Imagining the Future - Utopian or Dystopian?!

[Abdul_Latif]

2 hours ago, Meldrew said:

the future is already here.

 

Meh. Live and let live.

[tamthebam]

7 hours ago, AlbionSaint said:

Indeed! Though essentially communism is authoritarian. It would be difficult to conceptualise a society with a command economy, where goods and resources are effectively allocated, that isn't that way. If you had a proper democracy and free speech then a Tory could stand for election and, when confidence in the government is low (as happens with any government), win a mandate to abolish communism in favour of a free market capitalist society. 

Essentially, a communist society would be a one party state, which controls everything - the military, police, housing, trade unions (the Party is the trade union), the judicial system and is your employer, too. That's a whole lot of power, and if the wrong person takes charge, they might do very bad things to retain it! The ideal of communism becomes secondary to the Chairman's desires.

 

Is that not just Austin McPhee v Jocky Scott?

[HeWhoWalksBehindTheRows]

19 hours ago, coprolite said:

 

Demolition man is set in 11 years time 

 

 

So? What seems to be your boggle?

[hk blues]

16 hours ago, tamthebam said:

I wonder what the 1972 predictions for 2022 were?

Flying cars

Meals in the form of pills

Robots doing all the work

A city on the moon

Dundee to win the Scottish Cup

We're on it!

[Benjamin_Nevis]

This should prove a useful herding pen for the forum's moonhowlers. Kudos on its creation

[throbber]

20 hours ago, SweeperDee said:

I'm forever living in hope that the Earth will be get launched into a blackhole; that, or the Sun just decides "f**k it" and prematurely self-destructs. 

The sun has 5 billion years left sadly, you have about as much chance of it self destructing as you do of seeing a worthwhile contribution to the forum from Melanius Mullarkey.

[Hedgecutter]

23 hours ago, Shandon Par said:

P&B becoming like Muppet Babies.

I hadn't considered the possibility of P&B still being around in 30-40 years.

I can only picture a 70yo virgin posting memes of some chef that 90% of users have never heard of, and the usual suspects still fighting away on the renamed 'Coronavirus (and other pandemics)' thread from their care home armchairs.

[The Moonster]

21 hours ago, AlbionSaint said:

I agree with the IDEA of communism, so long as it doesn't deny people the right to practice or express their religious or (alternative) political beliefs. 

You're correct, communism means seizing the means of production. The 'abolition of private property' is often misquoted and misunderstood, and it doesn't deny people the right to own their own clothes and personal possessions. I think in a truly communist society home ownership would be forbidden and one would be allocated a home depending upon one's need - "Your kids have grown up and left? Great, here's your new one bedroom flat." Property isn't used for status, so no big cars, but rather small practical ones if your needs demand it.

 

[Ross.]

A mate of mines has been all over facebook for a while now, spreading constant warnings about a conspiracy to move to a cashless society and the perils it would bring. He breaks this up with posts promoting a cryptocurrency he is heavily involved with. I think in future we will be allowed to fire people like that out of cannons for entertainment.

[Ross.]

19 hours ago, oaksoft said:

I can also imagine a time when people just hire cars when they need them instead of having them sitting idle in the driveway with hire companies dropping them off and picking them up at your door on demand.

This system is available in Switzerland and has been for years. Not sure if it is a private company who do it, or if it is some government scheme. There are always a few cars parked near the train station where I live that you can hire by the day on the Mobility website/app. You pick it up from the car park, and drop it off either back there or at another of the designated parking places for those cars. I know a few people who use it relatively regularly. They all think it's a brilliant system.

[Hedgecutter]

On 28/11/2021 at 10:53, Detournement said:

Cars will go this way as well. There isn't enough lithium to replace petrol cars 1:1 or even close to it with electric.

Bolivia and Chile to allow lithium extraction and become absolutely minted.  Bolivians replace the horse and cart with lambos and La Paz offices resemble scenes from the Wolf of Wall Street as they tuck into their top quality cocaine that isn't worth the hassle of exporting anymore.

[coprolite]

19 hours ago, oaksoft said:

Communism suffers fronm then same problem as capitalism and virtually any other "-ism".

It requires a hierarchy with people in charge.

 

Jism doesn't require a hierarchy. 

Just needs some genitals and a sympathetic touch. 

[Ross.]

