“It’s hard to say. One thing is for sure, I think our cities will continue to grow. People will continue to flock to the cities. I know there is desire and drive, among some, to leave the urban life and settle in smaller towns, especially as technology makes it easier to hold modern jobs from remote locations. However, I believe these individuals striving for a simpler life are the minority, and the majority thrives in these large metropolitan centers full of diversity and constant innovation. Humans are still relatively young and our world since the industrial revolution is VERY young. We are going to continue to evolve, innovate and create. Ideally, as we continue to further expand our civilization, it can be done via more and more sustainable means. One thing is for sure, we are continuing to the terraforming the earth and its atmosphere with our burning of fossil fuels. Quite frankly, I don’t see this stopping. Slowing down, maybe, if something better comes along, but we will most likely use oil until it is all gone, regardless the speed at which we achieve this feat.

Okay okay, I’m getting to my answer. What will earth look like? Bigger cities. Higher sea levels. Less ice. Maybe fewer cars? Definitely fewer cars in more societally advances places like Europe and parts of Asia. I doubt we can fix our transportation issues in the US in 50 years. Insane medical advancements. Human augmentation will be big. We’ll have neural implants that can cure everything from Parkinson’s to Alzheimer’s to blindness. Bionic limbs will be getting remarkably life-like. Self-driving cars? Definitely most, if not all.

The western part of the US is most likely heading into a major drought that could last over a century and is thought to be about 47% caused by human contribution to climate change – and the rest is just part of a cycle of change. San Francisco will become like LA, the Pacific North West will become like the Bay Area (I’m speaking climate-wise here). The deserts in the southwestern United States will grow, reaching farther north. The humid subtropical climate of the southern United States is going to expand its reach farther north as well. In 50 years we are going to be living in a very different world. Hopefully, a lot of the bigotry and racism in the United States and the prejudice against immigrants will die out with these old racists baby boomers. There will always be ignorance, its unavoidable, but maybe the United States can once again become the melting pot – taking in people from all over the world in massive numbers and providing them with opportunities and education they may not have had access to before. I think one things is for sure, in 50 years we will be living in a much more globalized world. We will most definitely have quantum computing, and our world of technology is going to look about as similar to today’s tech as today’s tech looks when compared to tech from 50 years ago. I mean, today our cell phones are more powerful than computers that used to take up entire rooms back in the day.

Money? We will most likely still have fiat money, however, I also anticipate a much more developed world of decentralized finance, albeit one that has been upgraded to function in a world of quantum computing. This is going to completely change our relationship with money. There will be many, many more economies in the world than there are today, and there will also be some much larger and more globalized economies. In 50 years Elon Musk will either be dead or an old man, but one thing is for sure, he most likely will be regarded as the father of the future that we know. He surely won’t be responsible for everything, but I think he will be regarded as the man that really got the momentum going in the realm of future-tech. He might be a bit of a wing-nut, and he definitely lacks balance as a human. He seems to fill the role of anarchist mad-scientist, but I think ultimately he has good intentions even if he lacks foresight and perspective. The greats are usually a bit odd, so I think his oddity is simply a sign that he’s gonna get a lot of shit done in his time here – some of which we cannot even being to imagine yet.

So, what will the world look like in 50 years? Different. Very Different.”