Predicting the future 100 years out
- Details
- Category: Predictions
- Published on Tuesday, 24 January 2012 03:34
The BBC ask its experts to gaze into the future 100 years from now, and tell us the best guess at what it will be like.
Stop.
Before we do that. Think back 100 years. How many predictors called the rise of computers right in 1912. After all, they were just reeling over the advent of motor cars, telephones and flying machines. How could they imagine the interstate system, high speed rail, massive airports, huge aircraft carriers, nuclear bombs, lasers, space craft to other planets, high definition television, cell phones, smart phones, air conditiioning, automatic transmissions, remote controls, computer games .... heck lets just skip to the chase: they even missedd iPads! Imagine that!
It would have been impossible to seem sane back then if you talked about games would be invented that could understand your hand and body motions.
Even more insane would be to talk about seeing live images from the surface of Mars. It would have been useless to predict that we would have jet planes that could not be seen by radar. "Jet planes?," they would have asked. You'd find that about everything you know in life was completely unpredictable 100 years ago: contact lenses, open heart surgery, 3D movies and television, Facebook, email, fax machines, Lipitor, anti-depressants, Roombas and microwave ovens to mention a few.
Heck, the list of things that were not predicted in 1912, and that you have already written off as obsolete, would be a lengthy list indeed: Black and white TV, Pong, Commodore 64, tube radios, typewriters, palm pilots, 35mm cameras, vhs tapes, eight-track tapes, dictaphones, tube tires, car phones..... even tungsten light bulbs had only been around for a couple years.
All that said, don't expect any real "I can see 100-years from now" insights from the BBC article.
But before you head over to the BBC. I would like to make a few of my own predictions about 100 years from now.
I predict that these things will be obsolete in 2112:
PCs, iphones, ipads, web sites, cars, 2D television, electric transmission lines, newspapers, magazines, paper photographs, internal combustion engines, cannons, evening news programs, classrooms, rubber tires, fax machines, copy machines, printers, steering wheels, electric lights, electric ovens, telephones, wrist watches, movie theaters, rap concerts, stereo music.....
I think predicting, by looking at the rate of change in the past, and examining how fast the recent "churn" is, is a much more valuable way of do it.
But, hey, you going to enjoy good thinkers trying to stetch their minds as far as they can.
Oh, I will wager five dollars that you will find my predictions better than theirs. Since, they predict that by 2012 death will be obsolete, we could to both be around to see if I win. What do you say we meet at the top of the Empire State Building on Jan 23, 2112 and see if I win. (that is, assuming the Empire State Building is still there)
Happy reading:
BBC top predictions for 100 years from now