
The Future - kespindler
http://www.kurtsp.com/the-future.html
======
chipsy
This is a "spiky version of the present" future - all the prominent things
seen by one individual, extrapolated linearly. As such it has a discontinuous
shape.

The main element I would critique is in the culture. Culture in 2015 will feel
old and dated by 2030 - our memes, our artisan craft breweries and hip indie
games. Something else will overtake them. Culture has the soft power to change
people's perception of reality even as the substance of that reality remains
more stagnant. And culture isn't directly associated to a new tech so much as
it is the proliferation of that tech.

For example: "Drone" today equates to big war machines dropping bombs. "Drone"
tomorrow could mean the kid across the street with a new toy and the ensuing
shenanigans inflicted on stodgy 50-year-olds who think you're going to blow
everything up.

~~~
liuliu
Exactly. It is very hard to make credible predictions for longer period of
time, but linear extrapolation normally works for 2 to 5 year scope
[http://liuliu.me/eye/predicting-
future-2016/](http://liuliu.me/eye/predicting-future-2016/)

------
flohofwoe
That reads like one of the flying car predictions from the 50's. Here's my
prediction: the future in 40 years will not look and feel much different than
the present, or 40 years, or 100 years in the past, at least in the '1st
world'. Fashion will look different, music will sound different. Faster and
smaller computers are hardly life-changing, especially if they are only used
to make your restaurant order easier. Autonomous cars are useless when people
no longer need to travel large distances day by day.

The biggest change will be that more people in the 3rd world will enjoy better
living standards, and that's a huge achievement on its own. We don't need
flying cars for that.

~~~
qznc
10 years ago there were no smartphones. 30 years ago nearly nobody had a
computer.

~~~
coldtea
And now that they have them, they are not life changing in any significant way
(except for niche cases, e.g. helping someone with a disabillity connect etc).

Sure, one can work as a web designer now, and they couldn't before. But they'd
still have some other job anyway in the past. Same with smartphones. We
wouldn't have selfies, and casual surfing on a restaurant and constant BS
calls while on the move. Other than that, not much would change.

Whereas things like women rights or seggregation or cars or toilets or flights
or electricity etc have much more changed how we live in a much more profound
way.

------
jqm
Free public transit and easier restaurant ordering with wearables? India
dominating the world? Little college campus utopias were everyone is smart and
rides bikes?

Sounds like someone has spent too much time in the tech industry in San
Fransisco and perhaps should broaden their perspective a bit. Maybe go back to
Ohio and look at the meth labs and bulldogs and then think about the future.
Also, 30% of the world (at least) probably barely works now. This includes to
some extent people who are nominally employed.

~~~
gone35
This. Maybe I'm being unfair, but it does remind me somehow of George Packer's
New Yorker piece[1]:

"It suddenly occurs to me that the hottest tech startups are solving all the
problems of being twenty years old, with cash on hand, because that's who
thinks them up."

[1] [http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/05/27/change-the-
worl...](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/05/27/change-the-world)

------
ciconia
What about nature, ecology, biodiversity? What about third world societies?
Natural disasters, immigration, gentrification, violence, crime? I imagine the
author as living in a big city, working in tech, living the connected life,
but seriously, this kind of "future" is to me rather narrow-minded.

~~~
camillomiller
I agree. Also very US centric, what about the future outside the US in other
Western countries?

------
Bouncingsoul1
"Many people live throughout their life in campus environments similar to
college campuses of the early 21st century. These campuses were seeded from
the ruins of cities ravaged by crisis (Detroit), the transition of festivals
to sustained existence (Burning Man), and around the headquarters of major
companies. These mini Utopias on earth are small, high density villages with
everything a person wants. A high density of friends, intelligent people,
exciting activities, all in walkable or bikeable distances. Importantly, there
is high mobility between these campuses (changing companies, new research
projects), but little mobility from outside to inside." This one got me
because this is not the future, this is the past, a lot tried it in the 60s
and 70s, I tried it with the punks in the 90s, it didn't work, I still don't
want it to work, this concept goes against the privacy feature these cultures
want to provide so it fails in the end.

~~~
AlexeyMK
There's a little bit of a "best parts of living in a village" vibe to this. We
try to provide something like a traveling version of a campus-like community
via hackerparadise.org.

