You ever wonder what the world will be like in 20 years?

[tater03]

I cannot help but wonder what my two boys will face when they grow up. There seems to be so much hate in the world today. Will they have to fight in a war, will college be so expensive that it is out of their reach, will they be able to travel or just live peacefully in their own country without worrying about a bomb going off somewhere nearby? These are just some of the things that I worry about. I want so much for them but with the way the world is today I just hope that they will be able to do what they want. I tell them the world is all theirs and the can be and do whatever they want. And I want to believe what I say to them but sometimes I cannot help but think that some of the things that they desire are just going to be out of their reach. But as a parent I do believe it is my job to raise them to believe they can be whatever they want but they will have to work at getting there. I just hope what I am saying is true.

[Plumley]

Last week I took a drive along a lake that's close to where I live. I hadn't been that way in quite a while and I saw many changes. A lot of older cottages were gone, replaced by big and imressive houses. It made it clear to me that the gap between the halves and have nots truly is widening. I like to think that anything is possible but I wonder if that really is going to be true in the future.

[eldragon]

It scares me to think about it. Hopefully I'll live to see it, though. Let's see : no ore winters because of global warming - not enough food because we have destroyed the earth and overpopulated it. It sounds like a nightmare I'd rather not think about.

[TinyStar]

I don't believe we'll see such widespread changes as no more winters and such within the next 20 years. I'd give that more till my current generation (the 80's kids) are in their 60s-70s.
I personally feel that we won't be seeing the end of petroleum products within my lifetime - or maybe just at it's end. Scientists have predicted that we have around another 100 year supply of petroleum and then it will all be gone - but with advanced rates of consumption, who knows.
What is clear is that by the time my life is over, the next generations will have to seriously rethink a LOT of things.

[nightgirl]

I think it will be a very advanced world where we will have many gadgets and machines for our convinience. It will be all amaizing. We will be having many automotive products like super cars and super computer. It is true that we will be lacking in natural resources but I am sure that we will create some alternative for them.

[eldragon]

One thing is for sure : we will all be living longer and longer. With healthcare as advanced as it is, and information so easily had, the average lifespan of humans in civilized cultures will probably surpass 110 before long.

[pinkribbon]

Only 20 years? I don't think much will have changed. Hopefully there will have been changes like a woman president or something, but I don't think we'll suddenly be living like the Jetsons in 2026. 2027 is another story, though. ;)

[tater03]

I don't know when I look back twenty years ago there has been quite a bit of changes. What is kind of sad and funny at the same time is the other night we lost power for over 13 hours due to the high winds we had. You should have seen my two sons. They just did not get the concept of no microwave, to t.v., no stove or that they couldn't play their games. We ended up having a ball though. But it just reminded me on how much we rely on certain things in our life and you don't realize it until you don't have them.

[Melos]

I don't think TOO much will have changed in 20 years either. Speaking from my limitted American world view, I am seeing a definate split between types of people: the aquisition faction and the natural group. For every family that needs two top-of-the-line gas-guzzling SUVs, mp3 players, video games, etc. etc. there is a family that is going organic, or buying an alternative fuel car...

[palefrost]

I dont know i think nothing really changes. Its the ying and yang of existance. We love, we fight, we rinse and repeat it.

[LeighA]

I think we will all be surprised at how much and how little things will change. Some things never change...love, life, war. Other things change every day like technology and medical advances. I think all these things balance each other out.

[Melos]

That is true Leigh. Look back 20 years though, and think of all the advances that have taken place since the 1980s. Gosh, in the past 50 years, we have completely revolutionized the way we do a lot of things.

I believe, in the future, the changes will be more subtle.

[hokeshel]

I think that in 20 years, we will be busy rebuilding from another world war. Im looking at past history and with the hatred of America worse than ever, paired with people within our own country hating each other, I think we are in for some difficult times. I think that our enemies will know when it is prime time to take advantage and they will hit us with everything they have. That, I think, will be when the current war is triggered into WWIII. Then, however it turns out, we will all need to rebuild and with the potential for destruction, it will take a while. The good news is, every time we get through a war, we tend to bind together as a country and as a planet and we help put together what we have destroyed. Craziness. I am not usually one to spout doom and gloom, but, I really think we are on the cusp of an horrific war.

