2050

[Eggs]

Guilty.

Wait, doesn't the student loan debt wipe after 30 years or so?

.....not sure it does.

 

[The Cowboy]

Not yet impressed with internet shopping. It was supposed to be big in 1998-1999, but nothing came of that. Amazon is impressive (of sorts), but it's essentially Walmart online. High Street shops decimated by the interwebs? You probably have more to thank Thatcher for the decline of city centres than the interwebs, bro.

Neither am I impressed with low-cost air travel. Southwest has been around since the 1970s, and while it's a fascinating business model, low-cost air travel is dependent on the price of labor, price of fuel, and SWA's efficiency in beating the Hub-and-Spoke model (which is still superior for long-haul flights)*.

*Also, the regulatory cost

Synthetic holiday? I'll believe it when I see it. We've been talking about VR and the related techonology for ages.

I reckon the stalling of VR is more to do with the technology playing catchup with the ideas of the 80s and 90s. We're in a place now where it's feasible (and realised in some cases), so it's just a matter of time before it truly takes off.

Whilst you may not be impressed with internet shopping, if you include stuff like music and film streaming (which is effectively on demand shopping), then there's been a seismic change in consumption since the 80s. Talk of Amazon drones etc could lead to you simply telling your phone what you want and it'll arrive within minutes.

To suggest 'nothing will change' just suggests a lack of imagination, imo.

 

[The Cowboy]

Many things are different/better, but still much the same. We don't get newsprint on our fingers, but we still get our news from the major news organizations. Movies are still produced by the big Hollywood studios, even if we watch them on Netflix. Bobby still rides a taxi, even if he hails it digitally (and regardless whether it's Delta or Uber, it's still a taxi). Houses are still bought and sold the same way.

The real losers in the digital age are information brokers. Newspapers (and newsstands), real estate brokers, street corners. But we will still have journalists, brokers, and street corners, even if their industries are changing.

1. Much of the news is broken through user dissemination via Twitter. The major news organisations take most of their content from Twitter trends!

2. Plenty of content is now produced independently and published on YouTube, vimeo etc.

3. So Rightmove has had absolutely no impact on how we buy houses? Used to be a case of driving around looking for For Sale signs. The only thing that hasn't changed is the archaic legal side of house buying.

 

[abelard]

climate change will devastate agriculture, and lead to spiraling poverty and wars for scarce resources, especially water. the number of refugees will skyrocket, utterly dwarfing our current crises. our flailing political systems will be unable to cope with a corresponding global rise in violence and political extremism. our precarious economic order, so interconnected and hyper-leveraged that even small, localized shortfalls now result in global panic, will be plagued by endemic crises. income and political inequality will soar as automation moves us toward a post-labour economy. our political systems will be utterly unable to cope, and welfare states will mostly crack under the strain. everything will be much worse (and it will all be Martinez's fault!!!)

but, as reality increasingly becomes a luxury for the rich, virtual reality will take up the slack. our social interactions and experiences, particularly sex (now completely detached from 'reproduction'), will be ever more simulated. facsimile will transcend the increasingly forgotten and obsolete original. in exchange for resignation and quiescence, and the unrestricted collection and commodification of our personal data - increasingly the basis of our concept of citizenship - we will retreat into endlessly variable self-created realms of simulacra, and most of us will prefer this. the vestiges of the middle class will withdraw from failing reality, in other words, to plug in, turn on, drop out.

vault me! haha

 

[DualityNSNO]

Guilty.

Wait, doesn't the student loan debt wipe after 30 years or so?

It depends, is what I've been told, on income and all that.

 

[carlos21]

It depends, is what I've been told, on income and all that.

I have got the tattoo mate.

 

[SerenityNigh]

I reckon the stalling of VR is more to do with the technology playing catchup with the ideas of the 80s and 90s. We're in a place now where it's feasible (and realised in some cases), so it's just a matter of time before it truly takes off.

Whilst you may not be impressed with internet shopping, if you include stuff like music and film streaming (which is effectively on demand shopping), then there's been a seismic change in consumption since the 80s. Talk of Amazon drones etc could lead to you simply telling your phone what you want and it'll arrive within minutes.

To suggest 'nothing will change' just suggests a lack of imagination, imo.

Not at all suggesting nothing will change. Things change quickly, but what people see and what is happening don't often coincide. Most talk like this bores me because what most people "imagine" is ultimately not very interesting or useful. Real technological change over the next 50 years, if any, will come in power generation/storage/transmission. That will transform the world. The internet is very important, but it won't enhance lives by allowing for VR and related technology, it changes the world by removing borders--first to information, then to nations/states.

 

[The Esk]

I'll be sat on a south facing porch of a mountain villa with a blanket and a warm gluhwein on colder days.

