Some time ago, I was speculating on what things would stand the test of time and be remembered many years from today. What about the opposite? What things won't be around (or be extremely rare) in the world of 2037? Why will they be gone?

I was mulling over this last night, and the following came to mind:

* WWII and Korean War veterans (they will all be dead by then).
* Motion picture and photographic still film (the demand for these products will dip so low that it will not cost effective to manufacture them).
* There will be no distiction between cable TV and telephone companies.
* Live symphony performances (i.e. classical music) will be much more difficult to find (due to lack of funding and diminished demand).
* Incandescent light bulbs, fluorescent tubes, and mercury vapor lamps (increasing energy costs and pushes to conserve will kill off the incandescents. Increasingly strict environmental restrictions on hazardous substances--in this case mercury--will do in the fluorescents and mercury vapor lamps. I predict that 30 years from now, lighting devices will be solid state, and they will be permanently built into lamps and lighting fixtures).
* Large communities of international students at American universities (students who study outside their home countries will primarily be going to schools in China and India).

With any luck......Rap Music. (and I use the term "music" very loosely)

With advances in medicine, there could be a few Korean War veterans around, war ended in 53, so someone that enlisted at 19, would be approaching 100.

Personal transports wont be powered by oil.

The UN will be gone, replaced by a commission composed of the US, Russia and China.

Broadcasters will be gone, replaced by two separate industries.
The content providers and the wireless carriers.

Antenna farms will be consolidated. Every city will have two competing wireless carriers, like the cell phone model, in every band. So assuming AM survived (which is unlikely), there would be two master antenna's, each one with half of the available channels, carrying content from the providers. This is just an extension of what is happening now, with the actual RF responsibilities becoming it's own industry. The concept of the "radio station" will be ancient history. Wait, it is already!

Networks will opt to become content providers, and sell all the RF gear and holdings to AT&T and Verizon. Local television stations will be eliminated, being replaced by 5 minute localized inserts in the network broadcast (like CNN/KGW presently) put together by a small local office/crew. Thousands more jobs will be gone.

The divide between the haves and the have nots will continue to shift, concentrating more and more of the wealth to the already wealthy.

President Bush, in his 8th term (after he assembles enough miitary power granting him infinite power -- wait we're almost there!) will finally appoint his successor, Sean Hannity.

Herb will still be a Republican, even though President Bush will have forced them to disband after challenging him on the war in Iraq.

The U.S. Armed Forces, quadruple it's present size, will be deployed in every country of the world (except here) with no particular mission except to guard every precious resource and funnel the profits to the Dick Cheney Oil Co. (DCOC on the NYSE).

I only hope the Republicans stay Republican.
If not, I may head up the pro-life party.

Herb

"Motion picture"

Not so. Video is incapable of reproducing all the various shades between the lightest and darkest part of the image as well as focusing to near infinity without pixelation or artificats. Since the television camera was developed, progress has been rather embarassing slow ion this aspect. While I agree motion picture film will priced out of everyday use, motion picture film will still be around in 30 years because it easily mimics what the eye actually sees than video technology does today or will in the near future.

In 30 years however, the trolls in this forum will be 20 years dead.

I guess I will still be here in 30 years as I will be 72. But I will not be here in 35 years. In the year 2039 at the ripe age of 75 I will self destruct! Or by that time I find it highly likely that like the movie "Logan's Run" people will only be allowed to live to a certain age and then be euthanized due to over-population and decreasing food stores. "Soylent Green" God that's a terrible thought!
I find it highly likely that the internal combustion vehicle's will be outlawed from use and that all mode's of transportation will be similar to those in the movie "Minority Report". The USA will become increasingly under the control of the government and police forces and have fewer freedom's than we now have the luxury of. There will be no more Canada or South America as the US gets fed up and conqeur's those countries and they become US property! LOL "Conquer's" I think Mexico will surrender without a fight!
And Canada...well you will see Ebay ads for the following: "Canadian Army Rifle....Never Fired...Dropped Once!" LMAO

Pay Telephones!

Those are disappearing NOW KSKD!

Nope....they will still be here. They will just charge your account based on the RFID chip implanted in everyone. Big brother will be able to track your whereabout's 24/7 365. Freedom baybe.....will be gone in 30 years!

