Earth…100 Years Into the Future (or how I think it will be)

Originally posted on Words to Dreams

Eek! What a topic! My first thought was “What could I possibly know about what the future will be like in 100 years?” But then I realized: I can say whatever I want and I won’t be alive for anyone to know whether I was right! *Rubbing hands together gleefully* Now it sounds more like coming up with the plot for a dystopian novel, which happens to be my specialty.

OK, let’s see, I guess a good place to start is the past, because it tends to be a pretty good predictor of the future. As the saying goes, history usually repeats itself, or at least history buffs think so. Unfortunately, I wasn’t around 100 years ago, nor am I a scholar of history, so most of my limited knowledge will come from watching the amazing TV show, Downton Abbey, set in England around World War I time. World-changing inventions, like cars, telephones, and electricity became more widely used. People were changing too, becoming slightly more open to women’s rights (although it was still a long way from where it needed to be). The rich were getting richer and the poor poorer.

Today, a hundred years later, technology is advancing more and more rapidly, and things like phones, TV, cars and electricity have changed so much they hardly resemble their former selves. Women, while still fighting for their rights in many parts of the world, are on much more equal footing with men (as they should be), and work in every field, rising to the top in many. And the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer. Some things never change.

So what do I see 100 years from now? Flying cars? Perhaps. Internet wired into our brains? It ain’t out of the question (that would be awesome, right? Hmm, that sounds like a good way to increase the incidence of brain cancer if you ask me). A woman U.S. president? There had better have been about 10 of them by then! A colony on Mars? Less likely, but still in the realm of possibility. War? Most definitely. The key natural resources won’t last forever, and renewable energy is expensive and, despite the efforts of environmentalists and scientists, is still not an area of significant focus.

Give governments a prize worth fighting over and guess what? They’ll fight over it. So there will be a big war over resources, only it won’t be humans risking their lives. It will be fought by robots, big and Transformer-like, some that fly, some that stomp, all that wreak havoc on each other. Once one side breaks through, the humans will have no choice but to blast them with lasers and bomb them with nukes.

Meanwhile, the ice caps will melt under growing global warning and the sea levels will rise. Chunks of continents will be erased, sent below sea like modern day Atlantis’s. The cost of land will rise beyond salaries. The rich will grow richer and the poor poorer. There will be a mass uprising. Fighting in the streets. Babies being sold on the black market to be used as warriors in the class struggle.

And don’t forget about the Plague that will break out. Unleashed accidentally by government scientists researching biological warfare, the Plague will hit every country, wiping out half the world’s population, which people will soon realize is a blessing in disguise because overpopulation was half the problem to begin with.

Then come the vampires…oh wait, that’s a different future. Then come…

The aliens...yeah, the aliens, they definitely belong in this story. DAs or “damn aliens” as they’ll be referred to by the general public, or “the visitors” as they’ll be called by the diplomats, will solve the rising-water-level problem by sucking a bunch of the earth’s water away through large tubes appropriately called “Big Suckers,” restoring the Earth’s ecosystem to equilibrium while giving them enough water to take back to their barren planet, called “Click Clack Cluck” by their clicking tongues.

Ummm…did I miss anything? Hmm, teleportation? Nah, Willy Wonka already tried that and everything shrunk by the time it got to the other side. Zombies? They’ll go the way of the vampires if you ask me. McDonald’s? Thriving, selling billions and billions of burgers per annum, both on Earth and Mars. I think that just about covers it! OK, to summarize:

The future 100 years from now (bear in mind, this is just one man’s opinion) will have:

-a robot war (I think that could be a good book idea)

-a global plague (ever heard of the black plague?)

-a class uprising and war (never seen that before, right?)

-a baby market (although I think, sadly, there’s already one of these)

-melting ice caps (don’t give me that virtual look, it’s the darn scientists’ fault for even suggesting it!)

-water-sucking aliens (no comment)

-EQUILIBRIUM!

See, even the most cringe-worthy stories can have a happy ending if aliens are involved! (Note to self: add “Robot Wars” and “Earth-saving aliens” to list of book ideas. Cross off “Anything having to do with vampires”)

Hi there! *waves* Sorry, just wanted to welcome you to the end of this post and to thank you for making it this far! *Slips $20 bill under the computer* I’m surprised and honored that you found my extremely tongue-in-cheek answer to this dangerous question worthy of being read all the way through! Although most of my books aren’t this silly, they are dystopian, and they do answer this very same question; namely, what will the world look like in the future, so if you like that sort of thing, check them out, they’ll cost you less than a Big Mac!

Happy reading!