Cells — too many being produced 5. Mutations — chromosomes 6. Mutations — mitochondria 7. Protein crosslinks. In the early years of the 21st century, it was possible to extend the human lifespan by only two months per year.
In other words, for every year of a person's life they lived, two months of additional life could be expected from advances in science and medicine. However, subsequent decades witnessed a revolution in medicine, with major advances in the use of stem cells, gene therapy, 3D printing of body parts, nanotechnology and other techniques. Ever more sophisticated, powerful, and compact devices gained the ability to scan, identify and treat the most elusive of bodily defects at scales previously thought impossible.
Exponential progress, aided by the prevalence of deep learning and other AI techniques, enabled the "longevity escape velocity" to edge closer and closer — first in mice, then later in monkeys, and finally in humans, with 12 months per year of additional lifespan being added. By the s, this allowed some celebrities and other high-income individuals to remain in a relatively young and biologically healthy state. By the mids, cost reductions are combining with expiration of patents, and further improvements in research, to enable the majority of the world's population to benefit.
As with previous revolutions in science, debates have raged over the ethics and implications of an end to aging. However, there is generally strong support from the public, due to the improvements in quality of life healthspan and the potential to live a vastly extended life with all the experiences and opportunities that brings.
Nanotechnology — the control of matter on an atom-by-atom basis — has swept the world, transforming society in myriad ways. A growing number of industries have seen their workforces shrink dramatically, with robots and AI handling the bulk of operations. Around the world, unemployment has soared. Construction companies are being particularly affected now.
By the middle of this decade, it's becoming possible to build entire homes and offices using nanotechnology alone.
For a typical square or rectangular plot of land, this takes the form of self-assembling machinery, based around a scaffold system that initially resembles a giant, four poster bed. Vertical columns, one in each corner of the site, support a platform that gradually rises from the ground, adding successive layers of material beneath it. The columns rise in tandem with the platform, whilst also relaying material, until the building is finally topped out.
In effect, these machines are like substantially bigger versions of 3D printers and nanofabricators. For some of the more "unique" building designs or features, traditional methods of construction and engineering are still incorporated. Even these will eventually be replaced by self-assemblers as the technology advances further. Atom by atom, these intelligent machines lay the foundations, core, framework, flooring, electrics, doors and other components — while robots inspect the interior, perform safety checks and make adjustments where necessary.
By the s, even skyscrapers and other tall structures can be erected using this method. The process is so rapid, it takes a matter of days from groundwork to final completion. Humans are rarely if ever needed on site. Archival Disc was a successor to the Blu-ray format, commercially introduced in In addition to a much larger storage capacity initially GB, later expanded to 1 TB , it also featured a longer lifespan.
Archival Disc was designed to maintain readability for at least 50 years. By , the first generation of these Archival Discs are becoming degraded. Any data on this storage medium that has not been backed up or transferred to an alternative format will now be lost. Damage wrought by accelerating climate change has led to most insurance firms filing for bankruptcy. Coastal cities are particularly badly hit.
Much of the infrastructure in the southern states has been destroyed by category 5 hurricanes, with Houston and New Orleans lying virtually abandoned. Along the west coast, gigantic fires spread by the tinder-dry ground have ravaged much of the land. The economy of California is in tatters. Many of the biggest insurance firms have been nationalised by the government in a bid to avert economic collapse. A hundred years have passed since humans first ventured into space. For much of that time, manned craft were limited to the Earth-Moon system with only small, incremental advances in propulsion systems.
After the legendary Apollo missions, it had seemed like anything was possible — even travel to the stars. The goal of colonising the Moon, putting men on Mars and exploring the outer Solar System became a distant prospect: relegated to the realm of science fiction.
As the early years of the 21st century unfolded there was a perception among many that this trend would continue. A number of setbacks reinforced this view — such as the retirement of the Space Shuttle, the cancellation of NASA's Constellation program and the relative lack of excitement around the International Space Station, along with an emerging financial crisis. In reality, however, great strides were being made in a number of areas.
For a start, information technology was growing at an exponential rate; a pattern that had remained consistent for many decades and showed little sign of slowing down. Computer processing power, memory, data storage, bandwidth and a host of other measures were doubling in performance every months, whilst declining dramatically in cost.
