5 ms·

What will be the future I wonder.

christophilus 5y ago
Thunderdome.
verisimi 5y ago
Technocracy. We'll all live in small flats, every move monitored, resources 'correctly' allocated, quarterly 'health' shots, no cars, we'll see very little nature. My, how far we've come...
- 6502nerdface 5y ago
  Hey man it's that or Thunderdome.
- narrator 5y ago
  Since we are dystopia larping: The future will be miserable, unless you live in China. In China, the future will arrive as planned as China will once again become the middle kingdom and be bestowed with the mandate of heaven. In the west, the 200 years of western industrial society will be regarded as a mistake that must be payed for dearly with carbon credits. ;)
- swayvil 5y ago
  Sounds about right. Also. Sudden death for worn-out workers. We'll invent a rationale for that eventually. 20 years of retirement is just an unnecessary drain on the economy. Like in Logan's Run except more plausible. Also cellphones implanted at birth. With stress induction. Also, radical amputation for information workers. All that extra flesh is just an unnecessary drain on the economy.
  - 5e92cb50239222b 5y ago
    >20 years of retirement is just an unnecessary drain on the economy. Or you might go the way my country did, with a 60-something retirement age and 65 (or slightly better) life expectancy.
  - secondcoming 5y ago
    > We'll invent a rationale for that eventually. 20 years of retirement is just an unnecessary drain on the economy. I n the UK there's already some disdain for 'boomers' because they're getting state pensions and are quite likely to own several mortgage-free houses. Tax rises only affect those currently working so young people people get irked at having to pay more into a system where they're unlikely to get much out. It's not entirely unjustified but the assumption that 'boomer's got stuff for free isn't necessarily true. It's a interesting development and worth watching.
  - swayvil 5y ago
    Jeez. You people catch nuance like a chainlink fence catches mosquitoes. I'm not saying that I buy into the "kill the old" thing. I'm just saying it's the natural evolution of our society. Aristocrats get gilded, serfs get grinded.
- chubot 5y ago
  I think the future will be more diverse, and what you describe is probably one direction it will go. But there are also many other directions, like people living off grid aided by varying amounts of cheap technology, etc. There is actually a lot of land left in the world (even in the US and Canada) if you want to take on the hardships of not interacting with society. Judging by what I see say on YouTube, a lot of people want this! Random channel, I only watched a little of it: https://www.youtube.com/user/explorealternatives https://www.youtube.com/user/explorealternatives (it felt like a lot of off grid living was in Canada, which is interesting given the weather) Similar to paleo and other alternative diets as a reaction against industrial farming and food production, there's already a lot of reaction against big tech and technocracy. I think / I hope this time it won't take 50+ years to "properly react". Both industries brought us some good things but we have to be critical about what to adopt.
  - concordDance 5y ago
    "A lot of land"? Where exactly? The private timberland? The Federal wilderness? Or the desert? https://i.imgur.com/Us5Wyt0.jpg https://i.imgur.com/Us5Wyt0.jpg
    - SamPatt 5y ago
      There's an entire state's worth of "idle / fallow" on that map. Michigan and then some. That's a lot of land.
    - chubot 5y ago
      I'm not an expert in this area, but I watched a video by a guy who built a cabin in Michigan, talking about how to buy land for like $5K an acre. I just googled and this seems like a real thing, i.e. hundreds of properties for very cheap: https://www.landandfarm.com/search/michigan-land-between-5000-and-10000 https://www.landandfarm.com/search/michigan-land-between-500... Also I had a friend who did this near the California/Nevada border. Super cheap land if you don't care about electricity and plumbing! Michigan and California are both extremely populated states -- but MOST of them by land area is very sparsely populated. I'm sure someone here knows more, but I think it's obvious if you just drive 30, 60, or 120 minutes outside any city in the US. There is a lot of land. All of it is probably owned, but the owners are probably not doing anything with it, and would sell it for a fair price, which is low. Hell there is even land in San Francisco if you've ever biked between San Francisco and South San Francisco. Again, it's owned, but it's not doing very much. Humans like to crowd together in very few places, particularly near water. Here's a more relevant picture: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/3d-mapping-the-worlds-largest-population-densities/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/3d-mapping-the-worlds-large... Judging by this picture, the US, Europe, and Russia are barely populated at all :)
bsenftner 5y ago
The future will be sparsely distributed. The wealthy elite are modifying society such that only they will have the gilded science fiction future, and everyone else will be left to their own, probably ruled by Libertarian Warlords.
- Geee 5y ago
  How could a libertarian be a war lord? As far as I can imagine, war lords are authoritarian, which is complete opposite from libertarian.
  - rmah 5y ago
    Warlordism is the natural outcome of libertarianism. Anyone who isn't blind to the darker side of human nature can see this as pretty obvious.
    - Geee 5y ago
      The whole philosophical core of libertarianism is to seek for a minimal set of rules and systems that doesn't evolve into warlordism or any other corrupt power structure. The idea is to maximize individual liberty and keep it that way.
  - fakedang 5y ago
    They'll find justification somehow. Like needing a security force to respond to various "concerns", or the "increasingly unstable situation" (at that point in time).
ajuc 5y ago
Ageing and declining population everywhere - already most developing countries from 90s have net negative population change, and it spreads to more and more countries. Huge cities disappearing as remote working, automation, rising sea levels and mass migrations make most of them pointless. Lots of civil unrest, mass migrations, new plagues and wars as the globalized economy collapses and disappointed voters choose new kinds of populism to save them. Rich people moving to the few lucky countries that won on the global warming and now try to isolate. Everybody else fight for scraps. Eventually population adjusts and stabilizes on much lower level and reproduction rates grow again as repopulation starts.
- throwaway47292 5y ago
  I can relate to that comment, as I feel the same way. So much that it causes me pain. I have to constantly remind myself: In chaos, all predictions are possible, solarpunk is just as likely as cyberpunk. Everywhere you look, you see what you are looking for. If you are looking for death all you see is death, if you are looking for god, all you see is god.
- xyzzyz 5y ago
  > Rich people moving to the few lucky countries that won on the global warming and now try to isolate. Everybody else fight for scraps. Which, if you follow the projections, will include entire Europe and North America. Seriously, read the IPCC report: impact of global warming in western world will be rather superficial, if not positive. It’s not them who is most negatively affected.
  - ajuc 5y ago
    > Which, if you follow the projections, will include entire Europe and North America So, about 1 billion people out of about 8 billion worldwide. Half of that if you were speaking of "western world" only. Now imagine what the rest will do. And how that will impact globalized economy on which welfare of western world is built.
    - xyzzyz 5y ago
matz1 5y ago
People live in VR world that good enough to enable them to live however they want. It is the only way to achieve world piece. Nobody can have conflict with each other if they don't interact with each other.
daddylongstroke 5y ago
Probably mostly like the present, and the past. Things don't really change much, especially people. We build new toys, that's about it.