23 minutes ago, Hedgecutter said:

Bolivia and Chile to allow lithium extraction and become absolutely minted.  Bolivians replace the horse and cart with lambos and La Paz offices resemble scenes from the Wolf of Wall Street as they tuck into their top quality cocaine that isn't worth the hassle of exporting anymore.

I'm selling up and moving over now.

[scottsdad]

On 28/11/2021 at 09:45, Detournement said:

British society already has numerous qualities which would have been considered Dystopian 40 years ago.

What's considered normal in 40 years will be similarly offensive to our current sensibilities. 

I read Fahrenheit 451 for the first time a couple of years ago and it was a shocker for me. There was a lot to recognise about modern society in there. The fireman's wife spending all her time talking to virtual "friends" put me directly in mind of Facebook. The effect on the wife in the book was the same as the effect I was seeing around me with people transferring their entire social interactions online to people they have either never met, or met in the past with no intention of doing so again.

Then the censorship stuff. We are seeing it now with cancel culture and a lot of the woke stuff floating about. I read the book just as there was a big debate on TV about the lyrics in Fairytale of New York. This relentless re-examination of past works and deciding what is allowable content and what is not has only increased since then.  

[NotThePars]

lol

[welshbairn]

2 hours ago, Ross. said:

This system is available in Switzerland and has been for years. Not sure if it is a private company who do it, or if it is some government scheme. There are always a few cars parked near the train station where I live that you can hire by the day on the Mobility website/app. You pick it up from the car park, and drop it off either back there or at another of the designated parking places for those cars. I know a few people who use it relatively regularly. They all think it's a brilliant system.

They've got a similar thing going in Inverness.

[tamthebam]

Hopefully this miserable fascist cnut will hit the streets in future.

I'll probably end up in the cubes myself but so will all the other folk who annoy me.

[Satoshi]

Interesting thread, an excellent tv show that recently had new episodes is F is for Family which was sent in the 70s. Amazing how some things have changed, but most things have remained the same. And I expect it will be similar in the next 50 years or so.

Some future trends that I think are inveitable, even if time scale might differ:

• The move from nation states to a world government, possible but unlikely this century. It's clear from the Pandemic and Global Warming (as well as international taxation and increasingly cybercrime) that nation states cannot solve most of the worlds biggest challenges - it has to be done collaboratively. I don't expect this will be achieved through conflict but rather through increasing international cooperation (with a reset every few years for nationalistic parties unfortunately). The rise in importance of COP, Davos etc. means the shift is already happening. The rise of the internet and instant communication means world governance is certainly achievable, decisions on centralisation vs. decentralisation will still be active topics of discussion but this already exists within nations as it is.
• Related to the above, but the effecitve abolition of international borders. The idea of passports is around 100 years old, it's not inconceivable it won't be around in the next 100 years. Rich people already exist in a world where they can effectively go and live anywhere they want (see Russian and Indian billionaires in London, or buying a Maltese or Cypriot passport). The migrant crisis will never stop, for the first time in human history people in poorer countries can easily see on the internet a much better obtainbale life in richer countries. The cat is out of the bag and it can never go back in. It's expected a 2 degree change will displace 1 billion people from the global south. The Economist estimates 1 trillion dollars in value from removing borders, finally labour able to move to where it is desired (and people getting the same rights to move around the world as a pair of shoes has).
• The democratisation of education and a move to a more more equitable society. Provided internet access is in place, even the poorest children can access the best education. The chances of the next Stephen Hawking being born in Cambridge or Papua New Guinea is exactly the same - but if it's the latter the chances of them fulfilling their potential is far less. That's bad for the individual and bad for us as a society. We are currently missing out on so much talent if they happen to be born poor, or a women in a repressive society. A move towards an equitable education system would benefit us all.
• The downside of democratisation would be that those with existing access to resources would face much more competition and there will be a tutoring arms race (which is already well underway). I achieved good grades and never had a tutor (this was only 10 years ago) but this will become less and less common going forward. It's going to be tough being a kid in the future I think.
• Increasing wealth gap. The hoarding of wealth will continue and ramp up to increasingly ridiculous levels. Governments have proven they will always prioritise equity over the needs of wider society. If you don't have equity in ETFs (or Crypto) sadly it's going to be a tough few decades. Most of the world does not have access to equity. Most of them will stay poor whilst those holding equity will get richer. It's geuninely hard to see any realistic way out of this. Decision makers in any society will inevitably be equity holders themsleves. 
• On flight travel, despite gradually becoming taboo in countries like Sweden will actually get far more common regardless of such sensibilities. 80% of the worlds population has never been on an airplane before. As they become more educated and aware of the world through the internet, this will surely change (still a fantastic stat mind).
• Working from home combined with a global talent pool. Increasingly companies will have far fewer employees and knowledge work will move to something akin to the gig economy where you produce work (software or accountancy or whatever) for a price. Good time for the experienced to cash in, will be tough for those entering the job market. Now, being in a richer country will be a disadvantage as you will be competing globally with those who can easily undercut you, or throw 3x resources at it. It will be outsourcing on a mirco level. For those who are a bit rubbish a reckoning is coming (bad news for me for example).
• Increasingly adoption of cryptocurrency (buy some!) and people (especially young people) spending more of their time in the metaverse.
• I really hope that something akin to San Junipero is available for when I'm old so I can live a young life in Virtual Reality. Related to this, how long you live will increasingly be even more directly related to how much money you have. It's likely that within the next 50 years or so lab grown hearts, limbs etc. will be far more readily available. It will pay to live (and hopefully live pain free in VR).
• No conventional warfare between major countries this century. Warfare will be cyberwarfare or special ops only. Bigger countries will certainly still bully smalelr countries but won't ever confront each other as too risky for both sides.
• Fully agreed that transport as a service will become far more common (most cars spend 99% of their time idle - it's crazily inefficient). Hopefully this extends to the sharing of other products as well as we gradually cut our resource usage. The average power drill is only used for 2 minutes it's entire lifetime, hopefully social media can enable the increased sharing of community resources. This is such an easy win, can't believe it hasn't happened yet.