This greatly accelerated the pace of research and development, as knowledge could be shared quickly and easily around the world. Billions of people gained access to the World Wide Web, fostering education and innovation on an unprecedented scale. Previously restricted to government agencies, space began to open up, becoming commercialised and industrialised. The emergence of new players such as China and India further helped in reinvigorating space research.
As the decades passed, a new generation of rockets was developed. Materials based on nanotechnology enabled stronger, lighter and cheaper spacecraft. Artificial intelligence was another byproduct of the information revolution, enabling systems to effectively design themselves.
Alongside all of this, many important breakthroughs were made in the understanding of scientific processes and physical phenomena. Among the most significant of these was in antimatter production and confinement. Researchers produced, trapped and then released a few dozen atoms of antihydrogen for around two-tenths of a second. However, scientific and technological progress in the early-mid 21st century was occurring at an exponential rate. By the late s, the first prototype antimatter-powered spacecraft is demonstrated.
The "fuel" for this vessel consists of tiny pellets containing deuterium and tritium — heavy isotopes of hydrogen with one or two neutrons, respectively, in their nuclei hydrogen normally has no neutrons. Inside each pellet, this fuel is surrounded by uranium. A beam of anti-protons, with an electrical charge of minus-1, is then fired at the pellets. When the anti-protons collide with the uranium nuclei, they annihilate, generating vast amounts of energy which triggers fusion reactions in the fuel.
This provides thrust via magnetic confinement and a magnetic nozzle. Using this propulsion system, a trip to Jupiter can be achieved in just four months, using 1. By the s, a number of crewed missions are being conducted. Further advances in antimatter and ship designs pave the way for interstellar travel in the 22nd and 23rd centuries. Artist's concept of antimatter propulsion system. In the s, shipping companies had begun to increase the use of container boxes.
These allowed the bundling of cargo and goods into larger, unitised loads that could be easily handled, moved, and stacked, and that would pack tightly into a ship or yard. As the economy expanded and society became more globalised, container boxes grew more and more numerous, with a consequent demand for larger and larger sea-going vessels. The industry used a measurement known as TEU, which stood for "twenty-foot equivalent unit" — a reference to the rectangular container boxes with dimensions of 20' x 8' x 8'.
A cargo ship with capacity of 20, TEUs, for example, could fit 20, shipping containers of that size into itself. In the early s, the biggest ships held approximately 2, TEU. In subsequent decades, the carrying capacities increased substantially. By they had reached 15, TEU and by they regularly exceeded 23, TEU, an order of magnitude difference compared to 50 years previously. Berthing fees divided ships into metre brackets. For many years, this had kept their designs to just below metres — resulting in wide, bulky and vertically stacked vessels.
However, the enormous and growing volumes of cargo requiring transportation meant that eventually, this ceiling would need to be exceeded for practical and safety reasons. As such, the first container vessels reaching half a kilometre in length began to emerge, their additional capacity offsetting the increase in berthing fees. In addition to length, ships continued to grow in width and draft level. Emerging markets in southeast Asia and elsewhere now had middle classes with improved per capita incomes and living standards, demanding more and more consumer items from around the world.
By the late s — a full century after their introduction — container vessels have reached truly enormous sizes. The largest are now exceeding 50, TEU or more than double their cargo volume in Gigantic, floating dry docks, with cranes on both sides that load or unload cargo from one ship simultaneously, are a common sight at coastal cities of the s.
Another major development is the widening of canals and other routes. Not only are these ships much larger, they are also fully automated. The days of piracy are long gone, since the vessels can operate entirely by themselves, preventing any possibility of hostage taking. Automated defences, such as armed drones, serve to further dissuade any would-be attackers.
Any maintenance required during a voyage can be performed by robots as well. In the developed world, the gender gap has narrowed to such an extent that salaries and rights are pretty much equal for both sexes. Women are now playing a greater role in business and government than ever before. Just one consequence has been a significant reduction in military spending.
The money and resources saved are being diverted to education, healthcare, transport and environmental programmes, improving the living standards and opportunities for many.
With less male aggression in world affairs, more balanced and level-headed discourse is taking place on international issues. Widespread use of AI in neutral, objective, consultative roles is also reinforcing cooperation by providing more "logical" solutions to global issues.
