from the media, people will download information directly into their brains (krozier93)
Crops will be grown in sand (jim300)

5. Antarctica will be "open for business" (Dev 2)

IP: Likelihood 8/10. The area seems worth keeping as a natural wilderness so I am hesitant here, but I do expect that pressure will eventually mean that some large areas will be used commercially for resources. It should be possible to do so without damaging nature there if the technology is good enough, and this will probably be a condition of exploration rights.

PT: Pretty close. Before there is a rush to develop Antarctica we will most likely see a full-scale rush to develop the Arctic. Whether the Arctic states tighten control over the region's resources, or find equitable and sustainable ways to share them will be a major political challenge in the decades ahead. Successful (if not necessarily sustainable) development of the Arctic portends well for the development of Antarctica.

6. One single worldwide currency (from Kennys_Heroes)

IP: Likelihood 8/10. This is very plausible. We are already seeing electronic currency that can be used anywhere, and this trend will continue. It is quite likely that there will be only a few regional currencies by the middle of the century and worldwide acceptance of a global electronic currency. This will gradually mean the others fall out of use and only one will left by the end of the century.

PT: Great try! The trend on this is actually more in the opposite direction. The internet is enabling new forms of bartering and value exchange. Local currencies are also now used by several hundred communities across the US and Europe. In other words, look for many more types of currency and exchange not fewer, in the coming decades.

7. We will all be wired to computers to make our brains work faster (Dev 2)
Big Morongo Wildlife Preserve (2007) Will deserts become tropical forests?

IP: Likelihood 10/10. We can expect this as soon as 2050 for many people. By 2075 most people in the developed world will use machine augmentation of some sort for their brains and, by the end of the century, pretty much everyone will. If someone else does this you will have to compete.

8. Nanorobots will flow around our body fixing cells, and will be able to record our memories (Alister Brown)

PT: Good chance. Right now, medical nanorobots exist only in theory and nanotechnology is mostly a materials science. But it's a rapidly growing field. Nanorobots exist within the realm of possibility, but the question of when they will arrive is another matter

IP: Likelihood: 7/10.

9. We will have sussed nuclear fusion (Kennys_Heroes)

IP: Likelihood 10/10. This is likely by 2045-2050 and almost certain by 2100. It's widely predicted that we will achieve this. What difference it makes will depend on what other energy technologies we have. We might also see a growth in shale gas or massive solar energy facilities. I don't think that wind power will be around.

10. There will only be three languages in the world - English, Spanish and Mandarin (Bill Walker)

IP: Likelihood 8/10. This does look like a powerful trend, other languages don't stand a lot of chance. Minor languages are dying at a huge rate already and the other major ones are mostly in areas where everyone educated speaks at least one of the other three. Time frame could be this century.
Elevator - artwork by Gabriel Orozco Space elevators 'will certainly be around'

11. Eighty per cent of the world will have gay marriage (Paul)

IP: Likelihood 8/10. This seems inevitable to those of us in the West and is likely to mean different kinds of marriages being available to everyone. Gay people might pick different options from heterosexual people, but everyone will be allowed any option. Some regions will be highly resistant though because of strong religious influences, so it isn't certain.

12. California will lead the break-up of the US (Dev 2)

IP: Likelihood 8/10. There are some indications already that California wants to split off and such pressures tend to build over time. It is hard to see this waiting until the end of the century. Maybe an East Coast cluster will want to break off too. Pressures come from the enormous differences in wealth generation capability, and people not wanting to fund others if they can avoid it.

13. Space elevators will make space travel cheap and easy (Ahdok)

IP: Likelihood 8/10. First space elevators will certainly be around, and although "cheap" is a relative term, it will certainly be a lot cheaper than conventional space development. It will create a strong acceleration in space development and tourism will be one important area, but I doubt the costs will be low enough for most people to try.

14. Women will be routinely impregnated by artificial insemination rather than by a man (krozier 93)

PT: Pretty close. At the very least, more couples are choosing advanced fertility techniques over old-fashioned conception. Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, in which an artificially inseminated embryo is carefully selected among other inseminated embryos for desirability, is becoming increasingly common in fertility clinics. Using this technique, it's now possible to screen an embryo for about half of all congenital illnesses. Within the next decade, researchers will be able to screen for almost all congenital illnesses prior to embryo implantation.

IP: Likelihood 5/10.

15. There will be museums for almost every aspect of nature, as so much of the world's natural habitat will have been destroyed (LowMaintenanceLifestyles)

PT: Pretty close. I cannot comment on the museums but the Earth is on the verge of a significant species extinction event. Protecting biodiversity in a time of increased resource consumption, overpopulation, and environmental degradation will require continued sacrifice on the part of local, often impoverished communities. Experts contend that incorporating local communities' economic interests into conservation plans will be essential to species protection in the next century.