From living in and helping facilitate this "campus environment" for the past
year: it's kind of nice. I can't say how well it works yet long-term, but I
very much appreciate being in a community where I know who my neighbors are,
what they're up to, where I actually care about how they're doing. More than
just the benefit of being surrounded by like-minded, intellectual/creative
people, there's this shroud of anonymity that living in a city comes with.
It's refreshingly pleasant to live and work in a community where the shroud is
lifted.

Campus' recent shutdown was a step backwards. I don't know if the author is
right; the biggest open question to me is financial sustainability (IE, are
enough people willing to pay a premium for communal living to fuel growth &
innovation)?

------
lbenes
No mention of pollution or climate change? The trend for climate change been
observed since the 1950's. 99% of Scientists agree that it's really happening,
and it will have a major impact on how livable our planet is.

~~~
shoo
This paper[1] looks at things from the perspective of cumulative CO2
emissions, as they have a roughly linear relationship with the temperature
increase. For example, over the period of 1870 to 2012 we added about 1,430
(+- 70) GtCO2 to the atmosphere, and we're already observing a +0.8°C mean
global temperature increase:

> Taking into account CO2 emissions prior to 2014, the remaining emissions
> quota (from 2015 onwards) associated with a 66% probability of keeping
> warming below +2°C is estimated to be 1,200 (900–1,600) GtCO2. This +2°C
> quota will be exhausted in about 30 (22-40) ‘equivalent emission-years’ at
> the 2014 emission level (40.3 GtCO2 yr^-1). Owing to inter-annual and
> decadal variability, the actual year when +2°C will be reached is uncertain.
> The remaining quota associated with a 50% probability of committing to 2 °C
> of warming is estimated to be 1,500 (1,100–1,900) GtCO2 (Table 1),
> corresponding to 37 (27–47) equivalent emission-years at the 2014 emission
> level.

So, within the 40 year timeframe mentioned in the link, and assuming
(optimistically) that we've reduced global CO2 emissions to 2014 levels
(recall: global emissions have been growing by 2.5% each year for the past
decade.), we'll have hit a 50% chance of having locked in > +2°C of warming.

[1] -- Friedlingstein et al - nature geoscience, 2014 -- pdf version
[http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/global/pdf/Friedlingstein...](http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/global/pdf/Friedlingstein_2014_Persistent%20growth%20of%20CO2%20emissions%20and%20implications%20for%20reaching%20climate%20targets.NatureG.pdf)

~~~
adrianN
I don't think that a linear relationship between temperature and CO2 level is
a safe bet. The climate is pretty chaotic, it seems unlikely that such a
simple relationship is true in general. It seems entirely possible that we'll
hit some kind of runaway effect at some point that completely breaks the
linear relationship.

Anyway, I'm not a climate scientist and there are a number of people who claim
that 1000 GtCO2 lead to 2 degree warming, so your 1500 GtCO2 seem only a
little optimistic. However, just reducing CO2 production is not enough. We
have to completely stop, because CO2 takes basically forever to sequester from
the atmosphere, and every degree of warming we cause increases the likelihood
that we leave the "safe" linear-relationship territory.

See [http://trillionthtonne.org/](http://trillionthtonne.org/)

------
aaron695
> Greater empathy by proliferation of virtual reality.

For a vr world where you can live someone's life that's not crap we will have
to have hit the singularity, which conflicts with a lot of the other ideas.

> Gestures that previously were arcane are now the way to invoke computer
> programs

This is a strange one. Why would you gesture for a check and not just push a
button to just pay it. Is it a themed restaurant?

> China, India, and the United States are the three world powers.

Not sure why these three are picked. China I get.

>A good segment (30%) of the world barely works.

There's no reason the think the rest of the world will support them. Besides
which currently most people can live this in the first world. Rural property
is cheap and so is simple food. But most of the population wants more than
just food and a house. Like high end medical care and GoT.

> More and more infrastructure follows a pay-per-use model.

People don't like making a stack of small losses. We prefer to pay big then
use the products at our leisure. I can't see this changing.

