Reply To: Future Timeline?

[safsom]

Initial Remarks
Many of these predictions are fascinating, and as Mitchell has said above, I am very impressed that they encompass such a wide sphere of topics. These predictions more likely than not originate (like the predictions of anyone else) in your mind; the mind has supplied you with premises and pre-stored information, and you have used this information to deduce your way to certain conclusions regarding the future of technology and many other matters. Here I do not contest the validity of the reasoning that led to these conclusions (as I think that this is sound), but rather, my post will be a critique of the premises and the data that allowed you to arrive at these conclusions, as I believe that many of these predictions focus extensively on a single area/sector but do not quite take into account the influence of other important sectors. In particular, while I wouldn't disagree with many of the forecasts you make here assuming that the premises you used to arrive at them , I think you are downsizing the importance that socio-political factors play in this.
Though intuitively I can say that all of your predictions are too optimistic, I do not know specifics regarding many of the fields that you have made predictions in, so I will limit specific criticism to two main fields in this post. I view your analysis of the housing industry, VR/AR digital consciousness and artificial general intelligence as being particularly flawed. It's important to keep this post structured because I don't want the criticism to occupy all of the content (as despite these obvious flaws I do view your predictions as having salient aspects to them), so the order that I will follow will be based on the methodology whereby which I will assess the predictions that are flawed, that is, I'll address dialectical/philosophical problems first (as there do appear to be a few in the post above), and then move onto some of the predictions which arise from empirically flawed premises (though some of these predictions actually have philosophical and empirical flaws, these are beyond the scope of this post to address).
Specific Criticisms
To start off, I have a problem with the conclusion you arrive at from your analysis of VR/AR introduction in major cities, particularly the idea of a "digital consciousness".  In addition, there are numerous problems in the line of reasoning you employ to arrive at this conclusion. In your pathway arriving at this conclusion, you also refer to the introduction of AR aspects to city-life and to optimize the city experience. The main problem I have with this is that most VR/AR technology requires the hosting / presence of advanced technology in the citizens. This creates a demographic problem. The phenomenon that would be seen (especially in developing countries), would be one of infrastructure disparity, those with smartphones advanced enough to access points of the AR would enjoy more benefits than those that do not. One could say that "all smartphones have AR capability", but this is not true. It is actually already quite resource-intensive as a process for most smartphones to access a camera process, and layering 3D imagery upon camera imagery is something only really the most advanced / big-name smartphones can do. Most people have shitty, entry-level phones. The current political climate (decisively so) in most countries that would even bother to consider such a developmental consideration is one of polarization, and more importantly, class consciousness. There are already people using many developments as an excuse to allow for social stratification / division into what's perceived as classes (based often on the all-encompassing conceptual primitive of "privilege"). If the ability to access AR systems were to be considered "clout" (and those with access to more social social services and benefits as a rule are often seen has having more "clout"), this sort of move is actually something that could lead to a great deal of political resistance, and so the subsequent points you outline (specifically those regarding the integration of a digital consciousness) likely will not follow in most atmospheres (based on the grounds, of course, that access to these AR systems will be considered a "privilege"). Of course, it's possible that governments will anticipate this and attempt to limit the presence of AR in relation to city-life integration, but in this case,  this will be totally useless (as the integrated facilities will be trivial, as the integration of non-trivial facilities means public resistance from those without access). Your contingency regarding the building of alternate, AR/VR-only cities is interesting, but I think ultimately this will be met with the same political resistance (possibly even worse, because of the undertone of "apart"-ness). Progressing with more specificity, I have deep problems with your idea of a "digital consciousness". Consciousness is something that we are not able to even comprehend yet at an individual level, so unless you are deferring to a digital cultural synthesis (progressing in accordance to some standards or laws of social progression, perhaps Spengler's), I don't actually think technologically grounded inter-linked system has access to qualia of experience (as thus far, qualia seem to be exclusive to biological systems). However, I don't have enough evidence at hand to refute this conclusively, so I will end my criticisms regarding the VR/AR predictions here.
I will address your predictions on artificial general intelligence in this portion of my writing (which I will refer to as AGI, as you do, for the sake of abbreviation). I think in this case that your prediction, rather than being philosophically unsound, fails to account for many logistical contingencies that would otherwise rather significantly impact the course of events. In regards tot this topic, I think that the timeline you have provided is far too optimistic given the rate of current research into this area, in particular, for there to be fully operational VR-based AGI citizen-rooted cities in 2055 is completely untenable, because of one very important factor, public perceptions of the issue. The debate regarding the ethics of AGI is ongoing, and like most moral-philosophical dilemmas, will likely remain unsolved (even if companies continue research regardless of these debates). One could say that whether or not these debates are consequential or inconsequential is irrelevant because most of these things are at the whims of companies and corporations anyways, but I think that in this specific case there is a very important aspect to public perception, and that important aspect stems from funding. All governments, as a rule, rely on from citizens to fund their public projects, and the construction of a city for AGI citizens is fundamentally in a public project. Many citizens of developed countries are opposed to AGI citizens on either (a. ethical grounds (most often replacing to jobs, etc...) or (b. ignorance (and thus fear, as the general tendency in human beings does seem to be towards a fear of the unknown, and so it is very unlikely that governments will receive the consistent public funding needed for the setting up of this endeavour. Though it is possible that funding from a particularly large AGI manufacturing corporation / company could assist governments in the funding of these projects without citizen interference is possible, it is very unlikely that companies will engage in this kind of behavior because (a. even with confidentiality guarantees, a company will have individual members that will be morally opposed to this kind of behavior, and thus rejecting of it and (b. as a result of this moral opposition, word of the company's plans will reach the public (a meme as a unit of information transmission is a relevant concept to invoke here). Even if this does not lead to a general boycott of the company, public perception to it will most likely be severely impacted, and as a result, profit too, with another result being the general delaying of the conclusion that you have outlined. There is another logistical contingency (though it's easier for most people to see this one as "boring"), and that is the allocation of the actual land for the construction of these cities. It's not unlikely that several citizens being opposed to these projects could hold on to the allotted land for the city and stage protests to prevent its construction. Even in the case that the government were to do it from a secret location, the advances in communication and information-transmission by that time (which I think definitely will occur) will make this essentially public knowledge. A broader problem here is also AGI citizens being allowed independence; I think those that do will face significant persecution (if it does even happen, and I think that reasons I've outlined above are plenty to show why none of this will happen) and perhaps form a fringe group (which leads to some interesting considerations of social dynamics that I would love to comment on but won't have time to do here).
