100 Year Predictions

Here's what a writer in the year 1900 thought life might be like in the 2000's (image below). The wording is definitely wacky, but many of them are spot-on. I for one am happy that wild animals still exist in the world of 2011, though I'm a bit disappointed that we still haven't figured out how to grow citrus in cold climates or that people don't walk more in their daily life. We have come a long way, I think more technological advancement has happened in the last century (even in the past 20 years!) than anyone could have anticipated. All of this has made me think, though. Sure, a lot of things have changed, but what has stayed the same? And is our advanced technology in line with our social advancement - or is one lacking in some way?

Poverty still exists. Drought and famine, storms and natural disasters are still capable of devastating our communities. Even with a world that has seen its share of democratic uprisings in the Arab Spring, fear-mongering dictators rule some countries with an iron fist, and powerful people in every clime abuse and dehuminize those who grant them power. Much of the world still does not place women in a role of equality with their male peers. While schools are common and people everywhere are learning to read, is our cultural and environmental literacy lagging? Even though good people everywhere are actively trying to improve life on our little planet, there is still so much injustice in our world. Humanity still has room to progress.

What aspects of our lives are the same as in 1900?
Do you think our world's social advancement is on-par with our technology?
What do you realistically think life will be like in 2112?
What do you hope life will be like in 2112?

 

Oh yeah, that is super small. Here's a link to a website with the text:
http://www.yorktownhistory.org/homepages/1900_predictions.htm

 

What's interesting to menabout this list is how much the author didn't predict. Not that it's his fault -- who could possibly see the rise of the computer, the transistor, the commercial airline industry, the modern fabrication and engineering techniques, rocketry, space flight... all of these advances were impossible to predict 50 or 100 years ahead of time, and all of them have shaped our world and everyday lives in ways unimaginable to someone born and raised in the nineteenth century.

The predictable changes from the next hundred years are boring to me. What I'm fascinated by is the idea of things that we couldn't possibly see coming from here.

 

Well, now that I've given people a couple of days to look at this, I guess I'll answer the questions that I put forth in the OP:

What aspects of our lives are the same as in 1900?
People still eat, poop, smile, frown, blink, are born and die. It's just as easy today to catch the common cold, and everyone is just as clueless about the purpose of life.
Do you think our world's social advancement is on-par with our technology?
No. Heck no. Not even a little. People are hypocritical, take advantage of other people, start wars, and kill each other. Poverty and broken homes are rampant. If we were so "advanced" our societies would be far more loving and equitable.
What do you realistically think life will be like in 2112?
You know what? I have a different opinion on this one every day.
Ever seen Idiocracy?

Some days I tend to think that they're spot-on with their prediction. Seems that recently we have been doing less to hone our individual intelligence, that we are focused instead on entertainment and escapism. Just once I'd like to hear an older person say that kids are smarter, or that life is better (not easier) now than they were way-back-when. Creativity and growth seem like a lost cause. With every new school year, the incoming class of university students seem to know less and less. I don't understand why this is the case, but it's frustrating.
What do you hope life will be like in 2112?
I'm a big fan of the Star Trek model, an Earth in which there is no more poverty, no currency. Where everyone is working toward the betterment of humanity on the whole. Sure, technology is great but I really don't care if there are computers 100 years from now. I'd much rather be without flush toilets, microscopes, and a shorter life span if it meant that people actually got along.