IP: Likelihood 2/10.

16. Deserts will become tropical forests (jim300)

IP: Likelihood 7/10. Desert greening is progressing so this is just about possible.
Hands

17. Marriage will be replaced by an annual contract (holierthanthou)

IP: Likelihood 6/10. I think we will certainly see some weaker forms of marriage that are designed to last a decade or two rather than a whole lifetime, but traditional marriage will still be an option. Increasing longevity is the key - if you marry at 20 and live to well over 100, that is far too long a commitment. People will want marriages that aren't necessarily forever, but don't bankrupt them when they end.

18. Sovereign nation states will cease to exist and there will be one world government (krozier93)

PT: Great try! However, I think that the trend is in the direction of more sovereign nations rather than fewer. In the coming years, corporations or wealth private citizens will attempt to use earth-moving technologies to build their own semi-sovereign entities in international waters.

IP: Likelihood 2/10.

19. War by the West will be fought totally be remote control (LowMaintenanceLifestyles)

IP: Likelihood 5/10.

20. Britain will have had a revolution (holierthanthou)

IP: Likelihood 7/10. Well, possible, but not as likely as some other trends.

You can continue to contribute to the debate on Twitter using the hashtag #100yearpredictions. Ian Pearson is a future technology consultant and conference speaker. Patrick Tucker is spokesperson for the World Future Society and deputy editor of The Futurist magazine.

TL;DR: The top list is from 1900, the bottom list is by the BBC from now. Top ones better, and people are moronic.

Yahew · 16-01-2012 4:42pm

The top ones are good. I wonder why he only thought people would live on average to 50, though, and most people didnt get Aeroplanes back then. Otherwise very good.

Bottom list is futurist nonsense.

Mr.Biscuits · 16-01-2012 4:43pm

25 years ago I was full sure I'd own one of these by now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkyLnWm1iCs

I still haven't given up hope though, I'll own one - one day.

FatherLen · 16-01-2012 4:44pm

Mr.Biscuits wrote: »

25 years ago I was full sure I'd own one of these by now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkyLnWm1iCs

the scientists still have another three years to get this working

Where To · 16-01-2012 4:46pm

Everyone reading this will be dead.

. . . . .. . . . Apart from people reading this in 100 years.

. . . . . . . . . And people who live to be really really old.

. . . . . . . . . And children.

. . . . . . . . . . And spambots

Agricola · 16-01-2012 4:49pm

I'll still be reading that OP in 100 years.............

SEPT 23 1989 · 16-01-2012 4:51pm

The "one single worldwide currency" should work out well:rolleyes:

RichT · 16-01-2012 4:51pm

Grainne Seoige will be anouncing her new show(s).............

Celly Smunt · 16-01-2012 4:51pm

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

The "one single worldwide currency" should work out well:rolleyes:

Probably would solve most issues actually.

sensibleken · 16-01-2012 4:53pm

Britain will have destroyed itself through civil war when someone tells them about the yellow reg punch

the purple tin · 16-01-2012 4:55pm

I'm still waiting for one of these

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_xPeu4V36A

kfallon · 16-01-2012 4:56pm

I still won't have paid my TV Licence!

castletownman · 16-01-2012 5:10pm

There will be a whole generation of "musicians" who will have a number of #1 hits despite not being able to play a musical instrument and being musically illiterate.

People will be less intelligent and lazier.

Predictions based on current rate of technological advance, and may actually come to pass in less than five years, rather than one hundred years!

Lord TSC · 16-01-2012 5:18pm

They were really confident about the strawberries becoming an Xmas dinner, cause it's listed twice :P

Yahew · 16-01-2012 5:20pm

pmcmahon wrote: »

Probably would solve most issues actually.

The European version didnt quite solve all problems, though.

HovaBaby · 16-01-2012 5:38pm

In 100 years time, all instruments will be obsolete. All music will be done my computer.

Yahew · 16-01-2012 5:39pm

HovaBaby wrote: »

In 100 years time, all instruments will be obsolete. All music will be done my computer.

Thats possible now. Its not happening now because people like real instruments.

HovaBaby · 16-01-2012 5:42pm

Yahew wrote: »

Thats possible now. Its not happening now because people like real instruments.

I know, I just typed what I did cos of humour. The way people think "look at the way the world is going. :rolleyes:".

I hope there will be real vocals in the future and all this auto-tune crap be done away with.