Though these specific criticisms will be significantly more boring (where boring means that the analysis will be primary causal and not philosophical or dialectical), I think it is still necessary to criticize the analytical projections you have regarding the meat industry and the house industry, two industries you seem to oversimplify significantly (of course while it's possible that you're not oversimplifying them, based on the evidence, I am inclined to think that you are). The house industry is being oversimplified in this case because I think you underestimate the power that real estate agents hold in many places economically. Especially in lesser developed countries (like my own experience in Myanmar), there are certain land-lords that trademark specific kinds of houses in small regions. It is a tight logistical battle to attempt to dismantle these housing empires. Not to mention the obvious logistical challenge of transporting entire pre-printed houses to said places, or even printing them en-site (the topographical constraints that I brought up earlier are quite relevant still). The prediction regarding the meat industry is just... no. Not only is there the potential environmental catastrophe when attempting to relocate animals from existing farms to other ones (which can bring changes in climate to places where you are not intending them to be) but assuming that the technology does eventually develop to become cheaper, why should meat companies, some of the largest corporations on earth, give up their primary sources of income for something far less profitable?
General Criticisms
I have exhausted my capacity for specific criticism (as the criticisms I've outlined above are entirely within the bounds of my knowledge-base), and thus any more attempts at specific criticisms for me would be unfair on you (as I would be projecting my incomplete ideas as being superior to your potentially more-complete ideas), and a manifestation of intellectual dishonesty from me. This is why I will focus this next section of my response on a few more general criticisms of patterns in your reasoning processes and perceptions of causality, to be specific, I think there are two main problems that I'm seeing here. The first problem I see is that even your global-scale predictions seem to largely ignore the population of the developing world (which in terms of quantity, is actually more significant than the developing world), which is a blunder, because the developing world consistently has shown itself in the 21st century to have a higher rate of economic growth than the countries your analysis seems to concern. The second problem I see is that there seems to be a certain ideological undertone to the predictions you're making, that is, it seems that a lot of these anticipated outcomes arise not from objective perception of the trends that lead to them, but a certain emphasis on some schools of thought and a de-emphasizing of others. Let me address these points in more detail below.
Firstly, you make several assertions regarding "major cities" and "major countries" without actually qualifying what these terms are referring to. Though it might seem pedantic that I am picking on this at the moment, this is actually a very necessary distinction to make. As Mitchell has outlined above, Spengler's analysis regarding the "Decline of the West" is something very important to consider here - the development of China's Zhongguancun district (as representative of the larger technological bent that the country seems to have), and the multiplication of corporations therein is certainly leading to the introduction of a new "major country" in regards to technological hegemony (which is relevant, because many of your forecasts here regard technology). However, you also see many societies in Asia becoming "major countries" for opposite reasons, several countries have projected their domestic conflicts onto neighbour nations, turning these into geopolitical conflicts (as you see is the case with the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar, for example), which means many of these "major" countries have things to deal with that aren't relevant to anything that you're saying, and if anything, the introduction of your predictions would hinder these resolutions. The point is that the major players are changing quite fast, for different reasons, and too inconsistently for you to be able to refer to them at all without extensive analysis of temporal trends to justify these predictions. You're making too many assumptions that they will even care.
Secondly, I get a vague undertone that you have a somewhat untempered, childlike (not in a derisive, but endearing manner) optimism regarding a technologist view of the future. I think the realization a lot of the predictions that you've made here will be dependent on social/political perceptions of the issue, and that you are ignoring factoring these perceptions into your analysis because it seems as if you have the desire to see these manifested. In the case that you don't, it's fine, you can ignore this section of my post as this is basically just a subjective impression that I get from reading it. However, in the case that you do want to see these things happen, I suggest that (a. you analyze the trends taking into account the factors that I mention above (and there are several that aren't present in here) and (b. you figure out ways to get these trends to manifest.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this has been a highly engaging post-prompt to think about, and I hope that future discussions on the forum take a similar vein to what's been done today. I don't have enough time to make my own predictions for the next paradigm shifts today, but I will reply to this forum post with them some time within next week.