2050

2050 America feels a lot like 2010 America. There's still no flying cars (godDAMNit) and the same patterns are starting to re-emerge. The difference is that we're a whole lot angrier now. Suburbia is full of active people, who emerge onto the streets with creases to their brow to go to their low-end jobs that never really got anywhere, and the urban areas are jam-packed with "artists" who refuse to work for anything but their passions. There's a chill to the word "tax" and "FoxNews" has become a criticism lobbed at only the most sinful of shock-and-awe journalism.


 * Political History and Climate
 * Sociological Climate/Culture
 * Technology

=FAQ= Submit new questions here.

Are we at war?
No; no theaters. We do still have our bases and the world at large is kind of exhausted with us running them. To be honest, we're exhausted with having to spend the money to staff them. We're so entrenched in several of our offshore bases that we simply can't close them yet.

Going to Canada?
Look, you don't want to go there. They're so closed off now that it's just ridiculous. Also, their currency is really devalued against the Yuan. And... well. Actually, they do seem rather nice. They have nice trees. And moose.

Canada is just not really accepting a tonne of American immigrants. They are fucking SICK of the "let's go to Canada" bullshit. Also, America is kind of sad that Canada is better than them now, so sometimes they are a little snarky.

How is the Middle East doing?
The Arab Spring created a renaissance in governance but not in religion. They've started to come out of some of their suppressive tendencies in exchange for more democratic ideals, but it's still a man's world. Women can now drive and can choose to wear the headdress in all nations but Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. They still control oil, except now they control it through family members owning a good deal of the energy efficient plants in America.

Egypt is not the happiest place. The military got ahold of Egypt fully and created a regime for thirty years. They're just now seeing the daylight.

What do Americans think of the British?
The Americans mourn the fact that they became their "parents," and so they have a deep resentment for the now prosperous Britain. They make backhanded comments about Britain's economy and television, and only nerds give the BBC any bit of a chance.

What's the situation with the standardization of fluorescent lighting?
The phasing out of incandescent bulbs was finalized, but in light of studies about fluorescent lighting causing migraines in a sizable chunk of the population, LED bulbs were popularized as well.

LED bulbs and fluorescent bulbs are about equally represented on store shelves, but most public places use LED lighting.

What about the overuse of antibiotics?
Antibiotics were phased out (thankfully) by accident; when WalMart took over for a bit, they became OUTRAGEOUSLY EXPENSIVE, and the result was home-remedy city. People started realizing that to kill things like the less-than-harmful, UTI causing e coli, cranberry juice and rest! However, there are now some seriously dangerous bacterial diseases that are really, really untreatable; there are a few deaths due to them a year.

Penicillin derivatives and stronger medical antibiotics still exist and are prescribed sparingly (for serious infections and post-surgery, mostly), but the era of ANTIBACTERIAL EVERYTHING is over, which has solved a lot of the problem.

Also there are medical nanomachines to perform tricky surgeries, so the risk of infection after surgery has decreased quite a bit because reparative surgeries can be a lot less invasive now!

How's the development of prosthetics?
Prosthetic limbs are pretty cool in the future! They are almost indistinguishable from the real thing in terms of functionality, although there is still something of an uncanny valley unrealness to their appearance. They are way expensive, though.

Australia as the new World Superpower?
Sure!

What happens to the Linux/Open Source/etc. movement in 2050?
The open source movement is pretty big because the internet is pretty pervasive in all aspects of culture now, and free information is just kind of taken as a given.

Do professional/artistic photographers still use film or has it all been digitized?
It's largely digital, but film is still used by some purists who believe you simply can't get the same effect without development time. Artistic photographers are more likely to use film and develop it themselves to add in artistic effects during development.

Most cameras utilize this technology, though.

What is the status of Russia?
Russia has seen their own merges (at this point), but due to the traditional Russian culture (that has only intensified as poor Russia has never, ever broken the cycle of tyrant->attempted democracy->tyrant), they've not necessarily shared it in a transparent manner. Zenners who arrive in St. Petersburg have been killed.

Russia, as a country, has seen the same cycle but is in a high-point. They have westernized their medicine completely, but it's free, their schools are considered high quality to the traditional Russian allies: China, Korea, and the baltic states. They've finally given up on trying to grab more land. They let Chechnya go.

The worst thing that happened to Russia is the loss of their oil pipeline/monopoly in Europe in 2030, and it's been affecting their economy ever since. especially with Europe's increasing green energy initiatives, Mother Russia hasn't caught up.

What edition is Dungeons and Dragons on? Is it still around or did some other tabletop game take over?
DND is still around!

Wizards of the Coast failed financially during the WalMart era and had to shut down, but following the regulations put in place by President Cruiser in 2020 and the subsequent economic recovery, the company was revived and rebooted all their properties for a new public.

DND was rebooted as Dungeons and Dragons: Revolutions, abbreviated DNDR. The current edition is DNDR 3.0

Magic: The Gathering was also rebooted as Magic: The Reckoning, and M:TG cards are no longer tournament legal, though they're still compatible with the system and people lucky enough to have some in their collections may use them for casual play.