• Question: How do you think the world will look in 10 years time?

    Asked by Olivia/Rowena to Anais, katy, Lauren, Richard, Stuart on 9 Mar 2016.
    • Photo: Anais Kahve

      Anais Kahve answered on 9 Mar 2016:

      Hello Olivia and Rowena, this is a really great question. I think that the world has changed quite a lot in the last ten years so it’s difficult to predict what will happen in the next ten years because change can be so hap-hazard. I think that with the way things are going socially, women will be more respected globally and equality in society will be common-place. Politically, I think that there will be zero-tolerance towards corrupt governments, and economically, there will be a narrowing of the income gap. Unfortunately, I think that the effects of climate change will be more prevalent and we will see many more incidences of drought and flooding.

    • Photo: Richard Friend

      Richard Friend answered on 9 Mar 2016:

      In science, I think we’ll have some cures for diseases that we currently don’t – they’re coming on leaps and bounds with gene therapy at the moment. I think we’ll also find it harder to treat diseases which are easy at the moment, as antibiotics don’t work as well as they used to. I’d like to think that people will be more tolerant of each other, but on the down side it looks that the gap between the rich and the poor is getting bigger, which leads to a lot of problems, like war. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

    • Photo: Lauren Laing

      Lauren Laing answered on 9 Mar 2016:

      This is a difficult question!
      I think in terms of medicines and human health, we will improve treatments hugely! Perhaps pharmacogenetics will be a big thing? This is when medicines are tailored to your DNA, saving the government lots of money and meaning you get better treatment, faster! 3D printing could be an everyday thing! Robotics could be used in healthcare too; some people believe one day they could perform operations.

      Computers will be really really fast, and even more people will have the internet at home! There will be incredible amounts of data on each of us collected through technologies like gps coordinates which show the places you visit, and health data like your heart rate which can already be monitored with a watch. Maybe more ‘normal’ people, who aren’t astronauts, could visit space!?

      However, if we continue as we are the outlook for the environment may be bleaker! The more our population increases, and the more energy we use could drive processes like climate change, ocean acidification and bad air and water quality. There could be even more pressure to develop renewable energy sources as coal and natural gas sources run out. We could lose more precious species due to landscape changes for things like building homes and farming to feed the growing populations.

      Perhaps we need to invest more money in research into how we can tackle these environmental issues, as well as driving the development of technologies to benefit human health and life style. I think the next 10 years will be very exciting for people who enjoy science and technology, and hopefully we can improve health care, technology, and tackle some of the major environmental issues our planet faces.

    • Photo: Stuart Atkinson

      Stuart Atkinson answered on 9 Mar 2016:

      Superficially I imagine it will look very similar. There’ll still be many of the same buildings about, and roads, and trees, and squirrels etc. Technology will have advance so we’ll be plugging more advanced things into our electrical sockets. Who’d have thought 10 years ago that we’d be on facebook and twitter rather than talking face to face? Computing power will have continued to increase – maybe we’ll be starting to have domestic robots. Probably self-driving cars will be common although maybe most people will still prefer to drive themselves anyway. The weather may continue to get more erratic in the UK – wetter in the winter and drier in summer. I think there will have been more dramatic discoveries in astronomy and physics. It seems gravitational waves have been discovered so I’d like to see where that goes – maybe bringing us closer to the long-talked about Theory of Everything. I think we’ll be closer to making the trip to Mars, and perhaps will have returned to the Moon.

Comments