[teenwire]

I think there will be a big change 20 years from now. I mean technology is really getting better and better. Perhaps by that time robots will be existing and working like humans. Cars would probably be so high tech that it can drive without a driver. Wow!:)

[nightgirl]

I suppose in the next 20 years, water fueled and flying cars would be rampant (I hope). Everything then can be made. I just hope that in the next years, they will find a way to cure all of the diseases of today. I'm not saying they develop something to escape death but just not to make the dying process very hard to get over. I want people to die of old age and happiness and not of diseases that really hurts.

[womanistic]

It is a very scary thought. At that time my boy would be at his marrying age and I really hope he's not a drug addict or a criminal at large. Hope the world isn't as bad as we all imagine it would become. I'm sure our grandparents thought the year 2000 will be the end of the world.

[Franklin]

In the last 20 years or so, we've seen an explosion of innovation concerning communications - personal computers, cell phones and the like. In the 20th century we saw many space and time reducers - the world has become a much smaller place in that we can travel so quickly and communicate literally at the speed of light. (And I mean 'literally' literally - electricity and radio waves travel at the speed of light).

I always wonder about Ben Franklin traveling to England and France and writing to his wife back in Philadelphia. Months would go by before one received a response from the other. One of them could have been dead and buried before a reply came from the last communique.

Technologically there could be many advances that go beyond adding a little convenience to our lives. Anti-gravity. Viable, alternate fuels. Organic, cellular cars and appliances - such as a car made with a cellular structure with it's own DNA-like intelligence, so it would heal itself after a crash, a TV that would diagnose itself, if not fix itself - a message can popup telling the owner to purchase a new DX258 module and slip it in the 3rd slot in the back. Of course advertizers would promote their version os the DX258 - push the BUY button on your remote and the new module will be delivered in minutes through the UDW - Universal Dumb Waiter, a series of tubes running throughout the country into everyone's house, like the thing at the drive-thru bank.

Politically, I think we go through cycles and the optimistic side of me sees them as gradually improving. For example, it is now impolite, at best, to make derogatory comments about someone's race, sexual preference, etc. That's good. But along with that political correctness, we are not free to discuss valid issues that are to do with race, gender, etc. I think we will grow out of the constrictive PC attitudes and retain the positive ones with a tug-of-war happening until we finally figure it out. Not perfectly, of course.
Hopefully the current PC issues will be mostly resolved in 20 years. But there will be new ones, maybe some we don't even notice now.

Socially, at the rate things are going, we will be more isolated on a deep level and less discreet on a shallow level. That's already happening - our false and shallow selves are broadcast on the Internet to the entire world, yet we don't know some of our (physically) closest neighbor's names. As more and more soulless housing developments are created without sidewalks, parks, libraries, small grocery stores or pubs, we have less apparent reason and less opportunity to know our neighbors. Families live in various states and have sparse communications, usually by email and phone.

As we're sold more and more material goods and our "heroes" (sports stars, actors, etc) become less polite, considerate, etc and richer, we start to see other people as commodities, objects from which to extract money and glory. Fortunately, we have not yet totally lost our kinship with each other, as 911 proved. Perhaps within the next 20 years we can find better ways to rekindle fellowship besides adversity.

[medako]

I've only given this much thought since becoming a parent. In 20 years my son will probably be in college and out on his own (not something a mommy wants to think about). It'll be really interesting to see what the world has progressed (or regressed) to.

[palefrost]

Not being a pesimist but with the current stage of world events i am somewhat doubtful what we will be doing. Maybe living in caves again:P

[sweet_mayhem]

It scares me to think about it. Hopefully I'll live to see it, though. Let's see : no ore winters because of global warming - not enough food because we have destroyed the earth and overpopulated it. It sounds like a nightmare I'd rather not think about.

the global warming sure scares me to death. i can't help but remember the film "the day after tomorrow" and just knowing that the abuse of the environment is ongoing in many parts of the globe, a great flood is likely to happen. it's just scary. well, even without it, just thinking of some influences of media and all the bad elements around us, i really don't know what to expect of the future. i just hope it turns out to be better than how i imagine or hope it to be.