What will life be like in 20 years?

Question

Will we be living underground? Will we travel via high-pressure tubes? Will things be pretty much the same? Please include links to back up your theories.

Answer 1

In Twenty years time the streets will be free of parked cars. All households will contains a garage or underground holding area. Space programs like moon station and Mars will have its first tree shrubbery thriving and bringing the planet a much needed burst of oxygen. Deep space voyagers will transmit what they see as life form. Nasa deploys deep space telescopes in a row - the front one transmits to the one behind it and so forth relaying back to earths stations. Pluto will ahve been classifed once more as a planet and its moons did once harbour lifeforms. A space deployment device to the planets Jupiter and Saturn are met with great expectation as there are no storms on the surface areas. Cars will be flown to and from work.

Answer 2

This is not really a philosophy question. It has little to do with thinking and so much to do with speculating on events that may or may not be predictable.

I think if you look around you, you will notice that it is getting hotter and we are getting overpopulated, and that spells for war.

So in twenty years I would think we will be at each other's throats trying to secure the world's limited resources.

I am also thinking health care will be severely retarded as people finally come to the realization that doctors are not Gods and money does not grow on trees.

This is a global question and realizing that you have to think history will repeat itself and conflicts will arise and peace makers will cry foul and when all is said and done the victors will seize the spoils and write all the new rules.

Don't expect up to figure everything out and don't expect us to erase prejudices that have been in place for thousands of years.

Just assume that each morning people will wake up want to survive and daring to think they can make their lifes a little bit better even if that means making someone else's life a little bit worse in the process.

And you don't need sources for this.

Philosophy is about the study of thought, and that is all I am giving you a few thoughts.

Answer 3

You are right that nobody can exactly predict the future. Sometimes the future is foreseen. The film "Destination Moon" came out in 1950. People walked on the moon in 1969. Sometimes the future is not foreseen. Who, 19 years before the 1983 debut of the IBM PC, predicted computers in the home?

For two reasons I believe the future will be better 20 years from now. First, if you slice back in history at 20 year intervals you will see that people were better off, better equipped, but the pace of change slows as we move back in history. Why? According to H.G. Barnett, innovation is the rearrangement of two or more pre-existing things. A good example it the Wright brothers putting a gasoline engine on a big box kite to invent the airplane. As time goes on, more and more things are around to re-combine, so the pace of change increases.

With Anne Frank, I believe that people are really good at heart. This is my second reason for belief that the future will be better. Granted, this is faith. Strange to end an answer with a question, but does anyone have a better way than such faith to deal with the fact that many new things are evil?

Answer 4

As fashion is my specialty I'll stick with what i know well. My prediction for twenty years from now: as fashion follows twenty year cycles, and it's happening right now some runway collections are attempting to bring back the eighties. In the stores flat shoes, last popular in the mid eighties are making a comeback, so are low heeled boots and brilliant colours. To follow that reasoning: I predict that the years of the first decade of the 21st century will be a source of inspiration and nostalgia in pop culture, spilling into fashion. Hip hop, boho, emo and skater will make a comeback, but all with slight variations based on what's going on in fashion at that time in regards to colour and silhouette. Perhaps clothes won't be as baggy, or they will be interpreted in new fabrics and colours, or various items from different styling ideas will be combined in a new way. For example, skinny emo jeans in bright colours worn with a boho top. I also predict that there will be fads that will be unflattering to all shapes, colours that look awful on everyone, items that everyone will want to have, items that everyone will wear, and styles that will cause controversy and consternation among the more conservative elements of society --who will see the clothes of today as modest and conservative and to be emulated -- and there will be a hot new designer who will take the fashion world by storm and then vanish when no one actually buys his/her clothes. On what do I base this? Experience. I doubt the future will be any different than the past eighty years as far as fashion trends. Much of predicting the future successfully is merely stating the glaringly obvious.

Answer 5

Well seeing that the world is full of sin, I can't imagine that the world will be any better now (in action) that it will be then.

I wont say 20 years, but I will say in the future, scientists will develop the new energy sources that have been discovered recently. I don't believe this will happen before the American public is begging for relief from high gas prices and high electric/heating costs.

I see a downfall in America, mainly because we are supposed to be governed by the people, but we are governed by the people we elect.

I feel that our laws are going to be modified greatly because of the pressure from the government and because people are slipping through cracks in the system. (e.g. - certain exceptions to laws because people have filed suits) I feel that racial tension will not decrease, instead I see a great increase, because of immigration from Mexico.

I see oil prices rising higher and higher, with many nations trying to dominate the oil market. This in itself could fuel another war or world war.

I feel there will be a third world war, because of religious tensions, and power hungry groups. Religion might not be the stated cause of the war, but in the end, it will be.

The human lifespan will decrease because of everyday stresses and new diseases we have discovered, especially in America. New found cures might be able to help some, but we will never be able to discover them fast enough.

I feel that a group of people will try to convince more that cloning is the only way to preserve the population.

There will be great breakthroughs in the medical field.

As for science, I am not sure how far we can go, before we go too far.
Humanity can only become so advanced before we see another downfall.

Technology, especially in cities will be on the rise, and as a consequence, the cities will have to find ways to make room for a bigger population (by downsizing). See Japans' hotels for example.

