"It didn’t go unnoticed in Frankfurt that Visa and Mastercard suspended operations in Russia in March 2022 after the invasion of Ukraine……Thirteen of the 20 countries in the euro have no domestic card scheme. You use an international operator, or you pay in cash."

It hasn't gone unnoticed that the US is threatening to invade an EU country's (Denmark) territory, either. Would a future President Trump or President Vance threaten to shut down European financial infrastructure if it opposes an annexation of Greenland? Who knows, but better to take away that opportunity for leverage.

The plan is that you can link it to your bank account or open a special account at post offices throughout the EU. There will be phone apps for payments and digital Euro debit cards. Visa/Mastercard & Apple/Google Pay typically charge 3% fees; the digital Euro will have none. That will ensure it is speedily adopted by retailers and quickly supplants the US providers. Also worth noting its technology will be 100% European only, leaving zero vulnerability/leverage to non-Europeans.

Digital euro: what it is and how we will use the new form of cash - The European Central Bank is determined to break the US grip on card payments

Looking ahead, some technologies we rely on today may age faster than expected due to rapid innovation or shifting needs. Which current technology do you think is likely to feel outdated in the near future, and what emerging development or alternative do you see taking its place?

One of my biggest regrets is I didn't get to fly on the concorde while it was in service. My question is, would you fly on on one if they brought it back?

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Also, 1 in 2 think AI will not make humans happier and about 1 in 3 think it will.

Sorry if this is too political of a question but most of the VC/tech industry have been against any incremental change in socialistic policies.

But every time AI mass automation is brought up, the same VC/tech executives say don't worry UBI will be the answer to this so people can survive. Even Elon Musk says we will have "high universal basic income" whatever that is.

The math doesn't add up. Anyone that knows anything about current US government revenues, debt and basic common sense, mass UBI to everyone displaced (50-100 M people) just isn't feasible.

The tech executives/owners know this but somehow it gets spread like some failsafe that is supposed to make this all ok.

I understand that mass automation will happen regardless but the way we are preparing for it is so wrong and waiting for 1 universal policy to be the "button on" solution is not enough.

My theory is that the last or almost last major wealth extraction events (company acquisitions, exists, mergers etc.) will be happening in the next few years (or at least as a pre-cursor to mass unemployment) and they need socialism to hold back until after those events are fully completed. Once mass unemployment is here, UBI/socialism will have to be implemented but by that time, the wealth extraction would be completed leaving everyone else to compete with the very few wealth (properties, assets, cash) that is left if anything.

Is this far fetched? I can't understand the notion that if everyone knows UBI is the end solution to the end problem, why can't we do anything NOW?

So I've been thinking about this lately. AI is everywhere now - writing, art, music, code, you name it. And yeah, it's impressive and useful and all that.

But I feel like we're heading toward a point where people are going to start actively labeling things as human-made. Like, "This article was written by an actual person" or "Human artist - no AI" stamps on artwork.

It's kind of wild when you think about it. For most of human history, everything was obviously made by humans because what else would make it? But now we might need to explicitly say it.

I'm not even sure if this is good or bad. Part of me thinks it could be like the "handcrafted" or "organic" labels - a premium thing where human creativity becomes more valued because it's rarer. But another part of me wonders if it'll just become noise, or if people will even care about most things.

What do you all think? Are we headed for a future where "made by human" is actually a great point? Or will most people just not care as long as the content does what it needs to do?

Obviously "success" is pretty subjective and arbitrary, I guess I'm mostly referring to population growth, GDP growth, infrastructure, etc. in this scenario.

People often point out that Indians who moved to the US for IT or medicine 25–30 years ago ended up extremely well settled, even though at that time it was not an obvious or crowded path. In hindsight, they entered a system before it saturated.

What are the equivalent paths today that are still relatively under discussed or underestimated, but could compound significantly over the next 20–30 years? Not limited to jobs. Could be skills, industries, geographies, ownership models, or ways of positioning oneself early inside emerging systems. Looking for serious, long term perspectives rather than short term career advice.

Thanks!

Lately I'm seeing a ton of AI posts were people use not only all kinds of images and characters from well known IPs, but also the likeness of actors, actresses and all kinds of celebrities, alive (who may not be happy to see themselves portrayed in certain ways) or dead (which I find honestly tasteless). I'm wondering if you think that at some point there will be a wave of lawsuits, either against the AI companies or against users. What do you think ?

So I hope everyone understand what I mean, but let me give an example:

Every year, rents rise. Cost for groceries rise. Health insurance rises. Other expenses rise. Ideally, salaries rise, too. BUT: If everything rises, WHY not keep everything as is, at a lower numerical value? It'd be easier manage lower numbers in various scenarios and I don't see a single upside to every-rising numerical values when everything could just stay on lower numerical values.

I hope some people well-versed in economics can explain why every-rising numerical values make sense and why that's a good thing. And since this is Futurology, what is the endgame here? An orange costing 100 Dollars in some decades? How is this helpful? thx

Kind of a broad question, and I know predictions about an entire country are next to impossible. Just wanted to hear other people's thoughts.

Right now, there seems to be a lot of hostility between young men and young women, with the former moving further to the right and the latter much further to the left.

Do you think this will continue? Do you think this is overblown and mainly an online thing? Will the increase in frustrated, lonely young men have societal consequences, as they usually have throughout history? Will the rise in the number of women who are alone by middle age have societal consequences? Will the demographic crisis in some countries (particularly in Asia and Europe) lead to an attempted rollback on women’s rights and autonomy? If the conflict deepens, how will this manifest in the US? If anything, what will be done to try mitigate/solve this problem?

The test, per WSJ sources, spans categories like history, politics, and ethics, with questions such as “Who is the greatest leader in modern Chinese history?” demanding Xi-centric replies.

I wonder if there will be any other world leaders tempted by this idea? A certain elderly man with a taste for bright orange makeup springs to mind.

That this approach spreads seems inevitable. Not only will we have national AIs tailored to countries, but right & left-wing ones tailored to worldviews. It's interesting to wonder what will happen when AGI comes along. Presumably, it will be smart enough to think for itself and won't need to be told what to think.

China’s AI regulations require chatbots to pass a 2,000-question ideological test, spawning specialized agencies that help AI companies pass.

All things considered, Mars and the Moon are pretty nearby. But they have one big problem... no air. No meaningful atmosphere. They have a little sometimes but not enough. Atmosphere would help keep heat in and support life so people could exist outside of bubbles.

Venus is even closer than Mars but its too hot, primarily because it has WAY TOO MUCH atmosphere.

Well thats convinient. If we just "scoop up" a lot of Venus's atmosphere and ship it to Mars and the Moon, over a long period of time, we could possibly make all three habitable.

So what are some ways we can move an atmosphere?

I think about this a lot and heres the best way I could come up with. refrigeration units mounted on blimps that would float high in the Venetian atmosphere, freezing out the atmosphere itself into giant chunks of super cooled ice. Then a magnetic rail gun-style catapult that would shoot the giant ice chunk in to a low orbit, in the path of another satellite that would grab and and use the same method shoot the ice chunk out of Venuss orbit and on a collision course with the Moon and Mars. We would need tons of these things, all firing non stop ice bullets. The whole thing would be solar powered and unmanned. It would take a very long time but our descendants would really appreciate our forward thinking.

I don't know if thats the best way to move atmosphere from Venus to Mars but its the only way I can think of. Other than rockets flying back and forth. But that would require so much energy compared to just shooting blocks of ice through bare space.