About 4 years I made a list of critical uncertainties for me. Things I had no clue which way they would go in the future. Would you add any?
What, if anything, will slow down China?Possible answers: internal revolution, population decline, environmental realities, absolutely nothing.
What information will people not share with each other?They share medical records, purchases, dreams, sex fantasies. What about their taxes?
How many devices do we want to carry?Ten, two, one, or none?
What will modernize Islam?Will Islam's "Reformation" be political, theological, violent, or glacial?
How much bandwidth is enough?We have enough pixels in a camera, enough hi-fi in our music, how many gigs/s before we no longer think about it?
Will we trust governments or corporations more?Who do we want to run our education, libraries, police, press, courts, licenses, and communication networks?
What is the "natural" price of a book, movie, or song?Once distribution and production costs fall or disappear, what will we charge for creations?
Will (or where will) the future ever become cool again? Optimism is a necessary ingredient for innovation. What will renew it?
How bad are the harmful effects of surfing the net?Are the bad effects of short attention temporary, inconvenient, or fatal?
Is nuclear fusion (synthetic solar) economically possible? Making energy like the sun does might too cheap to meter or as uneconomical as a perpetual motion machine.
When will Moore's Law stop?At least 90% of our progress today hinges on cheaper, faster computation every year. Stop one, stop the other.