What is the future like in 2034?
The future is something that excites everyone. What is going to happen next? Why is it going to happen, and who is going to be affected? It is tricky to predict what can happen in the future, but it’s a fantastical world where anything can happen.
Did anyone foresee World War 1? Arguably yes, it was inevitable. But could anyone have guessed how the event that would trigger it? A considerable portion of pop culture revolves around the concept of thinking about the future. Every year, a slew of movie dedicated to the future are released and they offer a fantastic, high quality glimpse of what we will be doing in the future. More often than not, they also initiate dialogues about the impending issues that might affect us in the future.
But the tech industry and the socio-economic state of our world will have the biggest say on our future. These are also directly affected by other smaller events, so no matter how much you predict or use models that have worked in the past, it is incredibly difficult to predict what will happen in the future.
The problem with predictive modelling is that as we head into the future, the basis of those models are no longer valid. Even if we account for the accelerated growth of our civilisation, a small event somewhere down the line can disrupt the predicitons. 15 years ago, we were flying across the world at supersonic speeds. Now, we don’t anymore. The Concorde was killed off as the recession set in and since then, no one else has attempted to deliver supersonic transport for the masses.
15 years ago, we were flying across the world at supersonic speeds. Now, we don’t anymore.
It’s easier to predict what will happen in say 50, or 100 years time because we can hazard guesses which reflect change in trends, and with a higher margin for error. Predicting what will happen in the next 15, or 20 years is much more difficult because the trends at that time will probably be an evolution of the current trends, and not a drastic change. It is possible that there could be a drastic shift in the trends.
If I sound confused, and all that I’ve written above makes no sense, don’t be surprised. This is what happens when thinking about the future. Most of us don’t know what we’ll be eating for dinner, let alone trying to predict what will happen to the bees in the next 30 years.
I will be living in this confusion(or have been) for 10 weeks. This is really weird and reality distorting having to think between two dimensions, the present, and the future.
