The way I see it is that throughout the ages, there were Centuries between the time when any significant things were invented or derived, nothing happened overnight but eventually we move forward to more modern understandings.
I was only thinking of my meagre time on this planet, 60 years now since a few weeks ago and as far back as I remember when a tot, my mum used a funny looking thing with rollers on it to wash clothes and used to stick things in it to let the water out. Now she just hits a button and it does it all, that's been around for 2 decades now and no handling required except putting in and taking out the clothes, the machine did everything....then we had this bit of furniture that showed pictures called a black n white Television, mostly had a huge tube in it and lots of valves that often blew just after you came back off holidays and the TV repair bloke in a van will turn up and fix it in minutes. Now we still have TVs, but no tubes, it's all solid state transistors and has millions and millions of available colours, remember the old VCR, now our TV's can record....and we can download movies from the Internet...remember the Internet and that tiresome dial-up tone, now it's instant connect and super quick. The new generation of Internet is beginning, 5G which will outdate this super expensive NBN.
Computers, used to be those huge wheels with blinking lights we used to see on TV shows that presented a strip of paper with an answer, took up an entire wall, now we slip something thousands of times more powerful into our pockets everyday.
Motorcars....ok I was getting to them eventually lol.
When I was a kid of 1 till 6yrs my Dad had a FJ Holden, no radio, no heater, wipers that would near stop when you hit the gas (vacuum wipers) but it was built like a tank, our first car with a radio in it was a 1969 Mazda 1500 sedan 4 on the tree with bench seats, the next model up, the SS had bucket seats and 4 on the floor. Speedo was still in miles.
All cars had carbies, points and distributors, crossply tyres....this was 50 years ago, only half a Century and the tech that has gone into cars today to make them more economical, a lot more cleaner for the air with all the pollution gear they have on them including cat converters, anti-lock braking, AWD, 7 speed auto shifts compared to the Holdens 3spd auto slush boxes, stabilisation braking control, lane changing sensors on and on and on and people still wiping themselves out because the standard family car today would nearly wipe a 70's Bathurst car off the road in performance stakes. So now the world is focusing on electric cars and the more focus and the more that become available the cheaper they become, it'll come and hopefully they'll find a way for those cars to recharge themselves on the go.....maybe I won't see it but the next generation might be driving them in a regular way as cars are before, those old Bathurst die hards will not be around to protest the lack of V8 exhausts.....sorry!!
Perhaps most houses may have enough solar power to place themselves off the grid, all the houses you now see with the entire roof being covered with solar panels were never seen 40 years ago....still a long way to go but renewable energy is still very much in development.
I see many people riding e-bikes for transportation to and from work all over the world, there won't be much in the way of pedal only power....look how much just the bicycle tech has come since the 60's in design and efficiency.
I don't however see the Jetsons flying cars happen for at least another 50 years though, there's going to have to have a huuuge attitude shift for many humans going from ground to air.....the only way I can see this happen is that Cities will come to a point where people won't need to have a car, on demand flying or driverless community cars are already in use so that can only be developed further.
I know my post is long winded but it's just my way of saying that progress is happening, the world will change due to these changes in how people live...we've come this far in the tech world in the past 50 years, many of us won't see the next 50 years but our kids will get that benefit and who knows what the tech world will be like in 2 or 3 generations from now but i'm sure they will be a lot more self sufficient without relying on fossil fuels....but in the meantime we need these minerals until that future is here.
Attitudes is my final topic, already there's lots of movement in particularly in Europe especially France lately with the banning of cars from sections of cities to give back to the people of the Cities, some place in USA are following suite, how long it'll take off in Australia, God only knows but it'll have to happen if world movement dictates it......
Cheers
brumby33
