How do you feel about the future? Scared? Optimistic?

[Orwell20]

I mean both your personal future and the future in general.

[Copernicium]

I'm more concerned about quantity than quality at my age.

But I'm generally optimistic ... as long as Corbyn doesn't get elected. (Sorry, couldn't resist that one.)

[Dougella]

No idea and I'm ok with that.

^ ( Apart from I'd like to see Corbyn as Prime Minister )

[Merritt]

I'm just sort of... meh... about my future. Not in any way hopeful, but not especially worried either, but that's mainly down to the fact I've learned to stop wanting my life to go in any particular direction. Another 30 or 40 years of inertia, and I'll be sleeping through half of it.

As for the future in general, I don't know. I expect things to get quite bleak, but hopefully it'll be far enough down the line where I'll be indifferent enough to just think 'Oh, so that's our lot then, is it? Right you are' before we all blow up and/or eat each other.

[Toxic]

I honestly can't think of a single thing to be remotely positive about my future.

It doesn't mean I'm going to go through myself under a bus..theres just nothing thats going to get better..or I can't think how anything could possibly improve, be it with things I have control over or things out of my control

I'm very much burying my head in the sand and trying to ride out the periods of uneventfulness that occur between all the shit

As for the future in general, I'm only really interested in technological advancements and I feel all the really interesting stuff won't happen till I'm brown bread..which is a bit of a shitter

[Moksha]

Personal Future: Things aren't looking great. I'll be 42 soon, and I've really got nothing: no partner, no kids, no job, no nieces or nephews, and very little family. I'm living with my mother and can't leave because I'm worried how she'd cope. I'm also consumed with shame and regret. My social anxiety is much better, but I'm so isolated that any social skills have rusted away. Being trapped at home is the worst thing. It makes any kind of social or romantic life really hard, and of course it deepens my shame. I don't have a lot of hope tbh. Everything is beginning to fade ***8211; my looks, my libido, my energy. I suppose I'll limp along as I am. In the new year I'll try and find some kind of paid work ***8211; maybe stacking shelves. And I'll try and get out more, maybe meet a few people online and try to form some kind of support group. But I'm trapped here, by both money and personal ties. When my mother dies, I'll sell the house, split everything with my sister, and buy a flat, or maybe a small, one bed house on a new estate. Then I'll just try and survive as best I can. Assuming my mother reaches her mid 80s, I'll be in my fifties by then...so yeah, not looking good. Loneliness, isolation, shame, regret and money worries ***8211; that's the future.

General Future: Global warming scares me. So does overpopulation, especially the booming African birth rate. When global warming causes havoc in Africa, that huge, young population is going to head for the EU. That in turn may lead to a rise in support for right wing, populist parties. I'm also sh*t scared of nuclear weapons. Sooner or later someone is going to use one.

However, there are grounds for optimism. I'm not too worried about the rise of China. The Chinese are a very inward looking people, so I doubt there will be war between China and the US. We aren't dealing with Japan in the 1930s.

There are also things I'm excited to see.

1) Medical advances. I'd love to see cures for cancer and other diseases. And it would be great to see regenerative medicine come good (70 year olds who look 30). Maybe we really will bring aging under control, as so many now predict (including Stephen Fry). Medical nanobots are particularly exciting.

2) Virtual reality. It would amazing to see Matrix-like VR systems.

3) Sexbots. Come on, admit it, it's what you'e all waiting for.

4) New drugs. I read a book on this, where the author predicted what he called a new 'neurosociety', in which our understanding of the brain was so sophisticated, and our drugs so much more effective, that we'd have almost total control over our mood ***8211; and even our IQ and emotional intelligence. There will also be new lifestyle drugs: drugs to lift your mood, drugs to raise IQ, boost creativity, boost libido, and so on.

[Dougella]

^ I have a question to ask and you don't have to answer, I realise these things are very complex. Are you really worried about how your mother would cope or is it more about how you might cope? For instance if you lived nearby and could visit your mother really regularly, even every day if necessary would that be as workable?

[Ronnie_Pickering]

I don't think about the future

[Ronnie_Pickering]

true. Though sometimes it's a good message in that it motivates you to use day by day.

[gregarious_introvert]

On a personal level, I'm more optimistic than I've been at any point in my life previously; I have a secure tenancy with the local authority, I am more financially stable than ever and able to structure my life in a way which helps me to keep my anxieties under control whilst pursuing my passions.

On a world level, the future is uncertain but these concerns have been present all my life, to one extent or another; I think climate change is the most immediate concern, given that there could be some kind of natural disaster almost anywhere at any moment (I did experience an earthquake on my most recent trip), but if we all think too much about what might happen, nobody would ever leave the house, which in itself involves peril as, statistically, the most dangerous place to be is in one's own kitchen!

[Marco]

I do worry about the future in global terms. We have good reason to fear climate change and overpopulation; and at home we face a demographic time bomb with our aging population. Since the banking crisis in 2007 we***8217;ve seen the rise of post-truth populism and nationalism with worrying shades of the 1930s. Civilisation is not as robust as we might like to think.

On a personal level I worry more about my loved ones. I lost my mum a number of years ago and my dad***8217;s not too well now. I do worry about my family all getting older ***8211; I don***8217;t want to be the last one to go. I guess this is a downside of not having children.

[Orwell20]

I'm kind of ambivalent about the future. In general I'm quite a paranoid, pessimistic person, and there are big dangers ahead: overpopulation, global warming, rising sea levels, the booming African birthrate (and a mass exodus out of Africa into the EU, leading to a rise in support for populist parties), nuclear weapons, bio weapons, the ageing population, etc.

However, I do feel excited about some things. It would be great to see an end to ageing, a cancer cure, a medical revolution, Matrix-like VR, and maybe some kind of settlement on Mars.

[indiegirl1980]

I worry about my parents getting older and me having to look after them.

As for the general future, I'm worried that we're still going to be shouting about Brexit in 10 years time. 'And now, it's time for the 400th referendum until you all FINALLY get the right answer'.

[edbander]

sh.t sh.t scared.

I lived away from home for 9 years, which ended up being very lonely, caused me to lose my job and that was the main reason for moving back home. I just couldn't really function. Hasn't got a lot better, and has got worse in some respects.

My dad's just turned 70, his mum lived till she was 96, so that's promising. My mum turns 70 soon, and her parents lived till they were 73. Her dad died when he was 73, and I have a feeling that was one of the causes of her mum passing at the same age.

No kids or partner/siblings, no real friends tbh...I have people on facebook I knew 20 years ago when I lived here, but they've more or less moved on, and I'm not really in a suitable condition to meet anyone.


global wise...really I couldn't give a t-ss