One cool thing I hope to see will be you push your grocery cart through the scanner and all items in the cart are instantly scanned. Express will take on new meaning at the grocery store. "Indy 500 groceries" Speed checking!

Oh yah and also with the RFID implant as you push the cart through your checking is instantly debited!

"Video is incapable of reproducing all the various shades between the lightest and darkest part of the image as well as focusing to near infinity without pixelation or artificats. Since the television camera was developed, progress has been rather embarassing slow ion this aspect. While I agree motion picture film will priced out of everyday use, motion picture film will still be around in 30 years because it easily mimics what the eye actually sees than video technology does today or will in the near future."

Actually, 30 years in technology is a very long time.
The big motion picture companies are already poised to drop distribution by film for satellite digital distribution and have big bucks invested in such.

Kodak and others have already cut certain film products out altogether.

Motion picture cameras will be the last to go, but 128 bit and 256 bit technologies will make the limitations of current CCD technology a thing of the past.

Sorry, Skep, but in 30 years motion picture film wlll be as obsolete and out of use as 45's and 8 tracks.

I could stand corrected on the motion picture film being obsolete, but I think that shooting movies on film will certainly be a specialty in 2037, possibly used by some producers for artistic effect or for very discerning audiences. Editing the film would also be a rare art, since I anticipate that the people coming out of university "film"/video programs at that time will have been almost exclusively trained in computer workstation-based editing...but I could be wrong.

I think that Andy is right about "broadcasting" being fractured into content providers and wireless carriers. This phenomenon will be driven by skyrocketing land prices. The big AM arrays would be the first casulaties, and it would take some major re-structuring of the band to allow many signals to be consolidated into a single transmitter site because otherwise you would have to design a single array that simultaneously produced a variety of radiation patterns.

On a related note, I think that it is possible that the future of broadcast delivery is entirely in proprietary receivers designed to receive signals only from one company's transmitters (examples: mini-dish satellite TV, XM, Sirius, MediaFlo). If that is the case, then the concept of antique radios and TVs as we know it today will vanish because proprietary receivers will become useless if the company whose signals they are supposed to receive should change transmission standards or take its transmitters dark.

I hope conservatives aren't here in 30 years.

I think that the different political labels that we use today will still be in use 30 years from now, but the meanings and connotations associated with them will most likely be different. Perhaps what we think of as the "neo-conservative" agenda today won't be around then.

Proprietary -vs- open technologies will become a big issue, potentially reaching it's peak in the next 03 years.

There will be two groups, drawn across open and closed lines. Established players will do all they can to marginalize and legislate open tech away. They will do this, not because it's better, but because it's possible for them to lock out their competetors.

I know this sounds like the whole open source geek, down with the man speech. It is, but I think the issues will run deep and have impact outside the current day struggles over copyright, control, lock-in, patents, etc...

We may well enter a time where knowing how things work at a fundemental level will be accepted, but creating with that knowledge will be frowned upon.

The issues of trust and ownership will come to the forefront, diving us into various camps where being trusted becomes a matter where the law denies those untrustworthy access to greater technologies.

Today, this is true to a degree. How many actual chemistry sets are there on the shelves? How difficult it is to create your own film and actually distribute it? There are many others where each one is no biggie however, together they are starting to paint a picture I'm somewhat worried about.

A growing number of people spend their way out of problems, and this trend is encouraged.

Our law is behind the times where technology and society are concerned. Tech is fast, and well represented by major interests looking to not only exploit the gap, but insure it remains for the longer term.

30 years from now, we may well see creators (and I mean in general, not just media types) begin to be regulated and tracked because their ability to create exhbits serious potential. Kind of like nuclear scientists are treated today, only for more tech forms.

Of course, knowledge is power. With information gaining the significance we see right now, it might grow to be managed like energy is today.

Spooky I know, but interesting to think about!

I'm betting in 30 Years Christians won't be here.

Really?

Craig, we can only hope! (Read the Left Behind series)

Skybill: Yes I know of them. One way or another I'm betting Christian's will disappear OR BE KILLED by The New World Order. The very people that are behind the curtain in this country pulling the strings. And the Christians following like lambs to the Slaughter!

