25 Future Predictions for the Next 50 Years
I’ll be the first to tell you that I am not Nostradamus. In fact, Nostradamus wasn’t Nostradamus. All he really ever did was make extremely vague sounding “predictions” and let people fill in the blanks generations later to give him credit for things that he never really predicted in the first place.
What I’d like to do is what all of us try to do, at least to a degree; look at the way the world is moving, project it out into the future, and come to some conclusions most people don’t see coming.
Will I be right about ALL of these? Undoubtedly, NO. In fact, you may notice that some of them even seem a little contradictory. However, I think listening to intelligent people talk about where they think the world is going can be quite valuable because it can key all of us into possibilities we may have missed.
Personally, I’d love to see lists like this from lots of people (including you, if you’d like to add your thoughts in the comment section). None of us may be able to PROVE where things are going, but speculating on it? That’s fun to do, and it may even turn out to be surprisingly useful by giving us hints of where things may end up.
1) The United States will not exist in its current form in fifty years. There will be a revolution, secession, civil war, or descent into tyranny.
2) There will be a debt-driven economic collapse in America, followed by a long (at least 5 years, but probably longer) global depression.
3) The dollar will lose its reserve currency status.
4) The United States will have a religious revival, and the percentage of Christians in our country will dramatically increase.
5) America will at least seriously consider some form of universal basic income because so much of the population will be unemployed because of AI. It may have to be “seriously consider” instead of implement because it may not be financially possible to do.
6) Hollywood in its present form will cease to exist as AI takes over making movies from top-to-bottom.
7) The video game industry in its present form will also cease to exist as AI takes over making video games from top-to-bottom.
8) Most people won’t own cars. Robot-driven cars will show up when they’re ordered, take people to where they want to go, and then they’ll call a different robot car when they’re ready to leave.
9) Robot servants will be in the majority of homes in the richest nations by 2050.
10) The human race will have become a multi-planetary species, if only because we have small colonies or even mining colonies elsewhere.
11) Bitcoin will crack a million dollars per coin by 2035, become bigger than gold, and eventually will be seriously considered as a global reserve currency.
12) We’ll see big increases in the average life and healthspan, probably 15-20 years, driven by AI advances and personalized medicine, while we’ll also start seeing large numbers of people born who will live to be 150 to 200 or even beyond.
13) Marriages with a set contract length and temporary marriage-for-hire will become a thing as relationships become increasingly transactional.
14) For the more advanced nations, military conflicts will be mostly human-free on the battlefield, and attacks will be launched remotely, via AI, or even from space.
15) Gene editing and technology will advance to the point where some people can essentially become “peak human/super-human” in a variety of ways, which will put tremendous pressure on everyone else to follow their lead.
16) Manmade global warming will be conclusively proven to be a big nothingburger, little more than a pseudoscientific scam.
17) There will be a popular, heavily used virtual reality “metaverse” and widespread recognition of digital property.
18) Multiple Western European countries will collapse, sink into tyranny, or devolve into civil war, largely driven by their reckless immigration policies.
19) Israel will either be destroyed completely via a nuclear bomb, biological weapon, or dirty bomb, OR they will force the Palestinians out of Gaza and the West Bank permanently. One or the other.
20) China will militarily capture Taiwan, and the United States will not be able to stop them.
21) Wealth will become even more concentrated as very small groups of people or even single individuals become capable of matching the output of large companies today with AI and robots.
22) For a time, deep fakes, along with AI-generated images, video, and voice, become so completely indistinguishable from the real thing that they will cause widespread chaos.
23) The number of nations with nuclear weapons will double or even triple.
24) Bee-sized drones will become one of the most terrifying weapons used on the battlefield, in assassinations, and terrorist attacks.
25) Terrorists will set off a nuclear or dirty bomb in a city somewhere in the world.
Pretty dark predictions, John, not that they don't have merit based on how things are going now. I hope you're wrong on most of them, but we've gotten ourselves into a mess that we may not be able to get out of.
My predictions based on wishful thinking -a utopia:
The uni-party of democrats and republicans will be obliterated by a majority of Americans who will vote in person on one designated day, with legitimate identification, returning to the founding traditions by electing the newly formed Constitution Party whose platform of small government adhering strictly to the constitution and meets only the one week of each month. No politicians will live in the capital except the President and his closest cabinet. All senators and representatives will reside in their own states. All citizens will have access by prearranged appointment to the President on a one-to-one or coalition basis to air grievances or propose new legislation. The states will rule over themselves in all regards, except a standing military and management of continent wide infrastructure.
A sizable portion of Americans, something on the order of 30%, will form a coalition to adopt a lifestyle of self-sufficiency and separation from the larger culture like or similar to the Amish.
Marriages will only be contracted between couples who want to have children, and will not be granted separation or divorce until their child or children reach the age of 21. To be granted the privilege of producing children, each couple will be vetted and pass comprehensive examination for compatibility and pass extensive courses on child rearing.
Children will not begin formal mandated education until they reach the age of 16. Prior to that parents and or/grandparents will be responsible for teaching their children to read and write and be proficient at all basic living skills. Formal education will be for the purpose of teaching technical and trade skills.
Health will return due to cleaner sources of food, and alternative medical care free of pharmaceutical poisons.
Autonomous automobiles and airplanes will be the norm. A cheap and workable alternative fuel will replace electric and fossil fuels to power them.
Robots will be used widely for repetitive and un-stimulating tasks, leaving humans free to put their minds and hearts to better use.
Computer modeling will no longer be used to make any decisions regarding laws or rules pertaining to social welfare, medicine or ecology, or anything, really. It can't be relied upon. It doesn't have a brain or cognitive ability. And it never will.
A.I. will prove to be incapable of anything other than a combo of a search engine and encyclopedia
The Federal Reserve will be abolished. Gold and/or Bitcoin will be the global reserve currency
My predictions based on reality-a dystopia:
The U.S. will come apart as the twain between left and right shall not meet. Years of hardship for both sides after the split will result, but when we become multi-planetary, the majority of white religious conservatives will opt to leave planet Earth.
Russia will seize its opportunity for hegemony in the wake of the self-induced collapse of the United States and its loss of reserve currency status. China will be Russia's competitor for this role.
Population decrease will continue and to deal with it, humans past their working age and in poor health will be warehoused at subsistence level under the supervision of robots, with no heroic medical measures to prolong life. Medical care will be scant and only enough to reduce pain but without nurture or compassion. The top 10% in wealth and status won't be affected.
Planet earth will be under the rule of a small but brutal global Kakistocracy. Most people will be serfs, with rigidly defined purpose and no freedom other than to serve at the whim of Kakistocrats.
The sheeple will ask for nothing more than to be safe. They will get what they ask for, good and hard.
Thank you, predictor John, for this list. All seem likely, but of course not all will happen. I think China will capture Taiwan, and the US won't intervene as long as we've re-established a semiconductor industry here. Deep fakes are almost here as the porn/gaming industries will push to perfect the technology. Bee-sized drones will be here soon, I remember reading a book called "Loose Cannon" written in 2000 by Dean Ing about this very thing.