You know you're old when...

I was watering the plants. It takes zero processing power, so I let my mind wander… Uh oh.

• You know you’re old when your likely remaining lifespan is fewer years than for the RiscPC has existed.
  (assuming I die at about the same age as mom)

• And somebody, somewhere, will still be using Adjust on an actual half-century old RiscPC.
  (because, as they will tell you at length, it was just never the same since Castle made it all 32 bit; and they absolutely refuse to embrace the 128 bit RISC-V port because it wasn’t lovingly crafted by Sophie Wilson and co)

…

• And you realise that your current Netflix watch list is also, quite likely, longer than said remaining lifespan.
  (if only there was an option to watch everything at 2x speed to pack more into viewing time)

At 70, I’ve not had my mid-life crisis yet, so I fully expect to live to at least 140…

so I fully expect to live to at least 140…

Things to expect around 2090:

• Europe will be plagued by summers of deadly heatwaves.
• Nuclear power will be all but forgotten. There will be wind turbines everywhere. And on calm days…
• Most people will not eat meat, following the genetic modification catastrophe of 2062 which killed over half of the population of the United States, and decimated global population (which currently stands at 9.7 billion, most in Asia).
• Dubai is the global tech capital. Silicon Valley still thinks it is, but they’re still saying that intelligent AI is just around the corner.
• Nobody has a self-driving car. Instead, basic automation has caused an employment crisis, so it’s possible to book a driver for two euros per hour to take you wherever you need to go, so long as it is under 75km round trip or you have a contract that allows you to hot-swap your car battery pack.
• Roughly half the population cannot read. With the rapid uptake of visual based media, video calling, and such, the old media died out and people increasingly saw no point in learning to read. Everything is pictograms now.
• Britain fails to join the EU for the sixth time. The US dropped them in 2045, and the people are a little sick of Russian oligarches roaming around like they own the place (ahem, they do, having bought pretty much everything the desperate Labour government sold off following the Tory collapse into countrywide bankruptcy).
• The experimental bases established on the Moon and Mars have been decommissioned after the settlers killed each other over… differences in religious belief. We, as a species, won’t travel amongst the stars until we stamp that nonsense out.
• Speaking of which, Islam and Judaism are officially classed as subversive death cults in the UK, a decision made by a quango consisting only of ultra-conservative Protestants. The Bishops in the House of Lords rejected that. In response, the House of Lords was abolished and the Lords Spiritual stripped of all status.
• Huge swathes of south east Asian and the American East Coast are ravaged by numerous hurricanes/cyclones every year. Florida and some of the Philippines have been abandoned.
• Nobody insures any more. Nobody can afford it.
• Most media/archival technologies made prior to (circa) 2030 are unreadable.
• “Employment” for many is watching a constant stream of thirty second adverts, and tapping either a thumb up or a thumb down. You only get paid 0.05 per advert rated, but it can add up to around thirty a day. Advertisers pay for this on the hope that you’ll spend your money buying their product.
• Black Lives Still Matter. Police are increasingly militarised hit squads acting in a style not unlike Judge Dredd.
• The major world languages are Korean, Arabic, and Tamil. Traditional languages (English, French, Spanish) are mostly spoken by older people.
  There are dozens of fake languages created by close-knit communities with the intention of excluding outsiders.
• Rising sea levels have caused many of the world’s traditional coastal capital cities to be abandoned. Paris built a huge flood wall around the city, nearly bankrupting the country. It failed seven years later.
• It is now possible to legally marry a “synthetic person” (in legal terms) or “sexbot” (in layman’s terms).
• In 2048, Texas became the first state to implement an “NFP” (No Foreigner Policy). Texas being Texas, their legal definition of foreigner included anybody west of Arizona or north of the Mason-Dixon line. In 2049, they arrested and jailed the Democrat President (a native Bostonian) when he made a visit to the state. He’s still there.

And on calm days…

Well there’s always solar panels, too…

And on sunless, windless days electricity will be provided from heat engines using heat from molten silicon (https://1414degrees.com.au/) and cold from liquid air (https://highviewpower.com/). If nothing better has come along by then, like perhaps compressed air from reservoirs 2000m or deeper under the sea (http://clive.semmens.org.uk/Energy/EnergyStorage/SubAquaAir.html).

