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posted by
janrinok
on Saturday January 24 2015, @12:03PM
from the your-guess-is-as-good-as-mine dept.
from the your-guess-is-as-good-as-mine dept.
Politico Magazine asked 15 other big thinkers and doers for their ideas of what will change the world the most in the next 15 years. We got back lots of inspiration—from the transformative power of opening up national borders to the commercialization of the human genome—and one dyspeptic dissenter. Read on, for a sense of the possible in the world of 2030.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/01/15-big-breakthroughs-in-2015-114486.html
Would you agree with their predictions? What would surveillance be like in 2030? Would we have any freedoms at all, any privacy?
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A shapely CATHOLIC SCHOOLGIRL is FIDGETING inside my costume..
(Score: 1) by srobert on Saturday January 24 2015, @05:28PM
I was born in 1963. In the 1970's I followed a lot of predictions about the future, that is the 80's, 90's and the 21st century.
Many predictions had substantial improvements in living standards for ordinary working class people all over the world. The work week would be shorter but people would have more. People would be better educated and healthier. New technology would allow people to enjoy their increased leisure time in new ways. Armed conflict would diminish due to better access to material wealth. These predictions were from the utopians.
On the other side we had the dystopian vision of masses of poor hungry people. Thanks to ever increasing population and displacement of the workers by automation, they got to fight over crumbs in an ever more polluted and violent world. Meanwhile the ruling class would keep them firmly under control with fear and propaganda. New technology would fall into the hands of people who would use it to entrench their power over others. War and chaos were the future.
So here we are in the present, formerly known as the future. Who was right, the utopians or the dystopians? Neither completely. But from where I stand it looks like the dystopians were closer to the mark. As we make predictions now about the future my bet would be that will be even more true in another 15 years.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Saturday January 24 2015, @05:43PM
So here we are in the present, formerly known as the future. Who was right, the utopians or the dystopians? Neither completely. But from where I stand it looks like the dystopians were closer to the mark. As we make predictions now about the future my bet would be that will be even more true in another 15 years.
I have to agree. [Don't have any mod points or would give you one.] The shrinking middle class in the US is not moving upward and I doubt it is any different anywhere else in developed nations. The wealth is moving upward but the people are not. You might be seeing a temporary bump in the numbers of the middle class in the third world but as environmental, social and cultural realities set in that will likely reverse even faster than it has in developed nations.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 25 2015, @01:30AM
In the most recent poll I saw, the anti-austerity Syriza party increased its margin from 6 to 6.7 percent.
It appears that Greece will soon follow Iceland's lead in throwing off Neoliberalism.
Tell the private banksters to pound sand. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [zerohedge.com]
...and convert to a system of PUBLIC banks. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [dissidentvoice.org]
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by SuperCharlie on Saturday January 24 2015, @05:55PM
1963'er here too, and you are pretty much spot on. What continues to boggle my mind is the gnat-like memories of the general population. Since I have been "aware" of things like politics and such, it seems that we play the same record over and over and over. The wars, the greed, the politics, the privacy... this list goes on and on. Each one with almost exact historic examples of how the rich get richer, protected by govt, pushed on the unwashed masses, and how each and every freakin time within a few months its like no one remembers the last time they got screwed. Yes, Ive become a cynical old bastard.