[Kiwijeff]

Check this thread out.
Interesting ideas on what our children's world will be like, and we are going to see it begin.

http://www.nz-hotrod.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?10596-Into-the-Future

[munch]

I would long for the good old days...

[Kiwijeff]

You and me both, but we can't stop change.
I think if we know what's coming, we can plan ahead, and maximize our use, of our old cars.
Sell that old junk you will never get around to using, and focus on what you really want.
I think, if your just starting a new project, that if it's going to take longer than five years to build, you may never get to drive it, on public roads.
I may be wrong, but the future is coming fast, and I predict that in ten years, our old cars will only be allowed to be trailer to private events.

If anyone has trouble accessing the link, go to New Zealand Hot Rod forums, scroll down to bottom of page, to Off Topic section, and click on Into the future.
Very interesting reading, and you could take it as gloom and doom, or you could use it to your advantage, by planning ahead, armed with the knowledge that will help maximize your car addiction.

[themoose]

As always I take these articles with a grain of salt. Some of the changes will certainly happen sooner or later in some form but it's impossible to predict the future based on current technology and trends. There is always something new and unknown that will crop up and change the whole trajectory of progress.  I can remember  some of the predictions that were being made back when I was a teenager. It was said that we would all have personal flying machines and that there would no longer be a need for infrastructure and roads....I'm still waiting. Self driving cars present a whole other set of problems. Even if the technology becomes good enough to safely allow a car to traverse the highway without failing and being able to allow for all possible scenarios there is still an issue of who is at fault when something goes wrong. The customer who buys the car will have the expectation that the software has been written with the priority of protecting them and their passengers at all cost and to make the correct dissensions to accomplish this regardless of what that might take to attain that goal and after all who would buy a car that doesn't put your safety first . Lets suppose your car is driving itself along a highway at a good rate of speed going rounding a curve when suddenly there is a stalled truck a few yards ahead. There is a shear drop on one side of the road and a group of school kids waiting for the bus on the other. The software knows that if the car hits the truck head on or goes off the cliff the outcome won't be good for you and your passengers  and regardless of the outcome who would be labial if the decision has a bad ending. I think there is a lot more involved than just being able to make the system work. I never get too excited about predictions of what the future holds....I just tend to go with the flow and enjoy today.

[sixball]

I remember the Disney show in the 50s with flying car/boats and tubular highways. The house of the future in Disneyland was torn down years ago and few of it's features were ever in common use. Personal computers and cell phones were never mentioned. I think the future will look a lot more like Mad Max than Buck Rogers. There will be densely populated areas with high tech and miles and miles of sparsely inhabited no tech areas. You will be able to live in the "city states" if you give up all individuality or survive in the hinterlands if you are tough enough, but no one will be free. The growing population will be the controlling factor of the future not technology. There are only two problems that face the world. There are too many people and not enough cannibals. 

[madmike3435]

no cannibals...........well what we should have is some people cooking cookbooks, maybe a MARTHA STEWART edition...COOK THY NEIGHBOR.  A Gordon Ramsay euro style.  A French cookbook using ideas from Julia Childs.  Southwest style cooked people with Bobby Flay

Ever thought of people cooked CAJUN ...NEW ORLEANS STYLE...People Gumbo

How about Mexican style cooked people..........fahitas ?

WHICH TASTES BETTER..........fat people, medium people or skinny people.

what to use as condiments with them.

Mike....................

[sixball]

All of my cannibal friends prefer vegetarians and they all agree that clowns taste funny.
One who got an upset stomach after dinner said it's hard to keep a good man down.

And you all know what Jeffrey Dahmer asked Lorena Bobbitt.

[Kiwijeff]

Regardless of where the futures going, I sure hope the death of humour isn't one of the casualties.
I'm kinda partial to pork, especially wild pork, and they say it's the closest thing to human flesh, so will I be a cannonball? 

I'm not sure how the car thing will go, but I have been reading a lot about it, and driverless cars are already here.
I have an idea to start manufacturing fiberglass dummy desirable V8 engines, that house electric motors, so we can keep using our old cars. Of course, if it's a possibility, someone else will start 3D printing them, before I can patient it, and make my fortune.
And as for eating bugs for protein, or veal grown in a petree dish, I hope I'm gone long before that star trek food.

[chopper526]

Today is our children's "good old days". All things are relative to the time you are born. 150 years ago who would have thought a carriage could move without a horse? It's ok, we are just getting older.......

[sixball]

It is all relative for sure. I wonder if the electric car people have a clue where their cars and their car's power come from or just think they are clean because the plug doesn't smell like petroleum, which is the ultimate recycle. 

Yes, I hope all our children can remember the good old days and I hope we can provide this days for them. It's not that simple for so many.