I can dream, can’t I? All technically feasible, whether it’ll happen is quite another question.

The worst thing will be all the old nuclear sites under the shallow sea around what remains of Britain…

Much of the rest of what you write looks horribly prophetic. You’ve been reading my novels!

Optimistic prediction for 2090: World war IV breaks out.

(old joke – it took me some time to understand.)

Well seems we are following what ever the good old USA do and the 5g caused Covid, AntiVaxers/No maskers seem to be raising their heads now.

The terminal stupity of the human race is really something to behold but hey as long as Facebook/Twitter and Instagram make their money on allowing this rubbish to be circulated then thats just fine.

You know you are old when all that animal nitrate means to you is a song by Suede in the 1990’s.

Things to expect around 2090:

Good one Rick. I recommend Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner in 1968 as a good piece of prognostication. My favourite, though, is Seven Days in New Crete by Robert Graves, in 1949. It is far more radical than any of the SciFi crystal balls. I was accused of senility in 1951.

You’ve been reading my novels!

Only part of Exile, so far. I think the thing is, there’s a direction we’re headed in and, well, stupidity will take us there, as Doug illustrates.

the 5g caused Covid,

I don’t even want to know how that works. The logic used by the flat earthers to justify their beliefs in the face of reality makes biblical stories like mundane in comparison.

AntiVaxers/No maskers seem to be raising their heads now.

Don’t want to be cruel, but there’s a part of me that hopes that they get what they deserve. The problem is, it’ll be fey people, phone masts, speed cameras, anything other than “you didn’t get vaccinated you dickhead”.

there’s a part of me that hopes that they get what they deserve

The problem really is that they’ll infect other people who aren’t plumb crazy like them.

people who aren’t plumb crazy like them.

But to them they are perfectly rational.

Flat Earth well thats to do with Nasa and the Ice wall that surrounds the world.

Covid 19 is a failed vacccine and Bill Gates wants us all tagged so we can be tracked and disposed of at will by the secret organisation that runs the worlds..where my cat?

Getting back on track I suppose you know you are old when your the only one who has seen someone have Polio or got caught up in the Uk out break that resulted in the sad death of the last person to die of Small Pox in the UK.

But hey vaccines are bad for you and all these diseases and others are myths perptetulated by Big Pharma for profit.

But to them they are perfectly rational.

But “rational” isn’t the internally inconsistent pile of torturous excuses that such people need in order to hold their broken faith over the weight of, well, reality.

The word that they’re looking for that sounds like “rational”? It’s “delusional”.

and the Ice wall that surrounds the world.

…I’m not even going to ask.

Covid 19 is a failed vacccine

Oh, and there I was thinking it as a biochemical weapon developed by Israel on behalf of America (and produced in China because they’ll make anything if you pay them enough) that was supposed to infect people who are genetically “arab”… quick’n’simple way to solve the Caliphate problem, drop this from the sky. Only, kinda didn’t work.
But, of course, we all know there’s a vaccine for this. Did Trump get properly ill? Did any of his family? Did Johnson? (his “illness” was a bad bit of acting) Of course not. Because they’ve already been vaccinated. That’s why neither of them care much about the fact that people are dying. Because neither will and they’re narcissistic twats that don’t see beyond “how does this benefit me?”.

Now you’re telling me it’s a failed vaccine? A likely story!

can be tracked and disposed of at will by the secret organisation that runs the worlds

I was under the impression that Homeland Security already had that under control. Just look at Portland, Oregon.

myths perptetulated by Big Pharma for profit.

Right up until the point where one of these myths makes them actually properly ill…

Things to expect around 2090:

But you only know that you’re REALLY old if you read yet another variant of “WE ARE ALL DOOMED” for the nth time in your life, and you just lay back and smile.

and you just lay back and smile.

:-)

Bring it on, baby, just bring it on…

Getting back on track I suppose you know you are old when your the only one who has seen someone have Polio

I wonder if my old school friend from junior days is till alive and kicking (not a boy to tackle in a school yard football match with that metalwork on his right leg.)

you’re REALLY old if you read yet another variant of “WE ARE ALL DOOMED” for the nth time in your life

Of course we ARE all doomed. As individuals, within a few decades at most; as a species, within a million years or two at most but possibly far less; as a civilization, probably within a millenium or two at most, but very likely far less.