I agree that the open source vs. proprietary technology people are going to clash in a big way in the next few years! Did you know that today some chip makers like Silicon Labs, Via, and Broadcom will not let you look at datasheets to some of their application specific products (much less buy them!) unless you are one of the OEMs that they want to do business with and you agree to sign a non-disclosure agreement? I can't say that I fully understand why they do business this way. These chips are so complex that there is no way that they could be reverse-engineered from the information contained in the datasheet.

Here are two more things that I don't think will be around:

* Repair shops and technicians that work on consumer electronics
* Cathode ray tubes for any type of display (TV, computer monitor, electronic test instrument, RADAR, etc.)

Craig, given a choice (which everyone is given), I'll take the disappearing way!

Let's hope neo-CONs are FINALLY gone....

Skybill: Me 2! It's going to be Mighty Ugly!

The Rapture.

Find salvation through the outreach of sister Debbie Harry, brother Chris Stein, pastor Clem Burke and the rest of the Blondie congregation.

Something you won't hear in 30 years is a white girl trying to rap.

I agree with you Alfredo on the repair shops and CRT's. (Though I'm gonna miss the CRT big time.)

Brianl: Yep. The phones are going fast. Soon we will have enough connectivity to essentially render them all but useless for any solid communication.

On the way to the coast, I drove through one of the little towns, just because I could. Used to do this each time, just to check out something besides the highway, and to maybe score on a junk sale or two.

I got turned around in one small downtown, ending up on a side street I had not planned to drive on. Looked at the back of the building and saw an ordinary phone hanging on the wall, with a small light and cover above it. I discovered this about 10 years ago.

Of course, I went to check it out because I was sure it was dead or one of those fixed number types. It was a dial phone, but would dial out just as any other phone did! So I called home and it worked just fine! I kept my call very brief (it was long distance), hung up and returned to the car.

That has always stuck with me, because such a thing would surely be abused. In this town, it clearly wasn't. Nice. I've thought about that a lot, wondering how come we don't have more places where this kind of thing can just exist for people who really need it. Maybe kids used it to call home, or maybe people in trouble, too drunk to drive, etc... use it. Maybe nobody uses it!

Last time I checked 5 years ago, the phone was still there, looking exactly the same as it always did. I didn't check it that time. I'm sure it worked just as it did before though. Why have it there?

CRT's will go the way of the Beta machine and soon the VHS machine and CD players.

I will miss the good CRTs; there were many mediocre CRT-based displays that lost brightness, exhibited blooming, or lost focus after a few years of use. Today, the high-end TVs and professional quality computer monitors use technologies other than CRTs almost exclusively, so mid-level and low cost displays based on CRTs may not be far behind in being discontinued. However, a friend was recently shopping a TV, and I recommended that he buy one with a CRT, as they are inexpensive, and some are capable of producing a pretty sharp picture. I have a color TV that is almost 40 years old, and the CRT in it still can achieve pretty good brightness and focus.

Because of power consumption issues, I think that plasma displays might end up being a flash in the pan (I heard that it is not unusual for these displays to use 600 Watts of power, twice the power consumption of my all-tube 60s vintage color TV) unless somebody finds a way to significantly improve their efficiency. As an alternative, I've been pondering whether LED based video displays might appear by that time.

I believe that some of the excesses in the world of SUVs will have vanished because of increased fuel costs.

I think the LED will win out in the longer term. It's got an extremely long life, is now capable of great contrast ratios, leaving only density as the primary issue.

The really great thing about LED's is they don't have the switching latency and viewing angle problems that come with the LCD. They can suffer from burn in, like a plasma, but not to the degree plasma displays currently suffer.

I'm betting a little over engineering of the LED, followed by running it well inside it's operating range, will reduce burn in to a problem limited to only the most extreme of conditions, similar to how CRT's are today.

Also, no backlights required for the LED. There is something about having to worry about backlights that bothers me about LCD displays...

I've already seen problematic plasma displays with color aging and burn in. Hasn't been that long. I do notice a lot of companies are installing LCD based displays now, where plasma was all the rage a few years ago. Bet they are finding the issues quicker than most.

