better to ask, what can the average family afford now, but it won't be so accessible in the future?
water.
(where i am now, water costs money but is still doable)
this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2023
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The average person will always be able to afford water because if they can't they will soon cease to be a person. Watch out for statistical effects like that because they might mask the true horror of the situation.
That line, "Cease to be a person," both applies to the sentiment of, "they won't live long," and, "when backed into a corner you see what someone can truly be."
Wars fought over drinkable water is not some far off fantasy but very well could (and likely will) become reality for many people.
The future for our little mud ball drifting through space suspended on a sun beam is looking pretty damn bleak.
i am concerned that drinkable water could become scarce
Water for drinking isnβt the issue - thatβs about 0.01% of all water usage. The issue is irrigation for food crops, which is >50% of water use in many places.
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Lab-grown meat.
βIn 2013, the worldβs first cultivated meat burger was served at a news conference in London. It allegedly cost $330,000 to make. That figure has plummeted in the almost-decade since, but cell-grown proteins are yet to clock in anywhere close to the same price as conventional meats.β (Source: https://www.bonappetit.com/story/lab-grown-meat)
The goal is to get the price down to a level the average supermarket shopper can afford, and if the science is successful it has the potential to revolutionize the food chain.
Once this is available and affordable, I will never eat animal meat again.
I'm already fairly satisfied with the newer plant-based meat replacements. They just need to come down in price to below actual meat.
Not everyone can eat them though, for whatever reason it can cause extreme abdominal pain, diarrhea, nausea/vomiting, and more in some people.
I know, because I'm one of those people. Took 3 impossible burgers before I noticed the pattern and looked into it.
Felt like I was dying the first two times, felt like I was dying the third time too.. but that was mollified slightly by recognizing the pattern and hating myself for doing it to myself.
Totally agree - from an ideological standpoint I totally agree with Vegans/Vegetarians on the fact that meat produces unnecessary suffering and (more directly important to us humans) huge amounts of greenhouse gases and wasted calories. But from a practical standpoint I've just never been able to convince myself to make such a huge change to my diet - but lab grown meat is literally having your cake and eating it too in that regard.
Hell I'd happilly pay 2x for a cut of meat that was lab grown instead of coming from an animal - and imagine how amazing you could make - for instance - a steak when you have 100% control over it's fat/muscle distribution/ratio. Making a Wagyu steak, vs a typical cut would be as simple as tweaking some settings
All I can think of is capitalism filling it with shit.
Why make 50 beef burgers when I can add filler ingredients and make 100.
Capitalism breaks everything.
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I don't see it happening outside a reduced group of rich countries. They will probably license the method for a very high and unaffordable price.
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Grow an organ for you from your own cells. No rejection or drugs; your body accepts it as its own.
Free time.
As more and larger industries become automated we will have all the free time we can handle. What we do as a society today will determine whether that free time is spent pursuing our personal interests, or fighting over the last scraps of a dying planet.
I wish this were true, but frankly I don't buy it. In the last 50 years, thanks to automation and technology - productivity has nearly doubled, and yet people have to work more than ever to make ends meet or buy a home. Automation just means that the ultra rich can produce more with the same workforce. The global economy is built on the idea that GDP has to be constantly growing, and the more growth the better. Why let perfectly good workers sit idle when they could be making you more money?
Some industries get fully (or mostly) automated, sure and jobs dissapear from those industries, but new ones always pop up so that the folks at the top can continue profiting off the labor of those at the bottom. You think all the folks who used to have job titles like "Calculator" just retired at the age of 30 and enjoyed not having to work anymore? Nah, they were just forced to take new (often shittier, lower paying) jobs.
We have been hearing that for 35 years... production has gone up exponentially whilst labor requirements dropped yet we work more and longer than ever.
As an industrial automation engineer, I don't have free time anyway
If electric cars follow this path and aren't replaced with something else like enviro-friendly fuels, electric cars.
I don't have an electric car, I dislike how many artificially limit things like speed, it shouldn't be a paid upgrade if the hardware is capable, the amount of tracking worries me too, like Tesla staff could see through your cabin cameras.
I'd rather have environment friendly fuels that work with older cars, even if that requires a new ECU+Fuel pump.
Outside of the US and Canada, electric bikes look to be the future instead of mainly electric cars. E-bikes are not just massively more environmentally friendly, theyβre also radically reshaping city design to be more livable. I hope the future isnβt just a different kind of car. I hope, for the sake of the environment and society, itβs a world with fewer cars.
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Not unless they come up with some new kind of battery tech. There's simply not enough lithium for a global mass adoption of personal electric cars.
I wouldn't worry so much about that. I mean, I am sure battery tech will improve because companies will want to sell the car with the longest range, but in terms of lithium supplies, it is not scarce and it is recyclable.
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No. The divide between the rich and everyone else is growing. We will be able to afford less and less.
Nothing? Not a single thing?
I can barely afford this comment
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Full genome sequencing.
The price of sequencing continues to decrease as the technology evolves. I have already seen claims of under $1,000 for a full human genome. I haven't looked carefully into those claims, but I think we are around there. In some years full genomes will be so cheap to sequence that it will be routine. I want to buy one of those small Oxford Nanopore MinION sequencers in the future. I'll use it like a pokedex.
Gene editing/therapy could become cheap in the future.
Which is how we get gattaca
I think the full sequencing part would already be Gattaca but I get your point
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Solar panels on their homes.
Hopefully healthcare.
If the news about LK-99 has any element of truth to it, then superconductor-based technologies and maglev transport will become much more affordable in the future.
But today supra conductor aren't something just for the rich. It's used for some specific application like MRI which benefit to the people needing them rather than the rich.
Good luck finding an MRI machine in countries like burkina farso. If you live in the west, you are rich, dawg.
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