2038
Summary: What will life look like in 2038? Twenty years from now is not the stuff of science fiction, but it still sounds like it: flying driverless cars, an internet cold war, a Chinese world order. Given the pace of change we are currently living through, the world really could look dramatically different from today. Remember, twenty years ago, social media and iPhones and the Tea Party did not exist, Barack Obama had just started dabbling in state politics, the Clinton administration was loosening up its oversight of something called derivatives, New Orleans was still dry and the World Trade Center was still standing.2038, a podcast from New York Magazine and Intelligencer, will explore 8 different visions of how we can expect to live in two decades. Each episode will feature an expert in subject areas from business to technology to politics to climate science and beyond, laying out a very particular vision of where we’ll be in twenty years—and who will then defend his or her predictions in conversation with Max Read and David Wallace-Wells.
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- Artist: New York Magazine / Intelligencer
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Already, today, young people are having less sex and fewer partners than previous generations, though they are also watching much more porn and masturbating two to three times as often. That isn’t going to change, the Atlantic’s Kate Julian says, which means a future in which the gap between the sex lives we want and the ones we’ll actually have will yawn ever wider. Read her article here.
Global warming will change much more than the world’s coastlines. Joel Wainwright and Geoff Mann, authors of “Climate Leviathan,” think it will bring about a new planetary sovereign, answering to no authority other than capital and climate stability. But they see other possibilities, too.
Tyler Cowen thinks that in 2038, we're going back to the past. In the absence of major enemies like Nazis or Soviets, Tyler argues we'll see a return to the world of 19th-century American politics — bitter, rancorous, and dysfunctional, filled with fake news and presidents who probably shouldn't have been
Bruno Macaes thinks that in 2038, China will run the world (and maybe the solar system) thanks to its embrace of technology and its globe-spanning "belt and road" initiative. America will be totally marginalized and the new world order will also mean a Chinese-ification of global culture and values.
Missy Cummings is on the forefront of drone and driverless technology as a consultant and director of the Duke University Humans and Autonomy Laboratory. We asked her about the future of robotic-driving technology — from planes to trains to, yes, automobiles — and were a little surprised by her answer. The good news, though: Traffic will probably get better.
Paul Ford thinks that, by 2038, computers won’t matter—because they’ll be everywhere, embedded in your clothes and constantly surveilling you and shouting at you with advertisements. Nothing will work all that well, but you won’t even notice.
By the year 2038, there will be two internets — one controlled by the U.S., and one by China. Technologist An Xiao Mina predicts that in 20 years, America's internet will be hyperpartisan and stratified along race, gender, and class lines, while China's will be tranquil and free of abuse — because the state tightly controls speech. Nonaligned internets, each with their own digital cultures, will emerge in Singapore, Ghana, and Brazil, as the world's two superpowers fight over precious undersea cabling and mineral resources with informational warfare and remote infrastructure hacks. An is the author of Memes to Movements.
By the year 2038, The Supreme Court as we know it will cease to exist. That's the prediction of legal reporter Dahlia Lithwick, who thinks that divided, partisan power in Washington will make it impossible to confirm new justices to the highest court in the land. Which means that as justices die or retire, they won't be replaced, and by 2038, the only remnants of an increasingly meek and retiring court will be Elena Kagan and Neil Gorsuch, casting lots inside a closet to decide important cases. Dahlia covers the courts and our evolving legal landscape for Slate.com where she hosts the podcast Amicus.
What will life look like in 2038? Each episode will explore a different vision — flying driverless cars, an internet cold war, a Chinese world order — featuring experts in business, technology, climate science and beyond, each defending their predictions in conversation with Max Read and David Wallace-Wells. From New York Magazine and Intelligencer.