A friend of mine managed to snag the SONY HDTV 36" CRT unit for $1300! It's an excellent display, but it does weigh nearly 300 pounds!

The set has a full complement of analog, VGA and HDCP display connections. Will display every resolution in the HD standard and many computer ones too. 16:9 CRT display that's likely to last him a really long time, given he does not need to move it that often.

I've not seen a better picture, other than size, from any LCD / Plasma display.

One other area I hope improves is projection. The units are getting a lot smaller and cheaper. Ideally, one could carry a small --almost pocket sized device for display purposes. At first, I found these devices awkward and it's hard to shake the idea of not having a fixed display.

However, if you device can display anywhere, we might end up with home showrooms featuring nice display areas, along with variable accents / textures, etc... Instead of investing a ton into a fixed display, you provide for a nice area to display in, thus avoiding a lot of complex wiring and or technology upgrade issues.

If there really is a GOD, and with any luck, Paris Hilton, Brittney Spears and all the others in that camp will be ancient history........

What I find amazing, is that in the last 30 years, with all the money spent on medical research, there hasnt been a cure discovered for any major illness.

That's because the drug companies make too much money selling the drugs that help the symptoms.

Can you imagine how much money the drug manufactures would loose if they actually came up with a cure for the common cold?

What won't be around 30 years from now?

1. Your retirement savings.
2. A reasonable amount of income from SS.
3. All of the money sunk into addressing "global warming". That's going to be a black hole.
4. Post Office
5. Free Email (look for a message tax)

Here is a look back...

Remote was a secluded spot off the beaten path.
Cable was something that supported a bridge.
Video Game was trying to make out what the fuzzy images were on a snowy black and white TV set.
A Cell Phone was what you used to make your one phone call from jail.
A Calculator was the accountantwho did your taxes.
An Airbag was some guy who talked to much.
Digital Computing was counting with your fingers.
High Speed Access was an on-ramp to the freeway.
Surfing was something done on a board in the ocean.

62kgw, I think in your post above #2 could have read simply "Social Security" and it would be accurate!

That's why we need control of our own Social Security accounts.

I figure I've got 20 years left to work, granted I'll be 71 when I retire, I just hope Social Security is around THEN!

NWokie, the advances in pharmacuticals is something that needs a Mike Wallace investigation. Isn't it obvious the drug companies main goal is to control symptoms, not to CURE anything! Cures would not be good for their profit margins. This is a major problem in our health care system, and nobody wants to really address it.

I don't think SS will go away. The dems like to use it as a scare tactic issue. And too many people believe there actually is a "trust fund" with all of the money saved in a "lock box". But, Ted Kennedy, and others, will not be around in 30 years, so maybe it will get major overhaul?

I'm no doctor, but I wonder whether we've hit a point in the development of medicine where we've developed effective therapies and vaccines for the diseases that are "easy" to cure, and what is left over just poses very daunting challenges. For instance the survival rate for lung cancer hasn't improved much in the last 30-40 years, but the problem with that illness is that the people who contract it don't realize that there is something wrong with them until a lot of damage has already occurred.

I think that the biggest issue with building LED TVs is that each pixel would require three separate LED chips (engineers call them die), one red, one green, and one blue. The current state of technology can't produce a tricolor LED chip because the chemistries required to make the different colored LEDs are different. This means that somebody either has to develop a process that can economically consolidate red, green, and blue LEDs onto the same chip, or develop a process that can economically and reliably mount hundreds of thousands of LED chips to a circuit boards and make the electrical connections. If somebody can solve these challenges, then the result will be a diplay that is very rugged and lightweight (because no glass is needed), that has long life and no screen burn issues, and that can deliver high contrast and very high color purity.

Alfredo, on the medical front, I think your description of "easy cures" is accurate, but the "daunting" challenges you describe are really not that daunting, and there is pressure to keep those "cures" away from the general public in order to maintain the status quo in the drug business. A true derailment to medical technology caused by the capitalistic society we live, (and sometimes thrive under).

Would power consumption be a problem with an LED tv.
How much current would be required?
I don't think leds have persistance, so you would need to have ?? % on at the same time.

