Where do you see the world in fifty years?

[D33]

Originally posted by king John I
why are the japanese so far ahead of everyone?

I imagine it's because they walk towards the future while other countries only look.

 

[king John I]

seen those wierd new cars theyve made?

they like, change shape and colour and stuff, freaky.

+dont they have maglev trains there?

 

[OCybrManO]

"There is no such thing as over-population. This is a concept made up by people who believe that you can "own land". This is bullshit. Right now ALOT of people have a little piece of yard with a house on it. This is verrrry inefficient. If we built a large apartment building housing a thousand people or so, every half kilometer, across all the land surface buildable, we can grow to like 20 billion (atleast). It's all in the economy, dudes."

Space is not the issue.

When every one of those 20billion+* people is polluting the air and water, congesting the streets, producing feces, throwing away tons of waste, using up oxygen, etc... things could get bad very quickly.



* 20 billion is a very conservative number considering that most of the USA, Canada, Russia, etc is unpopulated as is... and we already have around 7 billion people. If you replaced all current housing with skyscraper-height apartment buildings covering the entire landscape of Earth I bet we could probably fit closer to one trillion people... but dealing with the consequences of having one trillion people is a whole different problem.

 

[iamironsam]

Originally posted by OCybrManO
Space is not the issue.

Space is definitely an issue in countries like Japan.

 

[king John I]

overpopulation is where there are so many people living in a small area it starts to be a health and lifstlye hazard, eg. spread of diesease or poverty.

 

[OCybrManO]

Space is not a resource the world is dangerously low on.

People live in Japan by choice.
If they couldn't deal with that many people some would have to move elsewhere.

Space will not be a major issue until we have no where else on Earth to go... by then we will have hopefully begun to prepare another planet for colonization.

 

[king John I]

we'll just turn into merpeople and live in the sea!

 

[OCybrManO]

Yeah, that will probably come before space colonization.

 

[king John I]

people think space colanies are so close, the only reason america keeps nasa is for its pride. We'll never live in space.

 

[OCybrManO]

Never is a strong word.

I didn't say it was close... but that by the time we completely run out of places for people to live it would hopefully be close.

 

[Farrowlesparrow]

Well, since making general predictions is hard enough, 2 years into the future, why not go for 50?

If the ice caps melted...why would the planet flood? I mean, ice takes up more room that water does.

I think we have the ability to build a moon base, but people dont want to "waste" money. (Admitedly it would cost a lot, but wouldnt it be cool?)

Maybe we could achieve the ultimate goal of dumping so much nuclear waste on the moon that it explodes and flies off into space (ALA Space: 1999)

People being short sighted and not wanting to "waste" money, has held back quite a few things. Take the shuttles for instance. Have you seen the original designs? They were a lot more efficient, and would have also lasted longer. They were less dangerous as well, partly because of the way the shuttle sat with the fuel tank.

 

[K e r b e r o s]

Well first...

10 years into the future: We all get screwed over buy something with a huge onion ring..

10 years later then that: We all smell like onions...

10 years after that: We...uh... ..

10 years after that: "Australia's like: WTF?"

10 years after that: The end.

 

[Element Alpha]

If the ice caps melted...why would the planet flood? I mean, ice takes up more room that water does.

You contradict yourself! If ice takes up more space than water, that means ice FLOATS on water. Ever noticed how icecubes didn't sink in your glass? But if it stopped floating, the level would rise. Comprende?

According to Nostradamus(I read up a little on him yesterday after I read this thread), world war 3 will start very soon. You can argue about it, but books discussing him printed before 9/11 said that NY was going to be attacked. Scary tought. He says that a leader will be killed and that there will be a "sudden retaliation" and that about 1/3 of the world population will be killed. It is suggested to move to the mountains to avoid death. And then it goes on about an anti-christ and a true messiah and other nonsense. This Nostradamus fella really has a lot of believers, there are like 10 thousand sites about him.

I expect we'll have a lot of enviremental problems. Overpopulation may be a problem too, especially in 3rd world countries. I also wonder about nationalism(racism) in Europe. There are a lot of immigrants in the big cities, I wonder how they'll react if extreme-right parties get elected. Privacy won't be to much of an issue I think. If longhorn really is that bad privacy-wise, I'll switch over to Linux in a heartbeat. Or I just won't use it even if newer software requires it. You can't force people in giving up their privacy. Only if you enprison them, but you can't enprison everyone everywhere. I wish nations would recognize each others as fellow humans by then, and treath each other like brothers.

 

[_-_-SELAS-_-_]

Where the world will be? Ohhh some where around the sun I'd say. And If HL² doesn't come LilTimmy will be the leader of the world, luckily I wuv the funny guy =D *hug*

 

[RoyaleWithCheese]

Well Element Alpha that really made me happy . But Nostradamus has been right before so better dig a bomb shelter in advance people.

Originally posted by Element Alpha
Privacy won't be to much of an issue I think. If longhorn really is that bad privacy-wise, I'll switch over to Linux in a heartbeat. Or I just won't use it even if newer software requires it. You can't force people in giving up their privacy. Only if you enprison them, but you can't enprison everyone everywhere.

Lol I had to read that twice, was funny how you hop from nostradamus doom scenario with world war III and massive amounts of dead people to longhorn-linux. Made me laugh (no offence ofcourse)

 

[poseyjmac]

Originally posted by Element Alpha
.... It is suggested to move to the mountains to avoid death. ......

and lose my precious DSL access? never!

..unless we can have a giant ongoing lan party in a big cave and play video games while the world is being destroyed. :cheers:

..and the programmers will live among us in the mountains, and they will make games not for money but so we can have the best game possible. we will be able to play the latest builds of duke nukem forever, halflife2, doom3, stalker, etc.. and we will work out all the bugs so we can live in gaming nirvana for the rest of our days while the world is sorting things out.

 

[Dedalus]

wow smarten yourselves up...we'll be the first called into conscription by the army. no lan parties for us. we'll just be fighting in a realistic version of Battlefield 1942, but then we'll wonder why no-one ever respawns and try and quit the server.

 

[Arno]

Originally posted by Element Alpha
You contradict yourself! If ice takes up more space than water, that means ice FLOATS on water. Ever noticed how icecubes didn't sink in your glass? But if it stopped floating, the level would rise. Comprende?

Farrowlesparrow was thinking about the floating ice near the north pole, but that's only a few meters thick. Most of the ice in the world rests on land. The icecaps on Antarctica and Greenland are a few kilometers thick. If those would melt, the sealevel would rise several meters worldwide.

 

[waedoe]

50 years = my ass, or hell

 

[DimitriPopov]

Originally posted by pHATE1982
Yeah i guess you're right...

Rolling 50 tanks into a palestine village and killing everyone including women and children is a real achievement. They're deffinatly A-okay. And the nukes they're developing make me feel so warm and fuzzy at night knowing they're such kind hearted soles.

And for your information israel will not compromise either, because they know they're bigger and tougher... why should they back down when they can do whatever they want to the palestines?

(I'm not defending palestine terrorism, but killing women and children because of a few extremists isn't big and clever is it?)

I can't believe how narrow minded some people are, just because the bloody americans like the israelies. They're tactical allies for god sake... America doesnt want another nuclear armed enemy.

Egypt , Syria , Jordan. Read , I said neighbors not inhabitants. Fool.

 

[marksmanHL2 :)]

I can't believe people still stand up for the israels stance on the matter.

I mean it just promotes vilonce. I understand why they do it. But I don't think its the smartest of things to be doing. And definatly not the most moral.


Just thought I would post that.

Gota go now, got a clan match!