I wrote this piece in August 2011. I don't remember now what the context was, but I am guessing that it was a reflection of the books that I was reading, the TED videos that I was watching and the thoughts that I was thinking. Going through these, they seem precocious in a way, but this combination of utopian and dystopian predictions seems quite fascinating to me.

These are my predictions of what will happen in the future. I am yet to specify when this will happen. But timelines for these events vary from 50 years to 500 years. And it’s a free world (at least for truly harmless nonsense of this kind) – so however outlandish or outrageous these predictions may sound, I put in a disclaimer that I cannot be held responsible for any of these coming true or false!

1. Energy crisis will be solved – poverty will be alleviated in most ways worldwide but water & air wars will happen.

2. Advertising will be limited to only luxury products. Online / real purchase advisors will help people make high price/involvement products; for low involvement / priced products, everyone will know what’s best for them – agency rated.

3. Races will vanish. Intermingling will come with increasing education and better economic standards & mobility within countries, but especially beyond borders.

4. Universal identification systems will be here to stay, whether you like it or not; perhaps something embedded; or the skin itself; payments etc. of course will happen through the same medium.

5. Cities will choke – will lead to street wars between administration & the “aam junta”; model cities with high rises for the minimum wages people will come up as a response to this crisis, enabling higher standards of living for them eventually.

6. Education will become universal and personalized; IT will play a huge role in this although IT will also be pervasive and therefore a pain.

7. Religion will evolve. All frauds & godmen will be debunked; education & specifically statistics will play a big role in this.

8. Technology addiction & intrusion will be a major crisis.

9. Vast areas of the planet will be such that social structures as we know it will be broken. Slowly oases of ideal communities will involve – which thrive because of how well they will work. They will eventually expand or be replicated throughout the world.

10. Pervasive but high quality character-oriented and meaningful education will ensure that citizens become more and more ideal.

11. A bonus one: far-space exploration will not gain much impetus until social, economic & political issues of the vast majority of the world are resolved  – for at least 90% of the world’s population. The only exception to this can be if there are any friendly / hostile signs of extraterrestrial life.