If the driver circuitry is properly designed, power consumption would not be an issue. The best LEDs made today far outshine (pardon the pun) incandescent bulbs with color filters (which how many LCD and DLP televisions light up). Also, with LEDs, you don't waste power in deflection or high voltage flyback circuits.

The driver circuitry, however, would have to be more complex than just an X-Y system that rasters one pixel at a time because if you did it that way, you would end up with the LEDs running at a very low duty cycle and hence, a very dim display. You are quite correct in your statement that LEDs don't have persistence, and that you would have subdivide the display into regions in order to improve the duty cycle. However, since LED video displays have been produced commercially for a few years, this problem has been tackled.

Another idea that might be just a few years away, if someone isn't doing it already is to use red, green, and blue LEDs as the light source for a DLP projector, instead of the typical incandescent bulb and spinning color wheel.

If you had 100% duty cycle formax brightness, and you had 500x1000 pixels with 3 leds per.
Assume you need between 1 and 10 ma for each led.
That would eat between 1500 and 15000 amps!
Presume 2 volts per led. thats somewhere from 3000 to 30000 watts.
Correct?

Virtually all of the charming parts of the Oregon Coast will be gone. The landscape will be utterly unrecognizable. Fortunately, rising sea levels will continue to drop new homes like lemmings into the surf.

The urban growth boundary will have been erased. The I-5 corridor divided into "cities" created by dividing up hundreds of miles of sprawl. "Belseatacpia" will include the capitol of Washington. After acquiring all of Beaverton in a court settlement, Nike will change the entire west side to "Sportland." Further down the valley, the statehouse of Oregon will be found in the megapolis of "Hugene."

Now stretching to the Oregon border, San Francisco will have changed it's name three times. First, to "Saint Frank" when the English only lobby put it to a statewide vote. Then, just "Frank" when the court rules for a separation of church and state. Citizens will rally to change it back to the original name when tourism slows to a crawl. Apparently, it will be hard to convince anyone in the future that "Charming Old Frank" has the Golden Gate in his backyard.

Re: the LED video display...
You wouldn't want to run that much current through the LEDs, as that would result in a blindingly bright display! Now that I think about it, the correct way to do this might be to run 10 mA maximum peak current through the LEDs, but have the display divided into a few regions that each would be X-Y multiplexed. That way, the average current through the LEDs would be low.

Take a look near the end of the following article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-emitting_diode_display
They don't go into details on how the LEDs are driven, but it is interesting to note that the first prototype LED video display was built in 1977, using red LEDs.

With the onset of global warming and increased natural disaster such as twisters the mobile home parks everywhere will be history. Those things are like magnets for Tornado's! Sorry brittney....better invest in a brick built home instead of one with aluminum siding! LMAO

Mobile home parks cause tornados! (One of my theories from the Theories and Such Thread!)

Just like million dollar estates on hillsides cause mudslides!

Mother Nature has PMS so watch out!
For every action there is and equal and opposite reaction. We build it and she will un-build it!

Can you say "Insomnia"!

Damn had a fistful a margarita's earlier and that did not help either!

"Virtually all of the charming parts of the Oregon Coast will be gone"

Not so, there will be NEW charming parts of Oregon as cities such as Otis, Agness, Powers, Coquille become the new Oregon coastline. Yup, dump your retirement savings buying up land around Coquille. (Craig Adams already bought up property around Otis!)

Craig is smart! Otis is gorgeous. Invest now and let the coastline come to you.

"OTIS" Remids me of the first Superman move. Lex Luthor's sidekick Otis. On Lex's new map he wrote in Otisville! LOL

Craig has property in Otisville! LOL
Is that near LutherTown?

Re: Missing, Saturday, February 03, 2007 - 9:04 am (In regard to: Pay Phones)~

Missing, do you per chance read 2600?

Guys, I've got my summer dream home on a real pretty piece of property just outside of Otis on Hwy 18. If you're rolling by, look for it:

http://www.ghostories.com/barrens/pics/trailer.gif

I've been known to snag a copy, on a lark, from time to time.

Bizzare little rag.

