I was in Ephesus upon a beach when I started tripping off my tits. After I came down I thought about the future a bit and this is what I reckon (nothing to do with my trip - that was weird!)

I. People will go on living, dying, breeding, loving, working, exploiting, dancing, fighting, buying, selling, building, demolishing, suffering and exalting for a while until at some arbitrarily distant (although probably either very distant or very very distant) future they will stop doing it due to a movement towards an extremity on an economic-political/ecological/sociobiological attractor, which extincts the species; or they will leave the earth as fantastically developed intelligences, to all intents and purposes god-like, immortal and hyperpotent, before the planet's destruction at the sun's death.

II. In between times, surveillance technology will render civil society meaningless, as people refrain from committing crime because they are being watched, rather than because they have cultivated a responsible civic morality.

III. Petroleum, despite fairly large (percentagewise) fluctuations, will increase steadily in price. At a here unspecified future time it will pass $500 per barrel. People working at upper levels of the petroleum industry will become even more extraordinarily affluent. IT industries will continue to do particularly well, and will exploit, and drive technological progress. Bill Gates will make more money and we will buy his software.

IV. The poorest of the poor, who have most to gain from a skeptical and radical outlook will continue to be gullible and meek. More and more Americans will kill more and more other Americans. With guns.

V. Europe won't be much better and will continue to legislate against free speech criticising Islam. Other religions will demand similar special treatment but will not get it as they do not inspire enough fear.

VI. Manchester United will win more trophies. Most people will be unhappy about this. Southampton will never win anything again. Most people will not care.

VII. People will continue to smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol and use other drugs recreationally. By and large they will be infinitely more likeable that the people who don't want them to do it.

VIII. Whatever happens to the climate it will ALWAYS be warmer in France than in England. There's no way I'm ever going back to England. Ghastly place. Wanker for a prime minister. Whore of Babylon.

IX. Jesus will not come back. Not soon, not in 2033, nor in 2100 or 3000 or 10000 nor at any other time. The battle between Jesus and Satan at Armageddon will not take place. Although the third part of the waters are already well on the way to being poisoned, this is NOT a 'sign'. Although the evidence against traditional Christian doctrine will become crushingly overwhelming at all concievable levels, more people will become Christians. And Moslems. And Hindu extremists. It will depend upon where they were born, and to whom.

X. Transport and communications will become cheaper and more available to many, and simultaneously less attainable to the (politely tolerable) global social underclass. The vast majority of this underclass will have a darker skin tone.

XI. The prophet of the LORD who existeth not will continue to wander desperately from pub to pub looking for a shag. Eventually he will get one, but he'll probably find something else to complain about.

This work is now complete. Unto him that addeth thereto let there be unto him added a spot, or pimple if you will, on his arse. From him that taketh away from this book may be taken away, heartily, the piss. The love and grace of the LORD be lacking, Amen.