A good supply of books and Mrs the esk (God willing) would be pretty perfect.

 

[SerenityNigh]

1. Much of the news is broken through user dissemination via Twitter. The major news organisations take most of their content from Twitter trends!

2. Plenty of content is now produced independently and published on YouTube, vimeo etc.

3. So Rightmove has had absolutely no impact on how we buy houses? Used to be a case of driving around looking for For Sale signs. The only thing that hasn't changed is the archaic legal side of house buying.

1. News is faster, but this was happening in the 1980s with CNN and similar. What's changed now is that speed of news is often more important to news organizations than confirmation of facts. But it's not twitter that killed newspapers. That was cable TV. The Buggles' prophecy here applies just as well as with radio (which still remains*).

2. Indeed, but most consumers remain primarily concerned with the source of news (cf the transfer threads).

3. What's changed is that your Real Estate Broker/agent is no longer your primary source for information. Their power is transferred (or at least shared) into your hands. Big change in that industry, but largely for the middle man. Not yet sure how this affects buyers and sellers, unless we see better home matching (i.e., you're more happy with the house you bought because you had more information before buying).

Still don't see much that's changed with these industries. The major change from the internet in these industries will likely be advertising and marketing. Information sharing allows you to be more specifically targeted than before.

*Radio still exists, but while many people no longer consume via AM/FM tuner, they're tuning in via internet or satellite (or in some cases podcast). Likewise, while "newspapers" may be dead, the news industry is neither dead nor will it die. Maybe we'll see a convergence between traditional print and TV news agencies into a single news provider across multiple platforms (obviously different here in the US, since our TV isn't single-source, but market trends will eventually prevail in the UK also).

 

[SerenityNigh]

climate change will devastate agriculture, and lead to spiraling poverty and wars for scarce resources, especially water. the number of refugees will skyrocket, utterly dwarfing our current crises. our flailing political systems will be unable to cope with a corresponding global rise in violence and political extremism. our precarious economic order, so interconnected and hyper-leveraged that even small, localized shortfalls now result in global panic, will be plagued by endemic crises. income and political inequality will soar as automation moves us toward a post-labour economy. our political systems will be utterly unable to cope, and welfare states will mostly crack under the strain. everything will be much worse (and it will all be Martinez's fault!!!)

but, as reality increasingly becomes a luxury for the rich, virtual reality will take up the slack. our social interactions and experiences, particularly sex (now completely detached from 'reproduction'), will be ever more simulated. facsimile will transcend the increasingly forgotten and obsolete original. in exchange for resignation and quiescence, and the unrestricted collection and commodification of our personal data - increasingly the basis of our concept of citizenship - we will retreat into endlessly variable self-created realms of simulacra, and most of us will prefer this. the vestiges of the middle class will withdraw from failing reality, in other words, to plug in, turn on, drop out.

vault me! haha

Have you read Malthus? He's got some great ideas on these topics.

 

[abelard]

Have you read Malthus? He's got some great ideas on these topics.

Yes, he still could be right... in the long run

 

[SerenityNigh]

Yes, he still could be right... in the long run

Him or Keynes

 

[The Cowboy]

1. News is faster, but this was happening in the 1980s with CNN and similar. What's changed now is that speed of news is often more important to news organizations than confirmation of facts. But it's not twitter that killed newspapers. That was cable TV. The Buggles' prophecy here applies just as well as with radio (which still remains*).

2. Indeed, but most consumers remain primarily concerned with the source of news (cf the transfer threads).

3. What's changed is that your Real Estate Broker/agent is no longer your primary source for information. Their power is transferred (or at least shared) into your hands. Big change in that industry, but largely for the middle man. Not yet sure how this affects buyers and sellers, unless we see better home matching (i.e., you're more happy with the house you bought because you had more information before buying).

Still don't see much that's changed with these industries. The major change from the internet in these industries will likely be advertising and marketing. Information sharing allows you to be more specifically targeted than before.

*Radio still exists, but while many people no longer consume via AM/FM tuner, they're tuning in via internet or satellite (or in some cases podcast). Likewise, while "newspapers" may be dead, the news industry is neither dead nor will it die. Maybe we'll see a convergence between traditional print and TV news agencies into a single news provider across multiple platforms (obviously different here in the US, since our TV isn't single-source, but market trends will eventually prevail in the UK also).

The only thing that needs to change about the housing market is the ability to choose your neighbours!

 

[blue61]

I'll be 89, so a self activated device to catch the dribble while I'm gurning my soup would be helpful.

 

[silent bob]

2050 would mean i was 87. I would expect that to involve:

Liquid food
Adult nappies
Liverpool still being four players short of the title
Liquid food
Er...what was that??