Comment by Geee | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Geee | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

- Nuclear power is more popular, especially small-scale, and climate change isn't really talked about any more in 2030

- Human genetic editing becomes mainstream; treating genetic diseases will become a cheap standard procedure; genetic enhancement is also becoming popular in China and South Korea and will be a hot political topic

- Human lifespan can be increased by at least 20% with treatment

- Most traditional car manufacturers go bust or lose business significantly; taken by Tesla and Chinese start-ups

- Permanent bases on the moon and Mars; first asteroid mining companies start operating

- Apple's VR glasses will change how we use computers; large desktop displays will start to disappear; remote meetings and working with teams in VR will be common; as a result more people will not live close to a city and won't own a car

- Bitcoin's value will hit $1M; paying with cryptocurrency becomes common

- No flying cars (on Earth, maybe on the moon and Mars)

- Something will come that replaces traditional banks entirely; either banking will be centralized in the hands of large tech companies or there'll be a new global banking startup; bank will be just an app; cryptocurrencies may play a role here

- Starlink provides uncensored Internet globally; remote regions will gain economic boost; terrorism starts to subsidy

- AI assistants become mainstream in the workplace; there'll be assistant for almost any expert job which drives down required skills and cost of employment; education will lose value

- Large scale nuclear power continues to grow outside the US but does not grow as a percentage. Climate change is talked about the same amount.

- Human gene editing stays in the realm of the "near future"

- Average lifespan decreases due to preventable health causes but medical care continues to innovate overall.

- No near permanently manned (e.g. ISS) bases are established on other bodies. Asteroid mining stays in "near future" but with realistic plans at the end of the decade.

- VR continues to improve but still can't compete with the improvements in "traditional" technologies to displace them.

- BTC continues it's booms and busts but never becomes anything serious. Officially backed (large company/government) cryptocurrencies that aren't fully decentralized are made but most money is still transferred around as digital fiat currency.

- No flying cars common anywhere.

- Big banks remain the big banks, the largest banks pass 10T in assets.

- Multiple services provide relatively cheap high speed global internet coverage, despite this over 1 billion still don't have regular access to the internet.

- AI assistants continue to grow but don't displace expert job positions by the end of the decade.

Now to wait for 10 years and see!

I agree with you about flying cars, but would happily take the other side of a bet on any of the others. Thank you for making some bold predictions!

Of nuclear plants where ground is broken from 2020-2025, I predict that less than 10 percent will be in operation by 2030.

I'm interested to know why you think climate change won't really be talked about in 2030. I take it you're optimistic the problem will be solved?

It will still be an issue, but it's solved to an extent that it isn't discussed. The solution is pretty much in the economics of nuclear and solar power which become much cheaper than burning coal or oil.

https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?p210=1...

Even if you shut down all coal/oil/gas/biofuel powerplants by the end of the decade, add in a 3rd "new technology" (e.g. fusion) ready in 1 year, find and deploy perfectly efficient battery technologies for rewables, decrease the cost of renewables by 50%, electrify cars and buildings (i.e. move off gas) at the maximum rate while finding huge increases in their efficiences as well all while taxing carbon emissions like crazy...

Global warming still ends up being a problem and the temperature continues to rise. Please don't think "we just need to wait for <x> to be solved in the next 10 years and the problem will go away!", we need <a> through <z> to happen not have enormous climate change impact by 2100.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com