2100 Earth

  West Antarctica is among the fastest developing regions in the world As a result of global warming, temperatures at the poles have risen more than anywhere else in the world – meaning that parts of Western Antarctica are now comparable with the climates of Alaska, Iceland, and northern Scandinavia. In some areas, the melting of surface ice has resulted in conditions appropriate for large-scale human settlement. *  The icy continent today would be unrecognizable to observers from the 20th century: its northern peninsula is now home to a multitude of towns and conurbations, with a total population numbering in the millions. Even farming and crop growing are now possible in some of the most northerly areas, using genetic modification techniques. Rapid immigration from countries all over the world has created a diverse mixture of people and cultures flocking to this new land of opportunity. In a way, the settlement of Antarctica is similar to that of America in the 18th and 19th...

  Hypersonic vactrains are widespread Much of the world has now established a hypersonic, evacuated tube transport system connecting major population centres. *  Its routes extend primarily throughout Russia, Northern Europe, Canada and the US. These trains are more advanced versions of the slower, simpler prototypes first introduced decades previously. * This form of transport works by combining the principles of maglev trains and pneumatic tubes. The trains, or vactrains as they are called, travel inside a closed tube, levitated and pushed forward by magnetic fields. After passing through an airlock, the train cars enter a complete vacuum inside the tube. With no air friction to slow it down, the vactrain can reach speeds far beyond that of any traditional rail system. The fastest routes can now reach speeds of around 4,000 mph (6,400 km/h) *  – around five times the speed of sound – compared to a 300 mph maglev train a century earlier. *     With speed of thi...

  Religion is fading from European culture In some European nations, the number of people considering themselves to be non-religious has increased from around 30% in 1980, to over 90% now. *  Although large numbers of Muslims populate the continent, a substantial portion are now only "culturally" Muslim, rather than having a literal interpretation of the Koran. Mainstream Islam has begun a reformation and modernisation in recent years – aided by improvements in education, combined with the broad homogenisation of culture resulting from globalisation, the Internet, international agreements and other factors. Medical advances are undermining religion as a whole, by greatly diminishing the fear of death, while developments in AI, robotics and biotechnology are beginning to trivialise the miracles on which many ancient religions are based. The increasing presence of androids in society – along with other forms of sentience – is adding a whole new dimension to the way humans view ...

  Photosynthetic humans Following many decades of research, a number of human-plant chimeras are moving from the laboratory into clinical and commercial use. Among the treatments now available is a method for combining the photosynthetic capabilities of chloroplasts with human skin. This enables a person to gain energy from being exposed to sunlight. In 1990, scientists first coined the term "kleptoplasty" to describe a symbiotic phenomenon whereby plastids, notably chloroplasts from algae, are sequestered by host organisms. This had been observed in  Elysia chlorotica , a species of green sea slug that absorbed chloroplasts from the algae it ate, making it effectively a solar-powered animal. In the early decades of the 21st century, researchers engineered cells that combined both animal and human material, producing chimeras (named after the creature from Greek mythology that possessed the head of a lion, the body of a goat and the tail of a snake). One notable experiment, f...

  Over 80% of the Amazon rainforest has been lost Due to the combined impacts of logging, drought, forest fires, desertification, agriculture and industrial expansion, less than one-fifth of the Amazon now remains. *  In addition to mass extinctions of flora and fauna, many indigenous peoples' communities have vanished.   A portion of the Amazon rainforest, 2000-2012. Animation created by Will Fox, using imagery from  NASA .

Despite efforts to halt climate change, it came too late to save many lowland areas of the world. Sea levels rose almost two metres by the late 2090s, displacing hundreds of millions of people. *   The Maldives were especially hard hit, with most of the nation disappearing underwater. *   Countries around the globe were forced to begin large-scale evacuation and resettlement programmes, while trillions of dollars were spent on coastal defences.  

  I) GAMIFYING ENLIGHTENMENT Depending on your DNA and other factors, the ideal number of steps, hours of sleep, hours of reading, vitamin D, calories consumed, water drunk, etc. will be counted each day. But more than just “fitbit style.” It will be all agreed that competition breeds the best results so the results would be public and ranked by various health metrics so all could see who is healthier than whom. Dating apps will be set up to match those with similar health. USBucks will be mined by those in peak health at the end of each month. Soon other factors of mental well-being will be measured and gamified as above — including the correct amount of dopamine uptake each day, serotonin, oxytocin (perhaps measuring sex?), and then meditation skills would be demonstrated on how quickly each spike in cortisol subsides into endorphins. This will be ranked each month, with the winners earning the rank of “Buddha” and more USBucks mined. People who have higher levels of cortisol may...

  H) CRYPTO IOT AND A-COMMERCE (AUTO ECOMMERCE) Everything that can be chipped, will be. The smart refrigerator will scan when you are running low on milk, do a blockchain transaction with the wallet at the grocery store, a drone will drop the milk in the panel in the back of the house feeding into the refrigerator. The more transactions the refrigerator does, the more USBucks are mined. If you run every day, your sneakers will signal when they are worn out and a new pair is ordered. If your cortisol spikes, your therapist will try to contact you. If you read the news and feel angry, the government will keep track of your actions. Maybe soft music will start playing. Big Data and AI plus the tracking of neurochemicals will allow for Minority Report-style situations where crimes can be predicted before they occur. All data is tracked and there are still pockets of society where social justice tracing keeps the population in line.

