The World in 2030:- My Predictions.

--Kaiser--

I don't see what this fuss about fossil fuels is about, engines have been developed that run on vegatable oil, rapeseed oil, hydrogen fuel cells etc...

Dades

--Kaiser-- wrote:

I don't see what this fuss about fossil fuels is about, engines have been developed that run on vegatable oil, rapeseed oil, hydrogen fuel cells etc...

The key word here is VIABILITY.

The energy latent in a barrel of oil is enormous compared to energy in any of the current oil "replacements". They are not even in the ballpark.

[Which reminds me - I have to put oil in my car.]

bonkey

I find it interesting that the OP predicts the furtherment of our IT-driven, meda-centric world on one hand, whilst predicting the downfall of the economies and nations driving that concept.

Similarly, the US will be bankrupt, oil will be massively expensive, but the US will be able to afford go to war and remain the dominant power in that respect, but won't be able to beat out North Korea without help.

And so forth. There's a number of those "predictions" which are almost impossible to gel together. Generally, its when you take one which says "this established trend will continue" and mix it with a "this event prediction will cause all these huge rapid changes" variant.

They don't gel - if the system is going to undergo rapid pivotal change, then established trends go out the window. Alternately, continuation of established trends is dependant on the lack of significant system peturbation.

You can't have both, but the OP wants them.

jc

astrofool

The Atheist wrote:

That's a rather blinkered view of the future of computing isn't it? I might remind you of Bill Gates quote from 1981....

"640K ought to be enough for anybody."


But MOST IMPORTANTLY let's not forget:

In the future - everyone will wear boots.

Bill Gates never said that, its an urban myth for some reason (i'm sure www.snopes.com has it covered somewhere).

Dades

astrofool wrote:

(i'm sure www.snopes.com has it covered somewhere).

I'm not.

I suppose next you're going to say that everyone in future won't be wearing boots.

popinfresh

That's a rather blinkered view of the future of computing isn't it? I might remind you of Bill Gates quote from 1981....

That was him taking into consideration that computers would be used for no more than typing documents and other primative things.

Can you suggest to me something which would require a processor greater than 20Ghz. Bearing in mind this something has to be something that you or me would do on their PC.

(Da Matrix )

Dades

popinfresh wrote:

Can you suggest to me something which would require a processor greater than 20Ghz. Bearing in mind this something has to be something that you or me would do on their PC.

Off the top of my head - Virtual Reality, perhaps?

Take the term "gaming". The best games required 16k to run years ago. Since then the processing requirement to run top games has increased exponentially. Why believe that this will change? Virtual Reality is the holy grail of gaming and it's only going to need more power.

Whether or not we can think of something is irrelvant anyway. It's the assumption that we have already thought of all possible uses, and therefore can gauge how much processing power we need that's wrong.

popinfresh

YEah, like I said "Da Matrix". Although, I think the problem with that is, have they invented a device which can plug into the back of your head and take over the signals goin into your brain.


/me ponders: Virtual Pleasure Sluts 2010

Fysh

Ruadan wrote:

The fiew survivors will found a society based on equality and pecae, the third epoch of humanity, thye next ctage of our evolution, the Age of Aquarious, whatever ya wanna call it will have dawned by this centuries end,

Yes, bound to happen. Because, you know, after a few years/generations the survivors certainly wouldn't go back to being petty, argumentative and divisive like the current species. Especially not if conditions are tough and resources limited. (I mean, come on. WW2 was the most horrific large-scale war ever fought on the planet and saw the deploment of atomic bombs. Did the survivors end up turning the world into some hippy paradise?)

nobodythere

All we can hope for the future is that when huge wars do come over our finite resources that we can avoid nuclear war and at least leave some hope to the future of out planet

Catsmokinpot

ive realised what we have to do.. we have to invest in tampons!! when world
warIII starts and we're all hoping it will lots of men will die which means women
will be having more periods.... we could corner the market and bingo!! take
over a small country with the profits and build our own society where people
can live together in peace.
ok ready... BREAK!

rsynnott

There probably won't be another large war, unless it's a Dr. Strangelove-type end of the world event. Too many people have nukes now.

Lennoxschips

When normal oil is too expensive to use, people wills start using shale oil. Shale oil is a type of oil stored in rocks. It has to be extracted from rocks and is therefore very expensive and pollutive to manufacture. There is enough shale oil in the world to power the Earth for 100,000 years, based on current consumption. 70% of the world's shale oil is in the USA (the world is unfair, I know).

Shale oil will be produced when the cost of oil per barrel justifies the shale oil production costs. This happened before, after WWII, when the US was producing shale oil.

I'd love if peak oil forced us to use cleaner energy, but I fear that governments will choose to go back to dirtier sources like coal and shale oil as a "temporary meaurement" which will become permanent, messing up the planet even more.

rsynnott

Nuclear power should be vastly cheaper than shale oil.

