In 2090 we will be closer to an idiocracy.

It's very hard to estimate. By 2090, several of the crucial resources that we are basing our current wealth and economy on, will be exhausted. Dealing with this situation will be the key issue for determining how the world might be in 2090. Options are:

- Civilization has broken down in a series of wars, fought to obtain the last resources. A rather post-apocalyptic scenario.

- Society has broken down into a two groups; the privileged ones who still live in luxury (as we do today), and the plebs who are happy to stay alive.

- Civilization manages to continue, but on a much poorer level. History books cast the past two centuries as an era of egomaniac profligacy, which is responsible for the poverty and misery of the generations after them.

- One or two crucial inventions (fusion reactors, biotechnology ...) managed to avert the otherwise inevitable breakdown (though they probably introduce their own new problems as well, as usual).

- Finally, 80 years are more than enough for something to happen that we can't even begin to think of yet.

This has been on my mind too.

I was asked to draw a picture of what the world looked like in the year 2000 when I was in school. I remember I drew a picture of my school (it was a domed glasshouse) and the students were all skating around on hover-boards. There were robot dogs and flying school-buses. I think I won a prize for it and had it put on display in the school corridor. Also, all the billboards and signs were electronic and written in Chinese.

Since adulthood has destroyed all my fanciful dreams, I'll link this chart instead. It attempts to predict the future of technology by looking at the current on-going research, projects and information we possess and extrapolating from there up until the year 2040. It's actually pretty incredible - perhaps by the year 2090 most of this will be taken for granted.

As for the more bleak outcomes that may await us... I'd rather leave that to science-fiction novels for the time being. I want to remain optimistic that we can turn our destruction around into restoration. I will attempt to remain cognisant of contemporary issues, and most people I know do at least recycle all their rubbish and choose to buy second-hand goods.

LOL

The UN will have instituted a global ban on placing the "i" in front of any product. The recently-cloned Steve Jobs will go apoplectic until he realizes that his estate now owns 98.3% of the earth, including iGoogle.

The word "amazing" will be officially retired in 2089, but three years later the populace will again be "amazed" at the groundswell of resurgence of the word.