There's some interesting thoughts here's. Misses the mark in bits as well
though. Burning man that never ends, not sure what to think about that. But I
can see it happening.

~~~
volaski
>> More and more infrastructure follows a pay-per-use model. >People don't
like making a stack of small losses. We prefer to pay big then use the
products at our leisure. I can't see this changing. You're assuming that it
will be humans who will be making the switching decisions for themselves. If
humans employ agents that algorithmically negotiate with different
infrastructure providers, then I think it's possible.

------
greenyoda
_" Almost-free on-demand point-to-point public transit. Combine UberPool and
self-driving cars and this is what you get. It could be actually free with
ads..."_

I don't see how self-driving car services could be "almost free". Self-driving
cars cost money to manufacture. Like all mechanical equipment, they have
finite lifetimes, so their purchase cost needs to be paid back over that
lifetime. They need to be maintained, e.g., tires and shocks don't last
forever, and metal corrodes over time (especially in environments where roads
are salted for de-icing). Someone will need to clean the interiors every day
(or more often), since people tend to leave messes (sometimes really
disgusting ones).

The power for them isn't free. Even if they're solar powered, solar panels
have to be manufactured, installed and maintained (e.g., cleaned off
periodically to maintain maximum efficiency), and they need to be replaced
after their finite lifetimes expire. Rechargeable batteries need to be
replaced after a certain number of recharge cycles.

Roads, bridges and tunnels cost as much to maintain for self-driving cars as
for conventional cars. There will still be tolls and taxes. As gas and diesel
vehicles die off, the revenue from the taxes on their fuel will need to be
replaced by other taxes, such as per-mile taxes on electric vehicles.

I doesn't seem that merely showing ads to passengers could pay for all these
capital, labor and tax expenses. And if the cars are owned by a for-profit
company such as Uber, there has to be enough income for the company to have a
profit after paying their operating costs and taxes.

~~~
hugh4
Let's make some generous assumptions -- a taxi costs $20K, lasts 300,000
miles, gets 50 miles to the gallon and fuel costs $2.00 a gallon. (Or
equivalent, electrically, I'm easy.) Then fuel is four cents a mile and
depreciation is seven cents a mile for a total cost of eleven cents a mile.

In the future, running an ultra-efficient electric car we can imagine the fuel
price could be lower and the range before replacement even higher.

Is eleven cents a mile "almost free"? It's certainly a lot cheaper than the
vast majority of public transport trips I've taken in recent years. Could it
be ad-supported? Well, maybe. How much would advertisers be willing to pay to
captively monopolise the attention of someone whose individual tastes and
spending habits were already well profiled? Quite possibly more than eleven
cents a mile (a few cents a minute in traffic).

(Personally I'm more than willing to outbid the advertisers in order to get
peace and quiet.)

~~~
petra
This is pretty close. Benedict evans did a more accurate calculation , and got
,for electric self driving cars, 14-19 cents/mile:

[https://twitter.com/benedictevans/status/636684338352951297](https://twitter.com/benedictevans/status/636684338352951297)

One thing he forgot - what about shared transport - say sharing with 3 people
could offer ride time relatively close to a car. That gets us to 4.5
cents/mile. That comes about to $50 a month/american-person(avg 13.5K
miles/year) , less for a kid, surely less for people in dense cities(say $25)
.

EDIT:and if you're willing to ride an on demand bus/minibus , maybe it could
go to 1/2-1/3 of that , so maybe your monthly transport demands could be met
by less than $10.

~~~
hugh4
Sharing rides with strangers is precisely the kind of thing that I'd hope to
_avoid_ by replacing public transport with self-driving cars.

But anyway, yes, it does appear that the economics of the self-driving taxi
beat the economics of the bus or the train, especially given that buses and
trains generally operate at a large _loss_ and still charge people, on
average, a higher fare than what they'd pay for a self-driving taxi.

A self-driving bus that operates a route could be even cheaper, but why bother
when you can hail a cab to take you straight to your destination without stops
for just a few tens of cents more?

~~~
petra
I can imagine a self-driving taxi , for shared rides, that's designed for
privacy , so you don't feel like riding with others, except for a bit of an
extended trip.

I wonder why nobody have build such a car yet, but there's good likelihood it
will happen in a huge self driving market.

------
mindcrime
_Secondly, most companies have now realized that disruption is the way of the
world, and thus most have become 'venture builders' that continuously run
experiments and attempt to disrupt themselves, thus permanently remaining on
top._

I'm pretty skeptical of this one, but I am curious to see how that plays out.
I suspect there are some inherent, systemic rigidities that develop in large
companies, that will prevent this from coming (entirely) to pass. If so, small
companies / startups will continue to emerge with some technological
innovation (or business model innovation) or other and "disrupt" existing
models.

That said, an interesting related question would be "will be actually reach
'the end of technology' at some point?" That is, will we reach a point where
we have mastered all of the technologies that _can_ exist, given the
constraints of the laws of physics? I mean, if we assume a fundamentally
unchanging universe (unchanging in terms of the fundamental laws) then human /
technological progress has to stop at some point, no? The question is, how far
from that point are we?