Thunderdome.

Technocracy. We'll all live in small flats, every move monitored, resources 'correctly' allocated, quarterly 'health' shots, no cars, we'll see very little nature. My, how far we've come...

6502nerdface 5y ago
Hey man it's that or Thunderdome.
narrator 5y ago
Since we are dystopia larping: The future will be miserable, unless you live in China. In China, the future will arrive as planned as China will once again become the middle kingdom and be bestowed with the mandate of heaven. In the west, the 200 years of western industrial society will be regarded as a mistake that must be payed for dearly with carbon credits. ;)
swayvil 5y ago
Sounds about right. Also. Sudden death for worn-out workers. We'll invent a rationale for that eventually. 20 years of retirement is just an unnecessary drain on the economy. Like in Logan's Run except more plausible. Also cellphones implanted at birth. With stress induction. Also, radical amputation for information workers. All that extra flesh is just an unnecessary drain on the economy.
- 5e92cb50239222b 5y ago
  >20 years of retirement is just an unnecessary drain on the economy. Or you might go the way my country did, with a 60-something retirement age and 65 (or slightly better) life expectancy.
- secondcoming 5y ago
  > We'll invent a rationale for that eventually. 20 years of retirement is just an unnecessary drain on the economy. I n the UK there's already some disdain for 'boomers' because they're getting state pensions and are quite likely to own several mortgage-free houses. Tax rises only affect those currently working so young people people get irked at having to pay more into a system where they're unlikely to get much out. It's not entirely unjustified but the assumption that 'boomer's got stuff for free isn't necessarily true. It's a interesting development and worth watching.
- swayvil 5y ago
  Jeez. You people catch nuance like a chainlink fence catches mosquitoes. I'm not saying that I buy into the "kill the old" thing. I'm just saying it's the natural evolution of our society. Aristocrats get gilded, serfs get grinded.
chubot 5y ago
I think the future will be more diverse, and what you describe is probably one direction it will go. But there are also many other directions, like people living off grid aided by varying amounts of cheap technology, etc. There is actually a lot of land left in the world (even in the US and Canada) if you want to take on the hardships of not interacting with society. Judging by what I see say on YouTube, a lot of people want this! Random channel, I only watched a little of it: https://www.youtube.com/user/explorealternatives https://www.youtube.com/user/explorealternatives (it felt like a lot of off grid living was in Canada, which is interesting given the weather) Similar to paleo and other alternative diets as a reaction against industrial farming and food production, there's already a lot of reaction against big tech and technocracy. I think / I hope this time it won't take 50+ years to "properly react". Both industries brought us some good things but we have to be critical about what to adopt.
- concordDance 5y ago
  "A lot of land"? Where exactly? The private timberland? The Federal wilderness? Or the desert? https://i.imgur.com/Us5Wyt0.jpg https://i.imgur.com/Us5Wyt0.jpg
  - SamPatt 5y ago
    There's an entire state's worth of "idle / fallow" on that map. Michigan and then some. That's a lot of land.
  - chubot 5y ago
    I'm not an expert in this area, but I watched a video by a guy who built a cabin in Michigan, talking about how to buy land for like $5K an acre. I just googled and this seems like a real thing, i.e. hundreds of properties for very cheap: https://www.landandfarm.com/search/michigan-land-between-5000-and-10000 https://www.landandfarm.com/search/michigan-land-between-500... Also I had a friend who did this near the California/Nevada border. Super cheap land if you don't care about electricity and plumbing! Michigan and California are both extremely populated states -- but MOST of them by land area is very sparsely populated. I'm sure someone here knows more, but I think it's obvious if you just drive 30, 60, or 120 minutes outside any city in the US. There is a lot of land. All of it is probably owned, but the owners are probably not doing anything with it, and would sell it for a fair price, which is low. Hell there is even land in San Francisco if you've ever biked between San Francisco and South San Francisco. Again, it's owned, but it's not doing very much. Humans like to crowd together in very few places, particularly near water. Here's a more relevant picture: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/3d-mapping-the-worlds-largest-population-densities/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/3d-mapping-the-worlds-large... Judging by this picture, the US, Europe, and Russia are barely populated at all :)

