There is no future, there is only the end ! so there's really no point in speculating.

Translation: their iz nah future, their iz onlee teh end ! sooo their's rly nah point n speculatin.

There's a good chance this whole Syria mess might still lead to nuclear war between the US and Russia killing us all.
If that doesn't happen, climate change and the demographic expansion of Africa will have very serious consequences.
Europe will probably go authoritarian one way or another due to tensions from mass immigration.
The US will become increasingly like Latin America, a bizarre figure like Trump is clear indication of a change in political style. Probably just a forestaste of what is to come.
China will be very, very powerful.

And of course there are issues like transhumanism, genetic modifications, radical life extension, super AIs etc. Humanity as we know it might eventually become obsolete.

Underground, subsisting on Eloi. Delicious, stupid Eloi. I just did a wall, and let me tell you something that will shake you to your very core: one of the ways you can texture walls is a spray can that shoots it out like weirdly impotent silly string. It's embarrassing. Your demon very possibly originated from a can. So the future isn't really DRM-free? Or is nonexistence itself DRM-free? One would think that the requirement of nothingness would act as a killswitch once something gets out of line and starts existing again.

Pessimistic for ecological reasons. Denial fueled by political identity partisanship and short term financial profit is destroying this planet's ecosystem, and even without Trump and his worshippers it could be already too late to turn it around. With these freaks, there isn't even any try possible. So yeah, we're basically fucked. That's it. One species' cognitive limitations leading to planetary scuttling. Too bad, as this species is diverse enough to feature many individuals who deserved better than this. That said, beyond mankind, life itself will survive. We're a short (and pretty embarrassing) episode in the history of Earth. Maybe in 50 million years, another species will gets its chance. Let's hope it won't humiliate itself the same way.

Ummmm, the planet won't be here in 50 billion years. :P

I don't mean figuratively, I mean literally. The Sun is due to burn out about 5 billion and go super nova at which point this planet will be totally gone, fried, destroyed, little more than intergalactic dust.

I switch between Pessimism like morolf and Telika and for the same reasons as those two
and Optimism because I feel that despite our flaws somehow we will be able to pull together and create a world worth living in.

but I dont know, depends on the decisions we make in the here and the now.

Sorry, meant 50 millions (roughly the time it'd take for tiny critters to develop scientific intelligence). Edited.

The weird thing is that exact scenario is the plot of a book I had to read in 10th grade English in high school.
Observe:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alas%2C_Babylon

I read that book too. very chilling.

Yes, I agree. The book selections assigned by my high school English teachers were always interesting and memorable.

As for whether or not a scenario will play out in real life similar to the book...who knows?

I pray it doesn't but who knows at this point.
Oh a freaky think I want to mentioned.

When I got my mailed ordered copy of DEFCON in from introversion that show Jericho started to air, you know that show that has a town trying to deal with the after effects of a apparent nuclear conflict? yeah that was EERIE for me.

I'm not sure what to make of our future. Everything looks pretty grim now, but our species has a specialty for surviving devastating scenarios. I'd like to insert this quote I heard from a wise man: "There is no fate but what we make for ourselves".

The irony of this thread would be funny if it wasn't so incredibly sad and tragic.