- Alternative energy
sources will mean the end of the internal combustion engine. We’re going
to see a dramatic transformation in the auto industry as we move toward
electric vehicles over the next 20 years.
- Genetic engineering
will profoundly affect agriculture. Superproductive animals and ultrahardy
high-yielding plants will bring a green revolution.
- We will not commercialize
outer space. Space is just too expensive and, frankly, there isn’t much
up there.
- The “population
bomb” is going to fizzle. There’s a very strong correlation between
rising lifespan and falling birthrate. Rising standards of living and
more education of women also lead to fewer births. The UN has dropped
its long-term population forecast by half a billion every year for the
last five years
- The rise of African-American
and Hispanic minorities is about to transform the United States. These
two groups have largely been locked in poverty. That has already begun
to change, but the pace is about to really take off. The biggest growth
market for American companies is the emerging market inside the U.S.
- Computer chips
with a billion transistors will arrive in about ten years. Chips 100
times more complex than the integrated circuits of the late 1990s will
make things like reliable simultaneous language translation possible
and transform the multi-lingual world.
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