The editor / publisher actually is an interesting guy. He does not hack, but instead chooses to write about and get involved in the hacking issues. Many of these have merit, but are seriously marginalized by that crowd and the expectations they set.

Honestly, pay phones just popped in to mind, when I started reading this thread.

Craig, my father in law and I delivered papers throughout that entire area for about 10 years. As I'm sure you are finding out, at the end of each of those beautiful and somewhat inviting little roads, lies a mess that looks a lot like your photo.

Wanna get scared? Go to Panther Creek. (We call it Panther Piss) Take the main drive that goes up the hill and just keep going. You will leave the trailer park, enter a sort of marsh land with a creek, cross a little bridge and arrive at the most scary residence I've ever seen!

In the trees, there are flags. Don't tread on me, the confederate flag, a skull and cross bones, etc... They are tattered and worn, painted on sheets with a shaker can.

Heading up the drive, you will see junk piled by type everywhere and a big house on the hill on stilts. Several aggressive dogs will immediately begin running toward you.

There is not much room to turn around!

It all looks like something out of a Rob Zombie movie.

This is within 5 miles of beautiful Otis.

So if Emmanuel doesn't hack, how did he get involved?

In the covers (usually inside) of 2600 they have a feature called "Foreign Pay Phones", or something to that effect anyways, wherein people send in pictures of pay telephones from different parts of the globe. They usually are phones that are designed in a way that would be un-familiar (or at least somewhat obscure) to us in the USA.

In fact your payphone story reminded me of one I saw in an issue a while back.... (don't have that one any more, unfortunately) which was in INdia.....the payphone was sitting on a stack of milk crates, apparently outside of a little grocery shoppe (or something like that.....) showing that pay phones can be placed pretty much anywhere that's convenient.

(That, and 2600 is where I found out, several years ago, how to disable the hardware lock in a Muzak CDI player enabling it to play CDI discs from other music services as well as its own!)

Lot of years ago, I worked for a company that made oil field monitoring equipment, during the oil bust of the 80's, they decided to expand their market, and built a pay phone, that a person or business could buy, and hook it up to their personal phone line, then program it to charge whatever they wanted by area code or country code. Worked real well, until the FCC found out about it.

They sold a bunch to foreign airports, but the US market was 0, because of FCC rules.

KSKD,

Where is this Panther Creek?

I had an opportunity to go to the coast yesterday and kept my eyes peeled for it around Otis. Lots of trailer parks but none quite matching your description . . .

I may have another chance next week to drive though Otis, so any other info might help. If I survive a looksie, I'll post a full report here!

Skep: You might be able to see my swimming pool out back from Hwy 18. Bring your trunks and I'll let you cool off.

http://www.arthursvineyard.org/images/poolren/poolren3.gif

Ok, I just checked out google earth.

The maps are incomplete in this region. Lots of little gravel roads and extensions are not on the map!

It's all low-rez photos too, or I would probably be able to guide you right to the place.

(If we were in a car, I would totally still be able to do it.)

As you come down hwy 18, toward Otis, you will see north bank road, about two miles before you reach Otis.

Take a right.

You are looking for panther creek road.

The map shows the next right, off of north bank, leads to Panther Creek Rd. This is not the way I remember going, but it looks like it would work.

So, if this is the case, you would take a right at panther creek, then keep going... At the end of it, lies the mess.

The way we used to do the paper route, suggests a different path. If you continue down north bank road, you will eventually see the Panther Creek sign. This is the main entrance.

If you take that right, and follow the road, it will eventually take you past the development, into an open area, finally over a small creek, and up the hill to the mess.

There is one decision, I'm having trouble remembering. Was hoping the terrain map was better, but it isn't.

You can take a left, near what google earth shows to be the end of panther creek rd. This is north panther creek rd.

Explore a little, I guess. I do know it's deep off that road.

To see it in google earth, zoom in on rose lodge oregon. Near that placemark you will see the roads.

(Don't get killed!)

thanks! If I go next week, I'll print out this treasure map and take it with me.

Meanwhile, I'm pricing body armor -- the kind with a sealed rear end -- don't want to get deliverenced!

Skeptical, be careful with that sealed body armor. Hot air rises and escapes around the neck!

