In a magazine, The Futurist, there is an insert called “Outlook 2012”, in which there are listed 60 different ways the world could change in the future. Most of the predictions are way out and I don’t think they could or will happen for many years. Here are some that I think are more realistic:
Lessmeatarians
Social game based learning
The internet will automatically search itself
How to ward off mosquitoes
Future full of bikes
“Lessmeatariansm”- is the prediction that the world will be changing to a mostly vegetarian diet and using less meat. I found this one interesting because a lot of people eat a lot of meat. The predictions is that it will reduce agricultural greenhouse gasses. This makes sense, but I don’t think we should just stop eating meat. I think we should find away to harness that gas and use it for something or just find some clean, efficient way to get rid of it.
Social game based learning – The prediction is that games will be used as more of a learning and social tool and replace text books in classrooms. Video games and learning don’t usually go in the same sentence but It would be nice to be able to play games instead of reading text books.
The Internet will automatically search itself so we don’t have to – This prediction is quite interesting. People predict that we won’t have to type in something in google to search it, your smart phone will pick up information from your environments and anticipate what you want to know. This would be amazing and it could also have some problems. Say you saw someone throwing dog poop in a trash can. Your smart phone would search dog poop in trash can. Hmmm….
How to ward off mosquitoes – The prediction here is that we will synthesize the important compounds released by mosquitoes predator’s. People could release these natural chemicals into breeding areas to ward off the mosquitoes. This would be nice, because nobody really likes mosquitoes buzzing around all the time.
Future full of bikes – The prediction is that more and more people will be using bikes as transportation. Being the bike addict that I am, I found it interesting that people actually use bikes for transportation and not for just doing crazy stuff in the mountains. It does make sense to use them as transportation to work or wherever you want to go. They’re cheap, (well… Kinda) they don’t pollute, and you’ll get some exercise. Now if they could build dirt jumps on the way to work or school, I wouldn’t want to use a car anymore!
The magazine is interesting, but some of the things in it are kind of crazy. Some people are still living in clay huts and I think we should spend more time on helping them then pursuing some of these ideas.
But there’s nothing wrong with dreaming…
