It's 2015 and I am one year away from my 50th birthday. I thought I would write down the way I see the future playing out. 100 years from now, my great-great-grand-children can look back and determine how full of crap I am.
- The LGBT community will continue to be more and more accepted and protected by the majority. Anyone claiming that gays should be denied the right to marry will be labeled as a bigot - by all of society, not just left wing liberals. We will eventually elect an openly LGBT president.
- Religion will continue to decline as education rises. The scientific community will gradually move from the position of: science and religion are complimentary world views to the position of: science and religion are competing and mutually exclusive world views. More and more atheists will come out of the closet. We will eventually elect an openly atheist president.
- Modern science and medicine will continue to increase the length and quality of life. Eventually, it will be possible to live forever. The problems then becomes those related to population: running out of earth and ruining the earth.
- The importance of global warming, particularly the need for humans to urgently take action to save our planet, will eventually be recognized by all - not just left wing liberals.
- Machines and computers will become more and more proficient at doing the work that humans currently do. Humans who do things that computers can do better or cheaper will be in less demand. People who can do things that computers cannot do, will be most in demand.
- Small town values will slowly disappear because, due to technology, there will be no small towns. Everyone will be connected. Everyone will be part of the global melting pot.
- Cognitive Labels.
- Cognitive labels will increase. In addition to labels like ADHD, aspergers, dyslexia, etc. we will identify and label others. For example, I believe there is a common condition (I call it simpleton) where a person tends to over simplify the world. Where a normal person sees a continuum of choices, the simpleton sees a finite discrete set of choices. Where a normal person sees a dozen choices, a simpleton may see only two.
- Cognitive labels will soften. There will be a shift in how we look at some of these conditions: instead of a disability some of these conditions will be viewed as natural and healthy cognitive difference - a possibly valuable difference. In other words, we will come to appreciate neurodiversity.