There are obviously questions about what exactly will be our downfall. One might have a few ideas about likely possibilities, but one doesn’t know.

Oh yes. death. It seems we never get to experience it, so not all that interesting. Were you bored by those billions of years from the Big Bang to your hour of birth? I never noticed them myself. Nor am I likely to notice the eventual heat-death of the cosmos. Perhaps the oldies have an obligation to enjoy themselves if they can, just to reassure younger folk.

Clive, have you read any Olaf Stapledon? I recommend Last and First Men and Star Maker , to take a longer view.

I never noticed them myself.

Ah, yes. They passed me by totally too. (That said, I’m unconvinced the Big Bang is even an accurate description of anything in the past. Too many inferences piled up – see http://clive.semmens.org.uk/Opinion/LogicReality.html – and I may have been bored for part of those last billions of years. I don’t remember the nine months or so before my hour of birth, but perhaps I was bored then? I don’t know.)

And no, I’ve not read any Olaf Stapledon.

Why is it we’re so concerned about the end of civilization? It’ll obviously happen sooner or later, but I’d rather it didn’t happen in my lifetime, nor in my children’s lifetime, nor my grandchildren’s. My grandchildren might well rather it didn’t happen in their grandchildren’s lifetime either, so for their sake I’d rather it didn’t happen in the next four generations – and by logical induction, never. Heigh ho, that ain’t going to be.

It is actually the end of civilization we care about anyway? A massive reduction in the human population would be an almost inescapable concomitant, and that’s probably what we’re really concerned about – because our descendants would probably be among those who die. But we all die in the end anyway.

I’ve got a pretty good idea about the degree of doomed which the pandemic inspired global depression is bringing about.

The pandemic will kill a large, as yet unknown, number of people. The economic crash will kill another large, as yet unknown, number of people – or, to be strictly accurate, the unwillingness of the establishment to accept the necessity of a major change to the way things are funded will kill them. Which number will be bigger, who knows? Neither of them will actually finish civilization, I’m pretty sure.

Climate change probably will, but when, I don’t know. There’ll be more and more bigger and bigger disasters, but at what point they’ll be so widespread as to cause total collapse, I’ve no idea. It might even finish the species, but quite likely not I think. Depends largely on the unknowns about positive and negative feedbacks in the system.

what exactly will be our downfall.

Religion. Not necessarily the ones we know about today.

But we, as a species, seem to have a worrying tendency to not only pick up otherwise insignificant differences between people based upon arbitrary criteria (think: nationalism), but moreover a strange desire to believe in the fantastical regardless of actual evidence to the contrary – whether it’s 5G masts, the earth being flat, or the mystical sky fairy of choice, it’s all symptomatic of the same problem.

Consider nowadays. Ubiquitous internet access, such a great tool for disseminating information and aiding people to learn new things.

Reality? It’s even better at disseminating bollocks and it feels like as a species we’re getting progressively stupider.

pandemic inspired global depression

I’ve always been like this. Mom was the glass half full person. I’m the “glass is the wrong size” one, and I am not very optimistic. That way I don’t get disappointed.

Consider nowadays. Ubiquitous internet access, such a great tool for disseminating information and aiding people to learn new things.

Reality? It’s even better at disseminating bollocks and it feels like as a species we’re getting progressively stupider.

You’re right. Mix in a few people with power with even a quarter of a clue what sort of bollocks to spread to benefit them and it’s a recipe for a perfect dystopia, or utter chaos.

I wonder what they were all arguing about when Rick’s comet did it’s last fly past?

Religion. Not necessarily the ones we know about today.

On the contrary, the predominant religion today – Mammon worship – looks set to be exactly what will finish us off, or at least our current civilization and with it a large proportion of us if not all of us. Probably via the climate catastrophe route, but it has other threats up its sleeve as alternatives.

Consider nowadays. Ubiquitous internet access, such a great tool for disseminating information and aiding people to learn new things.

Reality? It’s even better at disseminating bollocks and it feels like as a species we’re getting progressively stupider.

Internet access gives the opportunity for access to data stored elsewhere.
It means that for those equipped with what was tagged “library/research skills” in my childhood days finding the info and learning new things is far easier.

Sadly most of the current generation know only how to scoop up whatever is spoon-fed to them. Discerning what is valid and what is not is something they don’t routinely get taught.