Cancelled post.

bump!

Jerry Fallwell and Pat Robertson!

In 30 years, an informed population will be a thing of the past! Most citizens' abilities to distinguish fact from opinion will also be nonexistent! These are my reactions to watching the extremely depressing report "What is Happening to the News" that aired on Frontline Tuesday night.

The changes that will lead to this dystopian intellectual world of the future are taking place right now. Consider the following:

1) Television and radio news reporting are shells of their former selves. Celebrity gossip and "hidden camera" footage comprise much of television news today. Radio stations using the moniker "newsradio"(you know who you are) devote most of their broadcast day to opinion, not news.

2) The news broadcast on the radio/TV and on major Internet news sources is regurgitated from newspapers and wire reporting agencies.

3) Newspapers owned by conglomerates, such as the LA Times, are downsizing, despite the fact that they make a pretty good profit!

4) Major stock investors and investment advisors are shunning newspaper stocks because they aren't sure where the newspapers will be five years from now, primarily due to the demise of classified advertising income.

5) People under 30 generally aren't turning to television or radio for their news. Instead, they are going to the Internet and attempting to digest their news in very small morsels.

6) Bloggers and other "citizen journalists" are trying their own hand at news reporting. However, this, like cable access TV and other forms of amateur media, often ends up being an editorial, rather than a balanced report.

In 30 years, there will be a generation of adults who were born into and grew up in the environment that I described above. It is frightening to think what kind of perspective these people will have about politics, about what to expect out of news reporting, and, more importantly, about their ability to understand complex issues.

I think that I am going to buy the _Edward_R._Murrow_Collection_ video set, compare his reporting work to what passes for broadcast news reporting today, and cry.

In 30 years, WWII will be almost as far in the past to school kids, as the Civil war was to my generation.

We will be at the end of the Vietnam era veterans.

The Air force, will be talking about retiring the B52's.

Muslims. I hope they are gone in 30 years.

This is all fascinating stuff, but for some perspective, look back 30 years. 1977. Yes, a lot of technological changes, but not a significant change in how humans interact, how they feel about religion and war, how they feel about family and ethics and values. My feeling is the superficial things may be changed in 2037, but the basic human needs and desires will be little changed. Of course, bonehead politcal moves might totally change the course and then all bets are off. But this country has a way of correcting mis-courses and everything tends to work out in the end. (Gawd, I'm starting to sound like my Dad!).

Hey Mc74,

Know any Muslims?

Just my next door neighbors, My old Manager from my frist job, My cousins boyfriend, and the guy who owns the grocery store down the street where I buy all my porn.

Other than that, no.


Why are you not asking Craig if he knows any Christians? Sympathetic towards Muslims but not Christians?

mc74, sound like you've a bit of a problem with acceptance if you gonna generalize and toss all Muslims out cuz a few SCARE you.

I think bigot is the word I need to use here, and I bet I'm not the first person to call you one, or the last. One the upside, at least there will be one less bigot on the planet in 30 years.

My mind! I will be totally bonkers by that time! I hope to wind up like "Denny Crane" on Boston Legal.....you know....with Mad Cow disease! Moments of sanity but mostly just cracked up!

Man I love that Show!

Darktemper, me too! I think the show is probably billed as a drama, but to me it's more of a comedy!

Skep, he'll still be less than 65 years old in 30 years (if he makes it that far...)

You mean a 30-year-old thinks like this?!! Yikes! We are outnumbered and doomed! Global warming is gonna kill us all!

> This is all fascinating stuff, but for some
> perspective, look back 30 years. 1977. Yes, a lot
> of technological changes, but not a significant
> change in how humans interact, how they feel
> about religion and war, how they feel about
> family and ethics and values. My feeling is the
> superficial things may be changed in 2037, but
> the basic human needs and desires will be little
> changed.

I agree with these points partially. If one looks at the big picture, there hasn't been that much change because humans haven't changed that much since. As an aside, one of the ideas advocated by proponents of classic literature is that one can look, for instance, at things written by Shakespeare, and find themes there that are as relevant today as they were hundreds of years ago.

