Your guesses for the world 15 years from now.

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How do you think the world will be like in 2030? Here are some of my guesses.

There will be new trends of course. People in 2030 will be like remember when Youtube and Facebook were the thing? Many old sites from the early 2000s will be archived because future decendents will be able to look at what parents and grandparents used to post on the internet. They could be going through your internet posts on a forum you used to write on in 2010. Someone in 2030 could be watching a Youtube video that someone made in 2006.

The gaming industry will change. Handheld games and systems will lose sales and eventually die off in favor of downloadable games or app games. Console gaming won't be as popular as they used to be. The rise of downloadable games or app games will take over.

Religion will continue to decline in the USA. In 2030, only around half of people still identify with a religion. For those 40 and under, only around 1/3rd are religious. However those who are religious view religion now as more important in their lives.

rescinding global power in North America and Europe.
Reducing average living standards in North America and Europe.
Massive political unrest, and social disturbance.
The rise of Golden dawn style political extremes in Europe and North America.
Increasing police brutality.
Resource based wars starting.
Large swathes of Africa becoming desolate from famine, war, disease and drought.
Increasing global power in Asia and Russia, especially within China.
Increasing average living standards in Asia and Russia, especially within China.

Basically the Asian tiger economies will become the new first world and the western world becoming the new second world with our elites vying for economic dominance over an increasingly angry and class concious population.

I'm pretty optimistic about the future. I think people are becoming more and more peaceful and self-aware as time moves on.

Obviously we've got a lot of destruction ahead of us, but I think in 15 years the world will be a more peaceful place.

Okay, are my predictions, divided into political and technological developments.
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Political:
- Westphalian statehood will continue to decline, being replaced by new groups which cut across existing borders
- The first seasteads will be launched
- Fighting in "foreign" conflicts will become acceptable, and indeed a good thing to do (see prediction re. Westphalian statehood)
- The EU will fragment
- Russia will annex more territory
- China will encourage euthanasia as a means of dealing with it's ageing population
- There will be a major terrorist attack on the US
- The use of drones and surveillence will increase further, including the use of lethal drones by Western governments on their home territory; this will, however, not stop them from losing their grip on power as groups secede from their control
- Saudi Arabia will become just another Arab country, to be treated in the same way the others are (see prediction re. solar power)

Technological:
- The first space hotel will be constructed
- Humans will return to the Lunar surface and establish a base
- The cost of launching interplanetary probes will drop to the point where small groups and universities will be responsible for the bulk of unmanned space exploration
- Augmented reality and immersive VR will become ubiqtuous, at first in the first world but soon making it's way to the poorer countries
- Solar energy will be by far the cheapest source of power, and will allow everyone on the planet to access electricity, destroying the oil industry in the process
- The internet will reach almost everyone; the only people without it will be those in oppressive regimes which restrict access
- AI will be used regularly to provide most education and health services, lifting billions out of extreme poverty
- Genetic engineering, big data and stem cell therapy will advance to the point that it will be possible to debug an individuals genome, allowing those who can afford it to have a much reduced risk of diseases, and a longer lifespan
- Major organs and organ systems will be routinely grown from a patients stem cells, abolishing transplant waiting lists and, probably, the paralympics
- The Global Village Construction Set will be complete, allowing small groups to be [almost] entirely self-sufficient from both an economic and technological standpoint
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Now, looking at my list, it's clear that I see political developments being in a mostly negative direction, countered by positive trends in the technological sector. I don't think this is an accident - technology tends to democratise (the printing press, for example) whilst politics has a tendency towards autocracy.

Actually, scratch that, most of my political predictions are positive, 5 vs. 4...

@Magneto

I think Nuclear power will be the next temporary step as I don't believe we will have the ability to have a solar power panels dense enough to become efficient by that time. I remember reading a little while ago, that by the time we have an efficacy enough solar panel we should have the ability to do cold fusion. I could be remembering wrong since I haven't done research on this subject in along time.