bsenftner 5y ago

The future will be sparsely distributed. The wealthy elite are modifying society such that only they will have the gilded science fiction future, and everyone else will be left to their own, probably ruled by Libertarian Warlords.

Geee 5y ago
How could a libertarian be a war lord? As far as I can imagine, war lords are authoritarian, which is complete opposite from libertarian.
- rmah 5y ago
  Warlordism is the natural outcome of libertarianism. Anyone who isn't blind to the darker side of human nature can see this as pretty obvious.
  - Geee 5y ago
    The whole philosophical core of libertarianism is to seek for a minimal set of rules and systems that doesn't evolve into warlordism or any other corrupt power structure. The idea is to maximize individual liberty and keep it that way.
- fakedang 5y ago
  They'll find justification somehow. Like needing a security force to respond to various "concerns", or the "increasingly unstable situation" (at that point in time).

ajuc 5y ago

Ageing and declining population everywhere - already most developing countries from 90s have net negative population change, and it spreads to more and more countries. Huge cities disappearing as remote working, automation, rising sea levels and mass migrations make most of them pointless. Lots of civil unrest, mass migrations, new plagues and wars as the globalized economy collapses and disappointed voters choose new kinds of populism to save them. Rich people moving to the few lucky countries that won on the global warming and now try to isolate. Everybody else fight for scraps. Eventually population adjusts and stabilizes on much lower level and reproduction rates grow again as repopulation starts.

throwaway47292 5y ago
I can relate to that comment, as I feel the same way. So much that it causes me pain. I have to constantly remind myself: In chaos, all predictions are possible, solarpunk is just as likely as cyberpunk. Everywhere you look, you see what you are looking for. If you are looking for death all you see is death, if you are looking for god, all you see is god.
xyzzyz 5y ago
> Rich people moving to the few lucky countries that won on the global warming and now try to isolate. Everybody else fight for scraps. Which, if you follow the projections, will include entire Europe and North America. Seriously, read the IPCC report: impact of global warming in western world will be rather superficial, if not positive. It’s not them who is most negatively affected.
- ajuc 5y ago
  > Which, if you follow the projections, will include entire Europe and North America So, about 1 billion people out of about 8 billion worldwide. Half of that if you were speaking of "western world" only. Now imagine what the rest will do. And how that will impact globalized economy on which welfare of western world is built.
  - xyzzyz 5y ago

matz1 5y ago

People live in VR world that good enough to enable them to live however they want. It is the only way to achieve world piece. Nobody can have conflict with each other if they don't interact with each other.

daddylongstroke 5y ago

Probably mostly like the present, and the past. Things don't really change much, especially people. We build new toys, that's about it.