 

Tl:dr, flying cars and VR porn.

[Satoshi]

Also on Dystopian vs. Utopian, it will be a bit of both but mostly the latter. Look at the enormous progress we have made in the last 50 years in addressing exteme poverty and hunger.

With instant communications now available we can achieve so much more. Also, broadly, more people means more ideas. Our greatest potential is in tapping into the billions of people who do not have access to top quality education - countries like Nigeria with a high portion of young people is where the future will be.

One thing I didn't mention above, 'richer' countries with restrictive immigration policies inevitably enter a deflationary cycle of low birth rates and people living longer lives due to improved healthcare access. Japan is the obvious example. whose economy has been faltering for decades. And this the direction the UK is, very conciously, moving towards. It's a crazy policy that will undoubtedly fail in just about every way possible, even regions in the UK give an insight into this future - everywhere outside SE England in the UK is immigration starved (especially Scotland and Northern Ireland). To address this challenge you either have to convince wealthy, well edcuated women (and men) to start having more kids (and at a younger age) or you increase immigration. Japan has struggled with the former for decades, it's an incredibly difficult thing to achieve. The latter is the obvious move but the narrative around immigration is so toxic now it's hard to see it changing in the short term.

I've thought the pivot to nationalism in recent years is related to poeople, subconsciously or consciously, realising that they would struggle in a genuinely global talent pool and are trying to delay the inevitable for as long as they can.

One thing that has gone truly global, and won't ever go back, is the world of finance. For as much as Brexit was about sovereignty the reality is that every country (even North Korea) uses and is bound by the rules of international finance markets. This is itself is a relativley recent phenomenon and is the most tangible we have already taken towards a global government. Want to elect a politican who will cancel all your international debt? Prepare to be fucked. (Countries who can easily issue debt in their own currency will always have a huge fiscal advantage relative to those who can't).

 

[Arabdownunder]

Sitting in the backyard the other day just after dark looking up into the sky. I saw a stream of lights, regularly spaced out, speeding in a straight line across the sky. Went on for several minutes; there must have 100 or more of them. Never having seen anything like this before, google tells me that it was Elon Musk's Skylink Satellite Train. 

Why does this belong in this thread? It's confirmation that the privatisation of space is well underway. Staring at the sky at night and contemplating the wonders of the cosmos is something that people of all cultures have done for thousands of years. That common experience is now tainted by the actions  of a billionaire, with little or no constraints or regulation. 

This makes me unaccountably depressed.