The Predictions Thread

[mjmooney]

This is slightly inspired by the 'Seniors' thread, as it got me thinking about the way we thought about 'the future' (i.e. now) back in the 1960s. All the futuristic science fiction was about transport - flying cars, personal jetpacks, matter transporters, interstellar spaceships, and so on. Very few people predicted the big changes in computing and telecoms that have been the real game changers. OK, there were videophones, but (apart from the Star Trek communicator), they were normally shown in phone booths! And computers were assumed to be room-sized mainframes with banks of spinning tape decks, rather than cheap, but powerful, bits of kit in everybody's homes and pockets. 

But this thread is mainly about our own personal predictions - what did you predict, and did you get it spot-on, or laughably wrong? You can also make some new ones, that we can revisit - as long as VT and this thread survive... will it, or won't it?    Sport, technology, society, anything. 

Here are a few of mine: 

At the start of the 1970s, a pint of beer cost about 2/6d. That's two shillings and sixpence. Half a crown. Oh, all right, 12 and a half pence. Of course, prices always go up, and it crept towards three bob. My boldly stated prediction was the price of a pint would never, ever, go above an absolute maximum of (an outrageous) five shillings - 25p. I was convinced that The British Working Man © would never stand for it - there would surely be rioting in the streets. Ha ha. 

Then in the early 90s, as part of my MSc course, I learned about developments in mobile phone technology. I was intrigued - until I was told that such a network would require hundreds of thousands of phone masts being erected all over the country. At that point, I scoffed - no way was that EVER going to happen. Wrong again. 

On the plus side, at round about the same time, the World Wide Web was in its infancy, and the first few retail websites had started to appear. I remember hearing a radio interview with an 'expert' who was asked if this would take off - would people REALLY do shopping from a home computer? His reply was that it would happen to a small extent, but would remain a niche market for rich geeks, and would never account for more than an absolute maximum of 10% of retail sales. I turned to my mate and said "He's wrong - this is going to be MASSIVE, you just watch". So I do get it right some of the time. 

Over to you, folks. 

Edited February 28, 2018 by mjmooney

[Demitri_C]

I predicted 3-D TVS and I had a feeling they would not do too well either 

[mjmooney]

2 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

I predicted 3-D TVS and I had a feeling they would not do too well either 

How about VR headsets? The future, or a short-lived fad? 

Which reminds me of another one of my fails. When the Sony Walkman came out, I thought it was a great idea in theory, but I was convinced that it would fail, as people would refuse to walk around looking like clearings in the woods by wearing headphones in the street. 

[Rodders]

I remember going to Futuroscope in France when I was about 10 and they had early VR headsets to play with - that was over 20 years ago now and I thought cool, this will be upon us soon. That's taken longer that I assumed. Maybe they'll be the new fad for the next gen coming through, not for me though, I see people wearing them, and think "nope!". 

 

The talk about driver-less cars coming in the next few years, makes me think "damn!, that is the future!", I used to think that would be some massive futuristic, probably nonsense idea. Along with robots - and by robots I was picturing, those designed to resemble humans ( a real bias to only conceive of robots looking like yourself, I'm sure that thinking is succumbing to some kind of basic fallacy, think it was some old greek dude who figured, if horses could draw their gods, they'd draw horses ). I thought that was just bizarre. Only now about 25 years away from The Singularity according to that Kurzwei fella too. Beginning to believe that. 

 

I'm glad Google glasses don't appear to have caught on. This borg like willingness to become symbiotically connected to machines is depressing. Down with it all. I wonder if there's any point at which we can go, "can we just stop for a bit?" ta. 

 

Anyway, going to predict the Internet will continue to eat itself to death and people will begin to migrate back ( in a generation or so ) to actually socialising face to face with human beings and rejecting technology when the festering swamp of perpetual rage, partisan hatred and trolling just exhausts so many people, people give a collective "who cares, probably needs shutting down anyway" when government bods regulate it more properly / businesses ruin every last strand of it, with their data harvesting, privacy invasive marketing horseshit. 

Villa to get promoted and then finish 6th at some point in the next decade. Will lose a cup final too. 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 28, 2018 by Rodders

[mjmooney]

There was a geography lecturer at my university, who went on a Radio 4 programme, and was adamant that the human race could not possibly survive beyond the year 2040. He reckoned one or more of nuclear war, climate change or infectious pandemic would get us for sure. 

[Demitri_C]

49 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

How about VR headsets? The future, or a short-lived fad? 

Which reminds me of another one of my fails. When the Sony Walkman came out, I thought it was a great idea in theory, but I was convinced that it would fail, as people would refuse to walk around looking like clearings in the woods by wearing headphones in the street. 

i thought it would depend on how well 3D did and if it was safe. 

with the walkman i knew those would die out as the tapes use to get eaten all the time and it use to piss me off. when the mini-disc came out i thought wow this is awesome this is going to be dominating for years then it completely flopped! i didnt think streaming would come in and be as big as it has been. i always thought be smaller cds with better picture 

Edited February 28, 2018 by Demitri_C

[Chindie]

VR will die again.

