What do you think the world will be like 1000 years from now?

[terrya]

Will we still embrace technology? Will we live much simpler lives? Will we colonize space? One hopes not, but will the idea of nation/states still exist on Earth?

What do you think our culture will be like?

I'm serious here. What do you think?

First of all, I'm hopeful that we will still be around. But certainly not as we are now.

Terry

[MichaelUK]

1. One very big crater

[demnan]

2. I'm afraid, I agree

[Gothic Sponge]

3. All water, no land.

[Commendatori]

4. A smoldering ball of ash.

Eventually war will spell the end of this planet, and planet-sized fires don't go out quickly.

[chelsea0011]

5. What World?

Although the cockroaches will be partying hardy.

[Endangered Specie]

6. I assume by then the 1000-year fourth reich will be over?

[Robb]

7. I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords.

[Hemprus]

8. I bet...

Halliburton will have a line of Cheneybots ruling the world!

[GreenPartyVoter]

9. My thoughts

The earth will flip on its axis. North America will be the new North Pole. We will lose _at least_ a few hundred miles of the coastlines of each continent to earthquakes and rising sea levels, but the water will recede somewhat with the new ice age brought on by global warming and the nuclear winter. (We (the USA) nuked the major cities of the Middle East and North Korea. Pakistan, Israel, India, and China were also drawn into this conflagration. Amazingly, Russia is not.)

We achieve colonization of the moon and Mars and various space stations, keeping the extreme drive for commercialization alive at first. But the dwindling population on Earth and the need to just survive bring it back down a notch.

[MichaelUK]

10. On the basis of what's going on

USA will nuke someone.
They will nuke back.
USA will nuke 'em into submission.
Europe will nuke the USA ('cos we've always wanted to).
China will nuke Europe.
India - China.
Russia - India.
And everyone everyone else.

[amazona]

11. no large mammals, most butterflies and wildflowers extinct...

...most forests will be gone, but people won't notice -- they are satisfied with fake forests (timber plantations such as cover the state of Mississippi), some ornithologists are saying that migration will be at an end as migratory birds will either be extinct or some will have populations that can survive without migrating, most meals will be PCB-laden farmed fish, you'll either grow your own fruits and vegetables or do without unless you're wealthy, you'll either have sex in a scuba suit or you'll be rich enough to afford all sorts of medicines to keep you alive after hazardous encounter with various transmissable diseases...

Actually all of this is supposed to happen within 100 years. I think in a 1000 years the H. sapiens will have replaced itself with some genetically engineered species and our thousands of years of history, not to mention our millions of years of wildlife and wildflower heritage, will be forgotten as if they never existed.

I'm a real Mary Sunshine, aren't I?

Actually, there are transhuman futures that actually look worthwhile, like Iain Bank's Culture, but it's open to question whether we can get there from here. We'll do it within a thousand years or never, I believe -- if civilization crashes severely enough that we lose technology a la the Roman Empire crashing and even losing indoor toilets and aquifers, I don't think we can recover this time because many of the metals and petroleum resources are no longer gettable without technology.

So the whole future is at stake during this millennia. At least we can say we're doing our part to promote a future where there is something going on besides religious hysteria.

P.S. If you are not familiar with Iain Banks, read some of his Culture books. In addition to a positive future, which most SF does not offer in any plausible fashion, he meets the technical challenge of creating conflict in what would be, to us, a Utopia. Some great reading there for the amateur futurist.