The future's bright

[mistermack]

Maybe not the next hundred years, but after that, the future for humankind looks amazing.

Energy and automation are the key. I fully expect at least one technology will be producing electricity from fusion within a hundred years. Once the concept is proven, plants will get smaller and cheaper, and the cost of decommissioning will be very low. The price of energy will be rock-bottom, which will open up vast areas of the world to cultivation. And transporting food around will be very cheap, so food prices will also be very low.

Even if fusion doesn't achieve a breakthrough, {unlikely in the long-term} the cost of energy will still fall a lot, as the price of solar energy falls with improving technology.
And there is the prospect of putting solar arrays in space, and beaming the energy back to Earth.

So one way or another, the future is going to be one of cheap food, cheap transport, cheap heating, cheap housing, and cheap and amazing gadgets.
It can only go wrong, if we fuck it up.
I think I was born a hundred and fifty years too early.

[pErvinalia]

You need oil for fertilizer and plastics, among other things. If it runs out, and we don't find a substitute, then we are fucked. We're fucked anyway, but you think science is a giant conspiracy theory, so there's no point going there...

[pErvinalia]

Not to mention compound growth on a finite planet.

[laklak]

And Justin Bieber. He'll be one of the first rich brats to become immortal, so be ready for 1,000 years of "Baby Baby Baby".

[mistermack]

You need oil for fertilizer and plastics, among other things. If it runs out, and we don't find a substitute, then we are fucked. We're fucked anyway, but you think science is a giant conspiracy theory, so there's no point going there...

You actually don't need fertilizers. They are a tool for improvement, not a vital component for growing stuff.
Also, you can make fertiliser by recycling stuff. And the same goes for plastics. At the moment, it's cheaper not to bother, but that can change.
If energy becomes cheap, then it will be cost effective to make plastics from biomass, grown in tanks. Also from fracking and shale products. The research work is already being done now. In 100 years time, it will be no problem.

[laklak]

As long as we still have decent wood to make guitars, so we can sing Kumbaya and Michael Row The Boat Ashore while eating our organic non-GMO vegan treats around our carbon-neutral pseudo-campfire.