[OT] Your visions of the future.

[dogscoff]

Inspired by some of the other off topic threads here (namely Plato's pub and the war ones) I'm interested to know where you all think the world is going, so I'm asking for predictions about the future of humankind.

Don't limit yourself to just these questions or feel you have to answer them all, but this is the kind of thing I'd like you to consider:

-Will we colonise the solar system? When?
-Will we ever travel beyond this solar system? When? How? How far?
-How long will humanity survive? Will we evolve into something else, be wiped out by war/ catastrophe or have we reached the point where we can overcome or avoid anything nature can throw at us?
-Will civilisation continue on its path or are we headed for a catastrophe and a new dark age?
-Will we meet intelligent ETs? Will they come here or will we have to go to them? How will we get on with them?
-Will we achieve AI? When? What will be the ramifications for humanity? Will we all become cyborgs?
-What about genetics? Will future generations of humans be improved (or maybe "improved") by gene-tweaking? Will people accept this?
-What about neural technology? Will our great-grandchildren have computers embedded in their brains and direct mental access to everyone else?
-Will communications technology fundamentally change society? Will government become obselete when we're all jacked into some gigantic global network? Will we become the Borg?
-Will the usa conquer the entire world? How long before the new empire crumbles?
-What art/ literature/ individuals from today will be remembered for centuries to come?
-Will humanity ever be united and war made a thing of the past, or is our tribalistic instinct too strong?
-Is national identity something that will come to an end or will expansion to other planets create more nations and more conflicts?
-What is the future of religion? Can it stand up to the advance of science? Will it evolve, die out or will it stay as it is?

I'm not going to post my own predictions just now, but I will do later. I tell you what though, I'd give my right eye for just a day spent browsing history books from 500 years in the future...