  G) 3D GENOMICS In 2020, genomics is in a state of 2D stagnation. Yes, the genome was sequenced and diseases based on single-gene mutations (e.g. Tay Sachs) are being regularly cured with CRISP technologies. But diseases based on multi-gene mutations are still impossible to compute. The addition of DNA computing perfectly is suited to solve the problem, uncovering the gene pairs that mutated for all cancers, heart disease, strokes, Alzheimer’s. And then later… IQ, emotional intelligence, athletic ability, charisma. The Chinese and Texas governments have no ethical issues quickly using 3D genomics to create a country of super intelligent babies. Nobody knows what the final result will be.

  F) DNA COMPUTING AND QUANTUM CRYPTOGRAPHY With DNA computing, NP problems will be solvable — including breaking public key cryptography codes, which means crypto keys can be decoded. Which means crypto currencies can be stolen. Although quantum computing never will never work out (Murphy’s Law is constantly being broken), quantum cryptography is solved (it’s a simpler problem than quantum computing) and developed to ensure the safety of crypto after traditional public keys are decoded.

  E) STORAGE WILL BE 100X IN SPEED, SECURITY, AND CAPACITY Because of VR demand and enormous blockchain demands now that crypto is widely adopted, cloud storage demands will be 1000x what they currently are. The biggest companies in the world will be Amazon, Google, Dropbox, Apple but mostly for providing and upkeeping cloud storage and security for data. Every day of 2030 will add up to more information and data created than the entirety of the human race from 0–2025 AD.

  D) U.S. CURRENCY WILL COLLAPSE, BUT NOT THE WAY PEOPLE THINK PART 1: Everyone is worried about hyperinflation. “The Fed isn’t a printing press!” irate home economists screech into the Twitter void. Unfortunately the value of a currency is based not on just supply but also on demand. The demand for the dollar is too high. Everyone in the world wants out of theirs and into ours. The Federal Reserve right now is scared to death of DEFLATION. They would kill for some inflation right now. So they print more and more money. PART II: The Great Secession The Blues don’t like the Reds. They think they are fascists. And the Reds also, coincidentally, think the Blues are fascists. In 2020, there are three electric grids in the United States: East, West, and Texas. Texas secedes first. The Army refuses to get involved. Other states begin to secede. And soon all of the states secede in one giant Secession Convention held on Zoom. Each state works out trade agreements with the other states, in...

  C) THE RISE OF CRYPTO When COVID finally ends, many will abandon the expensive cities for safety reasons, quality of life reasons, financial reasons. Because of increases in bandwidth and the ease of use of Zoom, there will be no more need for office buildings to be full. People could live anywhere and work in the 2D virtual office or in Microsoft VROffice. With fewer people and companies, the tax revenues will plunge just when the deficits are spiking. Mayors in each city will be forced to fire teachers, garbage collectors, police, etc. Crime spikes, garbage everywhere, and fewer tourists will want to go to each city. Cities will need to create incentives! Each city will create a local cryptocurrency to provide incentives. New York City, for instance, will create “NYCBucks.” The idea: Everybody in NY gets a steady UBI (universal basic income) in NYCBucks (instead of dollars), and everyone who visits NYC as a tourist gets an allocation based on how many days they would be in the ...

  B) AUGMENTED REALITY WILL OPERATE SIDE BY SIDE WITH ACTUAL REALITY Robyn and I will be walking by an Amazon 3D printing store and she’ll see a coupon for bras on the door and I’ll see a coupon for some marijuana. We’ll walk by a restaurant and she’ll see, about 12 inches in front of her eye, the vegan menu and I’ll see the paleo menu. We’ll walk by a neighbor and if his settings are set for “everyone” then we’ll see a floating image of the last movie he saw or recent photos from his latest vacation. Or a listing of his political beliefs, on display for all to see just in case you want to have (or avoid) a conversation with him. This will be a direct result of increases in bandwidth, storage, and user interfaces for AR.

  BANDWIDTH We’re upping a “g” almost every two years and upping bandwidth at an exponential rate. With “10g” on our phones, we’ll look back at 2020 and laugh about how slow the internet was and how Zoom calls were so low quality and how you actually had to “sign up” for bandwidth as opposed to it being a natural right, an important commodity of the air itself. My children will laugh at me when I’m nostalgic for the days when it wasn’t so easy to go into a complete virtual reality with millions of pixels every centimeter. Once you are transported in it it will feel as real to you or more as any other reality. With 100GB/ps we’ll be able to not only work remotely but work remotely in the same office. I can “VR-port” into work, go into my office, see my coworkers, go to meetings, all without leaving my home. Haptic sensors will not only make me feel everything I touch in Microsoft VROffice Suite but also massage my muscles so they don’t atrophy in case I do overtime. In the future we...

  New Farming Practices Environment, Food & Rural Affairs will match-fund projects that aim to boost productivity and sustainable farming practices through the development of automation and robotic technologies on farms... Smart Irrigation - low water usage Smart farming and precision agriculture Tracking and geo-fencing Air filtration and removal of bugs and germs - remove of pesticides Multi-harvesting - able to harvest up to 11 times per year Grow more per acre of land