I think we are about to enter a new industrial age.

I think automation will eliminate jobs but unlike previous eras the new jobs will also be automated. I expect governments to struggle with higher unemployment becoming the norm and all the social issues that arise from that.

Predicting the future tends to be futile. In my life i have seen the rise of computers, the internet, mobile phones and social media. I have seen the fall of communism and the rise of Islamic extremism. I didn't see any of this coming and I suspect that goes for most people.

Let me be positive for a moment by comparing the 1970's to today.

Europe - Eastern bloc, Spain, Portugal and Greece were all non democratic. Today largely democratic.

Asia and Latin America largely undemocratic today many countries are economically and politically better off.

Africa and Middle East major social and political issues across both continents. Today patchy improvement some shining examples and some same old same old.

With all the problems we see on the news I still think that overall politically and socially the world is a better today that it was 50 years ago.

Let's hope I am wrong about mass unemployment.

50 years ago only one parent needed to work to keep a family going and still we didn't need mass immigration.

Socially Britain was friendlier kinder and we could leave our front doors open.!

Good news for storage companies though. Back in the 70s, if short of household space, people could safely leave their surplus possessions outside their homes, safe in the certain knowledge that they would remain permanently untouched. Indeed many passers-by would even add to the collection with their own items, as a kindly gesture.

What do we think it was about this particular halcyon period - generally seeming to be held to be from the 30s to the 70s or thereabouts (though I shall be sure to claim it for the 80s myself, as my eyes get misty) - that saw such a decline in houshold break-ins?

Evidently you couldn't leave your doors open prior to this period - otherwise no-one would have needed to invent the door lock - and, as we all accept, the crime threat is now so great we all must have several front doors, each protected with multiple locks, secured fast at all times (even when entering one's own home, which should only ever be safely attempted through a discreet upstairs window under cover of darkness.) And yet during that golden age, if it hadn't been for the climate, there wouldn't have been a door or window to be seen anywhere.

Must have been a grim period for key-cutters, though. Maybe that's why loads of them also do that work with shoes too. Cobblers?

Unfortunately, there is a huge rise in crime. Burglaries are barely even investigated today. In the 70s if someone in your area was burgled, everyone knew about it and would help out.
Today, there will have been several in your road/estate last week. Not that you would have batted an eye lid as it has just become the norm.
Notice the small side columns in the local paper with lists of burglaries and thefts. You don't even read them anymore - just an accepted pert if life now, apparently.

Without social media!!

Na, capitalism defeats this kind of thing everytime.....too much money in vaccines.

However, there is always the possibility of the super killer....super hard to kill/cure, super contagious and long lasting and super fatal.....that's coming down the pipe at some stage, either by design or by random mutation.

But capitalism kills 99.9 percent of all known germs.....dead.....and it'll be the same for this one too.

Edited by Stirlingsays (13 Mar 2020 2.43pm)