However, I think that our culture and how we interact with one another is changing because of technology and because of world events. Here are some examples:

1) In 1977, only very important or very wealthy people had mobile phones, and these phones were so bulky that they were permanently intalled in vehicles. Today, a large portion of the population has mobile phones, and the phones are designed to be carried around on one's person. The social consequence of this technological change is that now it is coming to be expected that one should be reachable at all times. I believe that this is helping to erode the barriers between work and personal life for many people and adding extra stress in the process.

2) 30 years ago, Americans still saw the Soviet Union as the single largest political and national security threat. Today, terrorists from predominantly Muslim countries have taken that spot, thanks to the fall of the USSR, numerous acts of terrorism abroad, and 9/11. A consequence is that now many non-violent Muslims, Muslim-looking people, and Middle-Eastern looking people are targets for bigotry.

3) The media has blurred the line between fact and opinion with the advent of politically-themed talk radio and personalities who pass off op-ed type pieces as journalism (i.e. Bill O' Reilly). I believe that the result of this is that many people now have a dulled sense of critical thinking, and they can't reliably distinguish fact from opinion or serious critiques from satire. This is why our political discourse has become so polarized and coarsened.

in 30 years, print media will be almost non existant.

Personal privacy will be a thing of the past.

Currency.....no more paper or coins! RFI chip in your finger linked to your bank account. Just be careful were you put your fingers...you may wind up paying for something you did not intend to!

"in 30 years, print media will be almost non existant"

nope.

"Personal privacy will be a thing of the past."

only if we keep electing republicans

Doesnt matter whos in charge, the advances in technology will eliminate the element of privacy.

There will still be media companies, but daily newspapers on paper? I doubt it or magazines.

"the advances in technology will eliminate the element of privacy."

Only if we let them. There are reasons why you can't build an atomic bomb at home or create a workbench gamma ray gun. just say NO!

"but daily newspapers on paper? I doubt it or magazines."

There will be too many baby boomers and gen X'ers still alive. Try 50 years.

theres not of us left now to sustain an oldies rock station, you think there will still be enough of us in 30 years, when baby boomersw will be in their 80's?

Darktemper:

The U.S. is already being taken over by Canada and Mexico. In 30 years we will all be saying "Hola, eh"

Pardon this remark but I have to in response!

"Towel off Wetback" "Ci...Hoser"

Bob for President and Doug for VP.

And Charro for Speaker of the House!

Personal privacy could easily be a thing of the past. I think that this goes beyond partisan lines, however. It is becoming more and more important to pressure legislators into supporting legislation that protects privacy. For instance, there is a bill currently in the Oregon legislature that would add a definition of personal privacy to the state constitution. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find the number of this bill.

There are currently satellite photos of your house on line, and the quaality of those images are going to get a lot better soon, if you want to pay a little, you can get them now.

There is equipment on the market that will essentially let you see through walls.

There are on line cameras all over the place.

heck, just last year, the Washington supreme court ruled its perfectly legal to take a picture up a womans skirt.

All the more reason to codify the idea of privacy in the law to a greater degree than it currently is.

Technology is currently ahead of the law in many respects. In addition to that, the balance of representation is in fairly strong favor of tech companies. It simply takes a while for the average joe to consume this stuff and then react to it.

Early in the development of this nation, the trend was set for some degree of proactive legislation where core rights and responsibilities are concerned. This really has not changed, but the balance of representation has.

IMHO, given this state of affairs and the difficulty of educating people on these issues in general, some level of discussion on these matters with our interests in mind is completely justified.

Sadly, we don't pay what the tech creators do. IMHO, this means we will have to see it get bad, people bitch, then see it get somewhat corrected.

"The U.S. is already being taken over by Canada and Mexico. In 30 years we will all be saying "Hola, eh"
It's amazing to me that anybody could seriously think that, when the truth is so obviously the opposite.

Well, on 2nd thought, i can at least see an argument for Mexico (since there are so many mexicans here, but are they in charge of anything beyond the garden or the dishwasher?), but Canada? WTF?!?

In 30 years you will probably have direct access to the Internet from your brain.

What won't be around? Probably most coastal cities... and I'm afraid much of the population, if we don't do something to unhitch our food supply from the petroleum wagon.