[Vive_La_Villa]

One for the future. Meat grown from stem cells.  It will become the norm one day to eat genetically grown meet which was never actually an animal. 

The meat will be clean and healthy too. 

[Xann]

22 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

There was a geography lecturer at my university, who went on a Radio 4 programme, and was adamant that the human race could not possibly survive beyond the year 2040. He reckoned one or more of nuclear war, climate change or infectious pandemic would get us for sure. 

We're proper f***ed.

Pricks keep voting for money worshiping psychopaths like the Tories and Trump.

[tonyh29]

I did once predicted that Gareth Barry would never make it as a CM as he was too slow

I also predicted that someone would try and turn this thread political  

 

Edited February 28, 2018 by tonyh29

[snowychap]

1 hour ago, mjmooney said:

There was a geography lecturer at my university, who went on a Radio 4 programme, and was adamant that the human race could not possibly survive beyond the year 2040. He reckoned one or more of nuclear war, climate change or infectious pandemic would get us for sure. 

Makes my thoughts of WWIII starting in the next decade look decidedly optimistic.

Edited February 28, 2018 by snowychap

[Stevo985]

I remember when we first got Cable TV, so probably 25 years ago.

I was amazed by it, as you would be being 7 years old and going from 4 channels to 100 odd channels.

Anyway, I remember my dad telling me that in the future, television would work the same way computers work. So there woudln't be TV channels as such, where you turn on at 9pm to watch the show that's on at that time only. He said channels would be like folders on your computer, and programs would just be there and you could go in and watch them whenever you wanted, rather than having to wait for them to be on.

With Netflix and Amazon Prime etc he was pretty much bang on.

[Stevo985]

1 hour ago, Demitri_C said:

 

with the walkman i knew those would die out as the tapes use to get eaten all the time and it use to piss me off. 

I don't think that's why Walkmans died out, Dem  

[Vive_La_Villa]

I said everybody would have a mobile phone one day. But I thought it would just be a phone. Not a PC that you can use to phone people. 

[sharkyvilla]

I actually reckon the future will be pretty boring.  Brexit will be fine, there will be no nuclear wars, the world's population will peak at about 10 billion and standards of living for the poorest will improve, global warming will be kept under control eventually.  What happens to the Villa **** knows.

[TheAuthority]

I'm most excited about driverless cars. People drive like absolute twonks most of the time - selfishly trying to 'beat' everyone else while endangering everyone around them. I can't wait until I just tap in my destination and time I need to be there on my phone/tablet/fridge/contact-lens, and it tells me what time to go outside and meet my vehicle. I can carry on working, take a nap or browse VT until I arrive It will also revolutionize our cities with the possibility for more green space instead of parking spaces, traffic lanes, bus stations etc.

Quote

Driverless cars do not need to park—vehicles cruising the street looking for parking spots account for an astounding 30% of city traffic, not to mention that eliminating curbside parking adds two extra lanes of capacity to many city streets. Traffic will become nonexistent, saving each US commuter 38 hours every year—nearly a full work week. As parking lots and garages, car dealerships, and bus stations become obsolete, tens of millions of square feet of available prime real estate will spur explosive metropolitan development.

The environmental impact of autonomous cars has the potential to reverse the trend of global warming and drastically reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. As most autonomous cars are likely to be electric, we would eliminate most of the 134 billion gallons of gasoline used each year in the US alone. And while recycling 242 million vehicles will certainly require substantial resources, the surplus of raw materials will decrease the need for mining.

https://qz.com/403628/autonomous-cars-will-destroy-millions-of-jobs-and-reshape-the-economy-by-2025/

Edited February 28, 2018 by TheAuthority

[Xela]

Realistic sex robots. Like Gemma Chan in 'Humans'

Just waiting to place my order...

[snowychap]

14 minutes ago, TheAuthority said:

I'm most excited about driverless cars...

https://qz.com/403628/autonomous-cars-will-destroy-millions-of-jobs-and-reshape-the-economy-by-2025/

The 'will destroy millions of jobs' part of the url is unfortunate given your opening.

[mjmooney]

Hmm, driverless cars. I like the idea, too - provided that ALL the vehicles on the road are driverless. So, how are we going to prise the cars from the boy racers' cold dead hands? It's the same penis substitute as guns, with the same attitudes - interfering nanny state taking away my 'freedom', blah blah. 

[snowychap]

1 minute ago, mjmooney said:

Hmm, driverless cars. I like the idea, too - provided that ALL the vehicles on the road are driverless. So, how are we going to prise the cars from the boy racers' cold dead hands? It's the same penis substitute as guns, with the same attitudes - interfering nanny state taking away my 'freedom', blah blah. 

I think there's a much more obvious case for driverless cars reducing people's freedom (journey tracking, access to, & more).