Improved lifestyles and training techniques — including the use of VR for mental enhancement — saw many world athletics records continue to fall during the last few decades. At the Olympics, a major landmark is passed when a black male athlete completes the metre sprint in less than nine seconds. However, these records will soon be hitting a barrier as it becomes physically impossible for humans to run any faster without biotechnological aids.
Indeed, a new breed of "super athlete" has emerged, as the authorities have legalised certain implants, drugs and muscle-enhancing devices. This has resulted in a splitting of the games into three separate events — a "classic" group for natural, unenhanced athletes; Paralympics for those with disabilities; and a third "cyber" category for those with biotechnology enhancements.
The Paralympics will eventually disappear altogether as literally all physical disabilities are overcome. By the midst century, severe climate change gripped much of the world. In addition to a gradual phasing out of fossil fuels, various carbon capture and storage methods were employed.
This included natural solutions in addition to technological innovations. Massive tree-planting efforts, for example, allowed many cities and towns to achieve local cooling. Firestick farming in early Australia. Thomas Malthus and population growth. Agriculture and human population.
Energy inputs for tilling a hectare of land. Random predictions for Next lesson. Current timeTotal duration Google Classroom Facebook Twitter. Video transcript In the last video I mentioned how I've been asked to make predictions for the year And the last one I focused on education, and that's obviously what I'm working on now. So I have some opinions about that. But what I want to do in this video is do maybe slightly more broad and wild predictions, and my one prediction I'll make is I'm probably completely not going to predict the real reality of And probably the really big things to predict I will completely miss.
But with that out of the way it is fun to predict things. So let's give it a shot. So the first area that I will predict is what's going to happen in the field of medicine. And in particular, I think that the human lifespan is going to increase dramatically.
So I'll be conservative and say that the lifespan, the average human lifespan, is going to be, and especially in the developed world, and once again, hopefully by most of the world is developed, that the average human lifespan is going to be over years old. And I won't say whether that's going to be a good or a bad thing.
There's arguments either way about the proper way to live, and what happens to global populations. But if the world is for the most part developed and educated you actually will probably have a lower rate of reproduction. So you might actually have some space in the world for older people. But this I think there is a very strong chance of this happening, because we are starting to understand the molecular basis of aging.
It's not a given thing that because of some form of wear and tear things have to die at after 70 years, or 80 years, or 90 years, and we're starting to understand the mechanisms, and how to maybe improve the repair mechanisms, or how to augment it in some way. So I definitely think this is going to happen. I don't know whether it's going to be a positive or negative.
But it's likely to happen. As he embarked on a scientific career, he sacrificed way more than most in the search for ultimate truth. Newton stuck the thing between his eyeball and the socket in such a way that he could press the eyeball from behind with the tip of the needle. He was thus able to change the shape of the eyeball and observe the effect this had on his visual perception. He saw rings of differing sizes and colors that changed when he moved the needle but disappeared when it was still.
Despite the interesting fruits of his research, Newton was actually slightly concerned about his eyes and locked himself away in a completely darkened room for three days, only reemerging when they were working normally again. He even dared to predict when the world might end. Meanwhile, Newton castigated other doomsday prophesiers for foretelling a more imminent apocalypse.
But it's increasingly clear that conservative politicians have their work cut out securing our votes. Generation X-ers fall around the national average, suggesting that religion — and the ideological baggage that comes with it — may be witnessing a decline. Also notable is the expansion of atheism and agnosticism, which 3 of 10 unaffiliated Millennials identify as subscribing to.
And what would a list outlining the differences between old and young be without mentioning technology? Millennials have often been called "digital natives," the first generation to grow up under the hopefully benevolent gaze of the Internet.
Our primary mode of communication is social networking and, as a bonus statistic, we average Facebook friends, which seems a conservative estimate. Image Credit: The Age. That older generations exhibit lower degrees of tech savvy only contributes to our ideological and communication differences. How can we "talk it out" if we're on the Internet while they're still jabbing at landline dials with applesauce-coated fingers? So what do we have to look forward to? To hear the study tell it: Racial diversity, high rates of intermarriage, more immigrants, left-leaning politics and an impending battle between young and old that could radically impact whether we choose to take care of our parents or ship them to cheap retirement homes.
Hopefully we reconcile our differences before things get really ugly. Either way, it's a fascinating and exciting future to ponder.
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