At JavaRush we often talk about the future and even try to look into it as best we can, make forecasts (mainly, of course, relying on the opinions of authoritative experts), imagine how the IT industry will change in the next years and what will happen to the programming language Java.
The last days of the outgoing year and the beginning of the next are the ideal time to make predictions for the future, as well as take stock and see if old prophecies have come true. It is this topic that we decided to devote today’s article to – forecasts for the future. And the strange forms they sometimes take.
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2020 in the forecasts of futurists of the early twentieth century
And we will start with forecasts that are already a hundred years old or more. At the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries, people looked to the future with great optimism and imagined how technologically advanced the world would be in a hundred years. Since then, the world has really changed a lot, although not quite as our ancestors imagined. Many of their predictions now only cause laughter, and some even make us regret that they did not come true.![2020 in forecasts: from flying cars to teleportation - 2](https://cdn.javarush.com/images/article/0020409b-422a-4522-8091-59294ff9f326/original.jpeg)
Prediction #1. Knowledge from books will be downloaded directly into the brain
At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the then futurists imagined that by now there would be no need to read textbooks to learn anything, because their content would be downloaded via wires directly into the brain. Convenient, isn't it? Of course, this concept preceded the advent of the Internet and was partially realized in it, because the Network really gives us access to all the knowledge of mankind, but it will not be possible to download it directly into ourselves, bypassing such a tedious process as conscious learning, at least for now. How cool it would be to master all the intricacies of Java by simply putting on your head such a funny hat as in the picture. But alas, we don’t yet know how to download programming skills directly into the brain, so JavaRush offers to learn Java in the simplest way that actually works here and now.![2020 in forecasts: from flying cars to teleportation - 3](https://cdn.javarush.com/images/article/4a2c7171-8265-4298-953f-b3c5a6fef916/original.jpeg)
Prediction #2. Flying cars and buses will be everywhere
Our ancestors in the 19th and 20th centuries expected that by now we would have outgrown cars, buses and other wheeled vehicles and switched from them to flying vehicles. You can find a surprising number of drawings in which the futurists of the day depict people in cities flying with wings on their backs or controlling aggregators like small cars plowing through the air. But for some reason the people of the future (that is, we) did not appreciate this bright idea of our ancestors. It’s a pity, after all, flying to work every morning would be more fun than being stuck in public transport, and again, there wouldn’t be such problems with traffic jams.Prediction #3. Underwater racing
And finally, another fantasy of the futurists of the past, so strange and illogical that it even makes it attractive. Underwater racing on... eels. Sounds like a hell of a fun sport, doesn't it? Why specifically on eels (after all, they are terribly slippery and not so fast)? One can only guess. Still, the futurists of the past had a much more vivid imagination than the futurists of our time (about whom later).5 relatively recent forecasts for 2020 that did not come true at all. It's a pity
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Prediction #1. By 2020, monkeys will be drivers and cleaners
In 1994, the RAND Corporation, a global think tank that has contributed to NASA's space program and the Internet, predicted that by 2020, animals would literally be working for us. According to the forecast, by this time humanity will have learned to breed intelligent species of animals, in particular monkeys, who will be able to engage in manual labor. For example, they will work as cleaners and gardeners, and every self-respecting wealthy family will have a monkey driver. But alas, 2020 is almost here, and only homo sapiens still work as drivers. Although sometimes you can’t tell from them.![2020 in forecasts: from flying cars to teleportation - 5](https://cdn.javarush.com/images/article/842445e2-308a-4d10-903d-db151b9b2b64/original.jpeg)
Prediction #2. The need to eat food to survive will disappear
This forecast was made just 15 years ago by the famous futurist and scientist, as well as a worthy heir to the visionaries of the early 20th century who dreamed of racing the eels of the future - Ray Kurzweil. In his 2005 book The Singularity Is Near, he wrote that by 2020 there will be “nanobots” capable of penetrating the bloodstream to “feed” cells and remove waste. As a result, the way we consume food as we know it will become obsolete and out of fashion. Bold forecast, right? Kurzweil probably sees the future so far ahead that he sometimes makes mistakes in the dates of his predictions by centuries. Or maybe, while writing the book, old Ray simply stimulated his imagination with something. Only he (and his drug dealer) knows about this.![2020 in forecasts: from flying cars to teleportation - 6](https://cdn.javarush.com/images/article/095efb03-872f-42e4-8007-2b65a080bd6a/original.jpeg)
Prediction #3. Telepathy and teleportation will become possible
However, Ray Kurzweil is not the only one who likes to make bold predictions about the development of our civilization. Michael J. O'Farrell, renowned emerging technology expert and founder of The Mobile Institute, predicted in his 2014 book “Shift 2020” that 2020 would be the dawn of “ era of nanomobility.” “In the coming era of nanomobility, I expect telepathy and teleportation to be possible by 2020 and commonplace by 2040,” said Michael O'Farrell. Sounds unlikely, Mike. However, perhaps a respected expert knew something unknown to us, and telepathy and teleportation will indeed appear in 2020. So let's give him a chance, after all there is still time.![2020 in forecasts: from flying cars to teleportation - 7](https://cdn.javarush.com/images/article/ed5f3da5-8234-4432-bc5b-931bd780ba5b/original.jpeg)
Prediction #4. We will live in flying houses
Inventor, scientist and futurist Arthur C. Clarke believed in 1966 that by about 2020 we would be living in mobile flying homes. “Entire settlements will be able to migrate south in winter or move to another place if residents want to change the landscape,” the scientist writes. It’s beautiful, of course, but humanity will probably have to endure another hundred or two hundred years for this to happen.![2020 in forecasts: from flying cars to teleportation - 8](https://cdn.javarush.com/images/article/19906ce4-c5ae-41b4-bea8-53ba6c88493b/original.jpeg)
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