Here is how I see the future:

Baring nuclear war, extreme volcanism, or an asteroid strike (in this order, as a connotation of their possibility), I see a big upsweep in technology the likes of which the world has never seen. I see us in the developed world taking technology to a dizzying height in short order. I see us by the the year 2011 doubling the total amount of useful knowledge available from our scientific trove to engineers every hour on the hour. The growth of knowledge and capability will make the amount of progress in the 21st century equal to 20,000-100,000 years of progress by 20th century standards. This is before the eventual advent of an artificial intelligence. I say this because the advent of an artificial intelligence with human level intelligence would change everything. The amount of thinking a human can do is governed by the fact that messages in the brain travel at 100 ft/second, but in an electronic brain they would travel at the speed of light . This more than 9,000,000 times faster. In theory an Artificial Intelligence (AI) with human level intelligence could take any problem we give it, be it longevity, energy, new materials, intragalactic travel, nanotechnology, etc, and put us at a point we could only reach with 20th century progress after 9 million years of effort. We would arrive the year after a year of human level AI in the virtual year 9 million A.D. Every year thereafter the growth in ability would compound the last leaving us billions of years in the future as compared to 20th century progress by the end of the 21st century. I see an event-horizon in our future. The likes of which the human race has never known. After the event-horizon, it is not knowable what will or can transpire because by our ability to think the variables are too nebulous to sort-out. Even if we bar the fact that it will not happen right away, when we reach the doubling by the hour of useful knowledge in 2011, it will at that pace eventually happen. If it doesn't happen in the 21st century with a projected progress of 20,000-100,000 years by 20th century standards then it will definately happen in the 22nd century with a compounded advance of millions of years by 20th century standards. We who were born in the 20th century, may live to see it come to pass.