Lapsed Catholic · 16-01-2012 5:43pm

Women only gyms

Feeona · 16-01-2012 5:52pm

Men only men

Eric Cartman · 16-01-2012 6:00pm

ireland might finally legalise weed or abortion

Kim_Il_Jong · 16-01-2012 6:12pm

They'll take the p1ss out of us lot, we will be their version of black and white footage of the monacled inglish gintleman saying jolly good show hurrah for the queen.

They'll ridicule our trends, we will be the 80's hair and moustache people of their day.

Stuff we rightly consider Shyt3 will be considered 'classic' in their day.

Everyone will be good looking due to surgery and genetic engineering - they'll look at us as mingers.

They'll be like eric cartman with the newest x-box game, they'll say ha ha ha you guys are so lame cause we only had 40 inch plasma tv's.

They'll be dim witted and unable for present day practical tasks. The thoughts of a manually controlled vehicle will be strange and unnerving.

AND ALL THE ABOVE WILL HAPPEN TO YOU TOO FUTURE DOUCHE BAGS

44leto · 16-01-2012 6:19pm

War and war with sticks and stones, I don't think this civilisation has another 100 years, but the end has been nigh since the beginning of civilisation.

df1985 · 16-01-2012 7:14pm

bit of a contradiction but I think cigarettes will be made either illegal or prohibitively expensive.

at the same time marijuana laws will be relaxed.

alcohol will be very tightly regulated, other drugs like mdma will have relaxed controls.

Sindri · 16-01-2012 7:37pm

By 2045 we will have constructed the first super computer.

Then we will become Obsolete. Arnold will be it's god. We will be it's slaves.

partyatmygaff · 16-01-2012 7:57pm

Yahew wrote: »

Thats possible now. Its not happening now because people like real instruments.

What's a "real" instrument? Synthesisers are instruments too. There's nothing special about a guitar (For a common example) that makes it any more "real" than say a synthesiser.

What really doesn't sound good are songs made entirely through a "Piano Roll". There's a big difference between a real musician playing a song and a computer reading a sheet of music and reproducing the sounds.

Take this for example. Two versions of the same piano piece. One was transcribed from sheet music on to a piano roll and the other was performed by a human being.

wendell borton · 16-01-2012 8:05pm

If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever.
George Orwell - Nineteen Eighty-Four

.

Yahew · 16-01-2012 8:53pm

partyatmygaff wrote: »

What's a "real" instrument? Synthesisers are instruments too. There's nothing special about a guitar (For a common example) that makes it any more "real" than say a synthesiser.

What really doesn't sound good are songs made entirely through a "Piano Roll". There's a big difference between a real musician playing a song and a computer reading a sheet of music and reproducing the sounds.

Take this for example. Two versions of the same piano piece. One was transcribed from sheet music on to a piano roll and the other was performed by a human being.

my point still stands. electric pianos have not replaced pianos.

partyatmygaff · 16-01-2012 9:19pm

Yahew wrote: »

my point still stands. electric pianos have not replaced pianos.

They haven't. But some have reached or are very close to reaching the sound of an acoustic piano.

Just out of curiosity... if you've listened to that song I posted two versions of, what kind of Piano do you hear for both versions? Electric or Acoustic?

Yahew · 16-01-2012 9:20pm

electric.

partyatmygaff · 16-01-2012 9:28pm

Yahew wrote: »

electric.

Not quite. What you're hearing there in both versions is a Steinway K Piano recorded and processed in the exact same way. The only difference is one was played by a computer and the other played by a human being.

Yahew · 16-01-2012 9:30pm

partyatmygaff wrote: »

Not quite. What you're hearing there in both versions is a Steinway K Piano recorded and processed in the exact same way. The only difference is one was played by a computer and the other played by a human being.

how did the computer "play" a traditional piano?

partyatmygaff · 16-01-2012 9:34pm

Yahew wrote: »

how did the computer "play" a traditional piano?

Through a sampler containing multiple recordings of the piano.

Yahew · 16-01-2012 9:38pm

so I was hearing a sample. Which is what i said.

telekon · 16-01-2012 9:44pm

Prediction #26: Strawberries as large as apples will be eaten by our great great grandchildren for their Christmas dinners a hundred years hence.

WTF?! What's Christmas got to do with strawberries?

RichieC · 16-01-2012 9:45pm

in 100 years everything will be private. Streets, parks, police, firemen you name it.

The rich will be holed up behind huge walls to fend of the lower cast outside.

The libertarian nightmare will be fully realised. Democracy a curse word of old. Massive private institutions fill the power vacuum once held by states. These private tyranies a law unto themselves.