Lennoxschips

American Presidents are backed by oil companies, so logic doesn't win out. :rolleyes:

Lennoxschips

I did read somewhere though that if offshore windparks were developed off the coast of the west of Ireland that Ireland could become a net exporter of electricity. The only reason they aren't being developed there now is because the ESB grid isn't up to scratch.

Catsmokinpot

my predictions:

1. the world will not end

2. 3rd world war, which seems to be the war on terrorism, will continue for a long time

3. when the oil runs out we'll probably switch to alcohol fuel or vege oil fuel instead of hydrogen power, just to fvck up our planet that little bit more.... and because its easier to convert the abundance of engines we already have to burn this type of fuel.

4. thousands of species of animals that are already on the verge of extinction will begin to die out.

5. we still wont find bin laden (and still nobody will care)

6. we still wont go near the real culprets of the twin tower bombings(the saudis)

7. america will continue picking on countries, especialy china, iran, north korea.

8. eventually europe will cop on to itself and tell america to stop fvcking around,(or it could go the complete opposite way and america will allie itself to a corrupt european government and start fvcking us over bigtime)

9. a stargate will be uncovered.

10. the gould will try to take over the galaxy

11. a special team called SG-1 will lead the fight against the gould

12. and we lived happily ever after

as for irish politics and the catholic church, nobody will take any notice of them because they are both full of sh1t!

Dades

Catsmokinpot wrote:

america will continue picking on countries, especialy china, iran, north korea.

Can't see them picking on China TBH.
More likely going to be the other way around.

And I don't think we earthlings stand a chance against the gould.

Wibbs

Forget oil, I think water will be the issue in the future. Desertification,global warming(whatever the cause) and abstraction are causing water tables to drop all over the place and when it gets to a certain level. Energy wise, windfarms and all that are great, but nuclear is the way to go.

As usual in all predictions we'll miss something. 30 yrs ago few considered the internet as having the effect it has had. We could also go backwards. It's happened before in history. 30 odd years ago men were on the moon. Now we seem to have problems with even getting safely into near earth orbit.

rsynnott

Wibbs wrote:

Forget oil, I think water will be the issue in the future. Desertification,global warming(whatever the cause) and abstraction are causing water tables to drop all over the place and when it gets to a certain level. Energy wise, windfarms and all that are great, but nuclear is the way to go.

The water problem can be solved if the energy problem is.

Wibbs wrote:

As usual in all predictions we'll miss something. 30 yrs ago few considered the internet as having the effect it has had. We could also go backwards. It's happened before in history. 30 odd years ago men were on the moon. Now we seem to have problems with even getting safely into near earth orbit.

No, we don't. The shuttle does, but it's a not-very-good politically motivated design. Soyuzs are still popping up as they did 30 years ago.

Wibbs

rsynnott wrote:

The water problem can be solved if the energy problem is.

Largly different issues really.

No, we don't. The shuttle does, but it's a not-very-good politically motivated design. Soyuzs are still popping up as they did 30 years ago.

Indeed, with largely 30yr old designs. Not exactly great progress from the heady days of Apollo, is it?

Dades

Wibbs wrote:

Largly different issues really.

I presume what rsynnott means is that with an abundant alternative source of energy, desalination plants can more viably provide fresh water.

Wibbs wrote:

Indeed, with largely 30yr old designs. Not exactly great progress from the heady days of Apollo, is it?

I would suspect that has more to do with budgetary cuts than anything. Lack of public support means lack of funds. Not to mention some expensive wars fought over the last 30 years by the main spacefaring nations.

seamus

Wibbs wrote:

Indeed, with largely 30yr old designs. Not exactly great progress from the heady days of Apollo, is it?

Well, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Satellites and the like are still launched using conventional rockets, though you can be sure the underlying technology has come on in leaps and bounds since the first satellites were launched. Once the Cold War ended, NASA's funding became something of loose end, Administrations could chip away at it to get money at will. They've largely had to make do with the shuttles because
a) That's all they have and
b) Developing a new machine, when there's no pressure to do so (and no truckloads of money being thrown at them) is a massive undertaking.*

Ultimately, it comes back to my first line - if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Car technology has come a long, long way since the first Model T's rolled off the line, but ultimately we're still driving around on rubber tyres, being propelled by internal combustion, and have been doing so for over 100 years.

You also have to remember that with technology where a serious risk is posed by technical failure (such as in aircraft and spacecraft), the technology will always be at least 10 years behind what is currently in wide use.

*That said, I can see the private/commercial sector very quickly taking charge in the area of space travel

rsynnott

It's a common misconception that there's been no progress in space for a while. In fact, it is now vastly cheaper to launch satellites (allowing for inflation, lack of slave labour and such) than it was in the Apollo days. Manned space travel was always, to an extent, an exercise in propaganda, but even that has improved considerably; people have spent months on Mir.