~~~
petra
>> "will be actually reach 'the end of technology'

In general ,technologies are building blocks of newer technologies.Maybe we'll
run out of problems first ?

~~~
Taek
At some point you run into the laws of physics. Right now it looks like we can
stretch things quite a bit further, but there's only so much free energy in
the world and only so many ways to shape it. It's completely conceivable that
we'd run out of new technology before we run out of problems.

------
guard-of-terra
"A good segment (30%) of the world barely works" \- and behaves exactly like
disgrunted arabs in poor muslim countries?

I.e. radicalize, want to blow up the world, ready to take arms for $150/month?

Another role model for those people is 1st world ghettos. We're not doing it
better than that yet. "The cost of subsistence has been driven down
significantly", that's nice if you actually have some independent source of
income. Otherwise you're a slave of someone who has it.

"Solar panels are everywhere" \- making electricity out of rain, darkness and
misery anyone? Not every country in the world has enough sunshine (however,
most do)

Not a world of explaination why India is superpower. Not a word about Europe.

~~~
jp555
I'd bet more than 30% of Greeks "barely work" and they're not radicalized. I
wonder why that is?

~~~
guard-of-terra
Because they've only been out of work for relatively short period of time. Of
course, people with european mentality will take more time to radicalize, but
it's going to happen.

Greece is also already home to far-right and far-left political forces seeing
mainstream acceptance.

Also, being a part of united Europe, they can find work in other european
countries. Thus the most energetic people leave and get busy.

------
legulere
The way it looks to me housing will be a bigger factor. People are more and
more moving to cities leading to rising prices, which makes it difficult for
most people to earn what they need for living.

I don't see how this will be changing in the future.

------
coldtea
> _A good segment (30%) of the world barely works. The cost of subsistence has
> been driven down significantly and peer-to-peer marketplaces have
> proliferated, so a good percentage of people have chosen to check out of the
> rat race. They do odd jobs for cash, but they primarily devote their time to
> their passions, working as artists, artisans, or community builders._

In Portland maybe. In most of the developed world most of the 30% that doesn't
work hasn't decided to "check out of the rat race" but just can't find
anything decent (or, in some countries, anything at all).

------
molmalo
Sadly, I see this article as an overly optimistic view of the not-so-distant
future.

Maybe 40 years seems like a lot of time in some fields (electronics, software,
human life-span), but not so much in some major areas (culture, some hard
sciences, societies, economy).

Yes, the rate of technological advances are sometimes exponential. But in some
fields, they are clearly slowing down, and stabilizing. And even when
technology can alter our daily lives, introducing new elements to our lives,
most changes are introduced as a convenience, or a way to enhance our
productivity, but our daily life remains almost the same, in the big scope.

Sometimes, a REAL revolutionary element emerges, like the Internet. Computers
enhanced the way companies did their work, but the Internet introduced changes
much more intensive, enabling new markets, new products, new channels of
communication, and above all, changing how we learn, distributing knowledge,
and empowering the people to express and divulge their thoughts and opinions.

But in the end, the core of our lives remains the same. If we compare the
daily life of a middle class man living in 1935 (80 years to the past, not
just 40), to the daily life of a middle class man living in 2015, we would
find, generally speaking, that they are really similar. The general structure
remains the same. Sure, we enjoy lots of new gadgets, and maybe work 1 or 2
hours less... some of us.

In 1930, John Maynard Keynes wrote: “Our grandchildren”, would work around
“three hours a day”..

 _" Three-hour shifts or a fifteen-hour week may put off the problem for a
great while. For three hours a day is quite enough to satisfy the old Adam in
most of us!"_

Of course, for the vast part of the society that didn't happen. And that won't
happen in the next 80 years...

You'll see... One could argue that our standard of living is better than what
kings enjoyed 200 years ago. Better infrastructure, better services, better
medicine, less physical work, etc. But that standard of living has a cost. Of
course, we live in a society, and we pay that cost between all. And as a
society, as we get more specialized and qualified jobs (comparatively better
jobs), we _" earn more"_. But we have a lot more things to pay for. More
services, more products, more everything. And then comes inflation. In the
