Federally Funded Science Fiction. The CIA announced today that next month's final report on Iraq's weapons program under Saddam Hussein will mostly encompass an analysis of what they believe Iraq would be like through 2008 had Bush not invaded the country. Because when you want accurate, detailed analysis of the future of Iraq's weapons, you turn to the group that got it completely wrong during the present.
posted by XQUZYPHYR on Aug 20, 2004 - 27 comments

Buy His Future $59,965.90 owed, $245.75 donated.
"In exchange for your donation, I will from time to time write to you about what I've done with the life you've made possible. Make a gift, and free me to do good things with my life for this world."
It struck me as funny: have we come to a point in society where a man's future is worth the amount of his student loans?
posted by cjoh on Mar 22, 2004 - 42 comments

U.S. Energy Scenarios for the 21st Century. There are three for you to choose: Awash in Oil and Gas, Technology Triumphs or Turbulent World.
posted by samelborp on Jul 30, 2003 - 4 comments

Evolution is a process that hasn't stopped just because humans now rule the planet. What will animals look like in 200,000 years? The Discovery Channel's Animal Planet asks experts to predict the future of life on Earth.
posted by hipnerd on Dec 31, 2002 - 38 comments

Canada's long term viability in question amongst canadians "only 30 per cent of Canadians are certain we will have an independent country 25 years from now". Sure it's a link about canada, but I'm sure it has plenty of North American and Global relevance, doesn't it?
posted by canucklehead on Sep 6, 2002 - 28 comments

D.A.R.E Essays: 20 Years In the Future. "After getting addicted to marijuana, I tried angle dust, heroin, and other dangerous drugs that could kill me. A couple of days after my 17th birthday I joined a gang. Well anyway, the way I got killed was in a gang fight. P.S. If you ever read this I hope that you never go down the same path I did. You should stay in school and don't do drugs." Right.
posted by Mark on Jul 25, 2001 - 27 comments

Miracles of the Next Fifty Years -- a reprint of an article from the February 1950 issue of Popular Mechanics. At times laughably naive, other times pretty accurate (the author predicts that cancer won't be cured by 2000, but it won't be far off), it's a fun piece of George-Jetson-meets-Ozzie-and-Harriet gee-whizness.
posted by RylandDotNet on Jun 2, 2001 - 14 comments

A word from the future. "At the turn of the second millennium, humanity seemed set on a steady upward course. How did it all go wrong in just 200 years? This is a memo on the fall of homo sapiens, 2000-2200 CE, written for the crew of the third interstellar colonising mission, 2759 CE, by Anatol Lieven, as a record and a warning." Science-fiction? Dire warning? Anyway this is an enjoyable read.
posted by talos on Mar 9, 2001 - 4 comments

The Coalition for the Future of Music is a group started by Jenny Toomey of now-defunct indie record label Simple Machines, entertainment lawyer Walter McDonough, Brian Zisk of iCast, and Michael Bracy of the Low Power Radio Coalition. Jenny's been doing some thought-provoking writing about the subject of digital music, even if I don't agree with everything she's said, and I'm glad to see a group springing up that seems (unlike the corporate mouthpieces from the RIAA) to be thinking about how musicians are going to make a living in a post-Napster world.
posted by snarkout on Jul 14, 2000 - 0 comments

Human Evolution Will the next significant steps be biological, technical or both?
posted by PaperCut on Jun 6, 2000 - 12 comments

What will future interfaces look like? Steven Johnson, the author of Interface Culture, asked this question of a few presumably knowing souls. There are some interesting points regarding the interaction, rather than the interface in this oh-too-short article.
posted by grant on Nov 14, 1999 - 0 comments