We will find that some of the prescription drugs introduced today have long-term side effects and health defects, because they have not been tested for long durations, especially over the human lifespan.

The crisis in the middle east will not de-escalate, instead I believe it will grow and cause more tension across the world.

Nations will battle over land because they have used all of their resources, or their population is overwhelming.

Automobiles will eventually go hybrid. I feel that vehicle technology will advance greatly, but safety is a major concern.
As for high pressure tubes, I am not sure of this possibility, I am sure something more likely will come along.

I hope to see tractor trailers off highways, and onto freight.
For what we know, cars might be able to drive themselves, but these could not function to the fullest until everyone switched over.

I just hope we don't end up like the Jetson's.
Civilization is doomed, unless we revert back to what works, and discover what doesn't work.
We need to spend our money on OUR problems, and fix what is breaking our country.
Humanitarian effort should be mandatory from every nation's government.
Although this is unlikely, we could give everyone a chance to prosper and create a better world.

As for the next 20 years, I guess we will just have to wait.

Answer 6

That depends on who we elect the next President of the United States. For the most part, I don't expect any significant changes in the next 20 years, but it has been forcasted by the scientific community that my hometown of Atlanta, Georgia will be a dessert within 80 years if something radical isn't done about global warming.

Answer 7

I think the largest and most exciting advancements in the next 20 years will be in the fields of electronics, nanotechnology and biochemistry/cybernetics.

In the field of electronics, we'll have not just much more advanced robots capable of interacting with humans in everyday society, but many other new technological developments, including advanced prosthetics and augmented reality systems. Prosthetics of the year 2027 might be good enough to supercede biological organs in certain areas, in which case we will see people trading off perfectly healthy limbs, hearts and possibly even eyes for faster, stronger, more reliable mechanical ones. Augmented reality systems will likely become mainstream: People will go around wearing screen glasses which will not only be able to correct vision dynamically for people with bad eyesight, but also overlay information on top of your field of vision, showing everything from the time to your email to the prices at the restaurants you're walking past (and maybe the occasional popup ad?). These augmented reality glasses may use a 'mouse' which moves according to the person's eye movements.

In nanotechnology, the progress is harder to predict, but probably no less astounding. We may reach the point of having 'utility fog', swarms of nanomachines able to attach to each other and collectively form anything from a wrench to a toothbrush. Spray-on solar panels will very probably exist, possibly with more efficiency than modern solar panels (for one thing, they could shift according to the time and the weather to draw out that bit of extra energy). Nanotechnology will also find use in the field of medicine, allowing the creation of splints, the repair of muscle tissue or even the removal of an accidentally swallowed object (such as a pin or a marble) without the messy job of surgery- just have the patient take a pill or two containing medical nanomachines and the hospital computers take care of the rest. Couple with advances in genomics and the advent of genetically tailored medicine, nanomachines could be built specifically to bypass the immune system of the sick person in question. And this is only a start; once nanotechnology gets going, nanomachines will become capable of anything from efficient organic agriculture on past building houses dynamically in mere hours and all the way to stopping hurricanes. And let's not forget the enormous potential for nanotechnology in the fields of recycling and personal hygiene! How much of this will be in existence by 2027 is hard to say, but the remainder won't have to wait very much longer.

Answer 8

One thing I can guarantee. It won't be anything like any of today's predictions.

Some people live in underground homes that were built 30 to 40 yrs. ago and that concept hasn't really taken hold in the majority of the population.

Travel will be pretty much the same as it is today although hybrid cars will be more prevalent.

Answer 9

I don't think I would like to know what it will be like in twenty years from now. It is a general surprise each morning that I am even still of this world. Each day brings a wondrous surprise not knowing what to expect. I love surprises or challenges whatever the day may bring.

Answer 10

According to what I have read on the net and/or heard on TV documentaries and news, in 20 years:

The USA will still be the world's largest economy and strongest military player, but China will be very close in terms of economic size and military might. India will be like China today, the world's cheap labor source with huge GDP growth rates, and the EU will still enjoy a high living standard, albeit with lower growth rates. The EU will be more like a second America, home to millions of immigrants that came to fill the jobs gap caused by their aging native populations. Japan will probably be like Europe today, with an aging population and slow economic growth, but overall pretty good living standards.

Russia will have achieved a large and healthy economy, although it will still lack in terms of democracy and civil liberties.

However, the West will still be miles ahead in terms of democracy and civil liberties, thus still prompting a "brain leak" from China, India and other states to western countries.

Certain Latin American countries like Brazil and Chile will be on the way to become developed countries, while other like Mexico and the Central American countries will be be in the middle road between underdevelopment and development, and with even larger chunks of their economy dependent on money transfers from emigrant workers in North America.

Which brings me to th other big prediction: Ethnically the USA will be more Hispanic than today, but the Hispanic population will mostly have adapted to the "American way of life" just like the other migrant groups have done in the past.

Africa will be one of China's closest allies in terms of providing them raw materials, but it will probably be still underdeveloped compared to the rest of the world. The middle east will be struggling to find substitutes for the ever dwindling oil demand and oil reserves, and probably this region will still be full of conflicts. However, as oil becomes less and less of a necessity for the rich nations, the middle east will be left more and more to their own.

But of course, even if many experts predict this, nobody knows for sure.