The main hold up with solar isn't actually the solar panels themselves, it's the batteries, inverters etc that go with it. Taking into account the day-night cycle, solar is roughly on par with coal in terms of price-per-watt - that is, if you had free energy storage, you'd be better off with the solar power. That's today; as we develop more efficient cells, and cheapest fabrication, that cost is going to drop significantly.

Which is, of course, going to have major political and economic ramifications.

SSDD?

Things won't be so different. Is life really that incredibly different than it was in the year 2000? No. Apart from tablets and smart phones things really haven't changed that much.

We'll be in the middle of the fourth Gulf War. No, I didn't miscount how many wars we've already had in Iraq; just that we'd have had it out with ISIS prior to that. In this fourth Gulf War, we'll be fighting Iran, which would have been invited across the Iraqi border by an Iraqi government sympathetic to the Iranian Revolution. Again, our interest will involve accessibility to oil.
On that note, the chance for developing alternate fuel sources would have been shot down by members of congress in the oil industry's pocket years before.

Global Population reduced by 10 to 15 percent, due to war, famine, and disease. The number will be higher in less developed countries, lower in more developed countries. Not even the wealthiest among us will be spared.

Technology will stagnate or revert to simpler forms, as the business of survival becomes more important than mere tech-commerce. The infrastructure that drove the Information Age will still be there, but the means to exploit it will lose support.

Agriculture will suffer at first, but recover as livestock is bred to provide muscle for farming.

Engineers and scientists will be rarer than physicians, while skilled surgeons will practically vanish.

Petroleum production will be severely reduced, as oil fields and refineries will be the first targets. Transportation will be mostly on foot or animal-driven until fossil fuels come back into regular production.

Governments will become more localized, and reunification may take decades.

All of this is based on the idea that current conditions in the Middle East will spread throughout Europe, and then spiral out of control. Unless wars of ideology are somehow prevented, I predict a dark future for the world.

About the same as the last fifteen years, or the fifteen before then.

Recessions caused by deregulation, shakedowns caused by artificial market manipulations, inflation being used to cover declining numbers.

2001 came out in 1985.
Back to The Future, we are now future.
Where is my Mr. Fusion?
1970, we need to let Viet Nan fight Viet Nam,
Now, Arabs must fight IS.

My remembered history, a space city by 1980, and free higher education, paid for by getting out of Nam, the Peace Dividend. Moon City by 1990, and Mars Base.

Cold War ends, 1992, no more income tax, Peace Dividend, deregulated Savings and Loan, stole all the savings.

Read my lips, no new taxes, just user fees.

Dot Com Bubble, Housing Bubble, Derivative Bubble, I tire of Bubble Baths. Each time, all the money moves up to the rich. They do not even try to hide it anymore.

Fifteen years ago we would not tolerate being spied on, or kidnaping people to torture for a decade, for Freedom.

In fifteen years all first graders will be made into loyal citizens by drugs and electro shock, animation, be made to inform on their family, to protect them from becoming terrorists. Conditioned Loyalty will become the norm, none will dare object.

75% of jobs will vanish, automation, robots, computers, Chinese Slave Labor Camps.

The portion of the economy used to support government will double.

The Chicago Cubs will still be trying to win their first world series since 1908.

But I won't care.

Well I am not so hopeful. When you compare the lead up to WW1 with all the maneuvering, alliances, territorial chest thumping, failing economies not to mention declining world powers and the rise of new ones. I see history repeating itself.

15 years hence-

Drug use down 50% - rebellion against the previous generation
Literacy down 50% - technology dumbs down the majority
Numeracy down 80% - increased reliance on devices
Science work down 60% - 'fun' is more popular than 'adventure'
Marriage down 60% - long relationships becoming unfashionable
Unemployment at 15% - technology making people redundant
Average income up 30% due to total wealth increasing
Mean income down 30% due to majority either unemployed or on low income
Religion polarizes as people migrate away from their theosophical opposites
Xenophobia up 40% as less people travel and groups cling to their own
Internet communities dissolve into lobby groups
Internet lobby groups dissolve into advertisers
Internet entertainment delivery overtakes other uses
China struggles to manage its prosperity