end, this is the key: Cost of living adjusts as we move forward in time, as we
introduce new elements in our lives.

If someone is not rich, and would want to stop working, he could try to live
like a Mennonite, while spending his savings, but that's not what most people
want.

So, in order to get better lives and adjust to our new standards, we either
work more ours or we try hard to be more productive, more competitive,
increase your social network, get more educated to get better jobs, increase
our sales, etc. And as we do that, we live more stressed lives.

Real change in our lives comes when major social change arrives. And
revolutionary social changes, often comes from complex origins, not easily
attributable to a single technological change.

In my previous example, I proposed comparing a man's life in 1935 and 2015.
Now, compare an average woman's life in the same years. During WW2, women
became part of the labor force. When men came back, women had to go back to
their roles as housewives. But didn't last long. Women proved capable of doing
"real" work (getting paid), and they claimed their rights to be included. To
have a life outside their homes.

\----

> Almost-free on-demand point-to-point public transit.

Cheaper, probably, but not almost-free. Unless it's a public utility and it's
owned and subsidized by a state, then it's going to be profit-based, and given
the level of investment needed, it can't be almost-free.

>Magic is real.

As someone else posted, that kind of uses feels awkward.

>A good segment (30%) of the world barely works

As I wrote before, this may happen but not because "people have chosen to
check out of the rat race." But because automation and the increasing
concentration of wealth is leaving lots of people out of the market.

>Many people live throughout their life in campus environments similar to
college campuses of the early 21st century.

Communities and cities growing around major companies is nothing new. On the
contrary, that was far more common in the early 20th century. And it wasn't
really a nice environment. What the future will see, is the expansion and
proliferation of gated communities. And eventually, private cities. Nordelta,
in Argentina, is an example of that. With 5 schools, medical center, 20
restaurants, shopping center, hotels, golf, sports fields, parks, offices,
etc. And of course, high density != friends.

>Hyper-personalized healthcare.

For the ones who can pay it. This is one of the areas where the difference
between high-end and low-end services will increase enormously. If you are
rich, custom-made organs and genetic treatments, tailored just for you, will
be available. If not... you'll have something a little better than now, but
not that much better.

\----

So, in general, what I care the most about the future are the big social
changes, and those are not necessarily the technological ones. Those are my
predictions:

\- Middle East will still be a mess. Governments coming and going. Factions
fighting for power, etc.

\- As the clash of civilization escalates, people will take refuge in their
own value systems. Ethnocentrism and Xenophobia will increase A LOT. More and
more.

\- Religion will recover lost ground in the west and the far east. We saw this
happen in the Middle East, when secular governments fell (some puppets, some
dictatorships and monarchies) and theocratic and radicalized movements
expanded their influence. I'm seeing this happening in some parts of Europe
and Latin America.

\- A new wave of New-Age like movements will make appearance, promoting
healthier spiritual lives.

\- The gap between the rich and the poor will increase.

\- As China's economy and influence expands, and it's workforce is paid
better, new opportunities rise in cheaper-labor countries, and many companies
will move their production centers. This poses a threat to the Chinese
Government.

\- US and China economies are very entangled. So, direct confrontation
benefits no-one. A new economic cold war, under the table, will be fought.
Something like the current Cyberwar.

\- Eventually, the world will see the first WMD attack (radiological, bio or
chemical).

\- We'll see the rise of a new kind of fascism or pseudo-Nazism. This is one
of the things that scares me the most.

\- As we get used to mass surveillance, our expectancy of privacy will go to
the floor. And the sad part is that we'll get used to it. And we may even
convince ourselves that this is for the better.

\- Proxy wars between China, Russia and USA will be fought in Asia and Africa.

\- The quest for ever-cheaper labor will lead to Africa.

\- A large scale cyberwar will be executed.

\- But eventually, money (and not war nor peace) will find the way.

While I try to be realistic, I seem to have a pessimistic view of what's to
come.

~~~
flohofwoe
This is a much more realistic outlook, and much better expressed than I ever
could. Thank you.

