Digital Wanderer

Felt like chatting and fantasizing a bit (at 1 AM).

CDs as a music medium in developed countries have 15 years max left to live on a mass scale. At the end of this period they'll remain a narrow niche - everything will be recorded from the PC to phones (which by that time will all become multifunctional portable computers). In 20-25 years no one will even store music on their phone - everything will be streamed via the infosphere straight to the phone online. Advanced dudes will listen to everything straight from a micro-earpiece, which will receive music from the infosphere, recognize voice or other commands (tactile, or from an external wireless remote/phone). Another 20-30 years will go into developing and society getting used to implanting a transmitter right into the auditory nerve.

As for paper books - the countdown must start from high-quality electronic paper. It'll become mass-market in its niche by 2012, meaning it will completely oust paper books in 15-25 years from that date. The only thing that might briefly slow down this process is harsh copyright laws in the US and Europe, but not for long -  media company bosses will eventually surrender their conservative positions, they'll have nowhere else to go.

Traditionalists shouldn't forget that the generation being born right now will absolutely not  share their values : the joy of paper books and hard drives.

The only thing that could complicate everything ( but not stop it) is a global crisis. And crises, as far as I'm aware, can currently be born from the following categories (of course, they can spawn each other, but they also might not)
1)Financial - not the worst scenario, but the most likely. If the crisis remains strictly financial, it'll slow everything down only by a few years (up to 10), no more. It could arise from the current state of affairs (which is sad, according to my economist friends and the internet).
2)Resource-based -  developments on new energy sources are being conducted all the more intensely the fewer old sources remain. So if this crisis does happen, it'll only be an indirect one.
3)Political - a bad and unpredictable scenario, tied to terrorism, fundamentalism, power shifts on the geopolitical arena and regimes within the superpowers (of which there are probably two right now - China and the US, well and Europe in a certain sense).
This crisis is the most likely to lead to the destruction of life on the planet via atomic or biological warfare. On the other hand, it'll most likely be quite tolerable (well, the US will become even more like the USSR - so what?)
4)An external, barely predictable threat to humanity - global pandemics, asteroids, the environment in the form of global warming, melting ice, intensifying earthquakes and typhoons, artificial intelligence. This crisis could be terrifying, but will almost certainly preserve humanity as a species, which is good news.


I really want to see the colonization of the solar system. Right now there are doubts if this is even possible - even with technological growth this requires an immense exertion from civilization. Which in principle could pull this off, if it didn't consist 95% of  broke idiots like Africans, poor clones like Indians and Chinese or rich fools like Americans and Islamic oilmen.

It might happen that a technology for the unlimited reproduction of goods emerges (automated factories and nanorobots). At first this will lead to a severe general crisis on all fronts, as sad as it is. But if we survive it, the cosmosphere  and the singularity will be very close.

The question about genetics - there is no doubt that the "bioethical" laws adopted by most countries will heavily slow down, but won't stop the creation of GM babies. But here, as I understand it, there are plenty of scientific and technical problems (just like in the paragraph above, though) and this process will take quite a while.

And to wrap up - my favorite crap about the singularity. I still doubt that it will happen in the next 50 years. Progress is hindered by the current state of affairs with scientific research and its application. It's a pity, because I'm unlikely to live any longer, even with the looming successes in medicine.
Meaning that someone born 50 years from now - will either not be born at all, or will be a barbarian with spears and a bow, or will witness the rebirth of our species into the next stage of evolution. Believers can still hope for their own scenarios, but the disappointment might turn out to be painful.

So I advise everyone to hope for the last option. If for some reason you wish to remain the way you are right now - no big deal, you can't drag anyone into the future by force. The supercivilization will most likely gaze upon its ancestors with nostalgia and sentimentality, and protect the few remaining specimens. Or they might just forget about them altogether.