The year is 1902 , one hundred years ago ... what a difference a century makes. Here are the U.S. statistics for 1902.
The average life expectancy in the US was forty-seven (47).
Only 14 Percent of the homes in the US had a bathtub.
Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone. A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars.
There were only 8,000 cars in the US and only 144 miles of paved roads.
The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.
Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California. With a mere 1.4 million residents, California was only the 21st most populous state in the Union.
The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower.
The average wage in the US was 22 cents an hour.
The average US worker made between $200 and $400 per year.
A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, a dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.
More than 95 percent of all births in the US took place at home.
Ninety percent of all US physicians had no college education.
Instead, they attended medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press and by the government as "substandard."
Sugar cost four cents a pound. Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.
Coffee cost fifteen cents a pound.
Most women only washed their hair once a month and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo.
Canada passed a law prohibiting poor people from entering the country for any reason.
The five leading causes of death in the US were:
      1. Pneumonia and influenza
      2. Tuberculosis
      3. Diarrhea
      4. Heart disease
      5. Stroke
The American flag had 45 stars. Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico,
Hawaii and Alaska hadn't been admitted to the Union yet.
The population of Las Vegas, Nevada was 30.
Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn't been invented.
There were no Mother's Day or Father's Day.
One in ten US adults couldn't read or write. Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.
Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at corner drugstores. According to one pharmacist, "Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and the bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health."
Eighteen percent of households in the US had at least one full-time servant or domestic.
There were only about 230 reported murders in the entire US.
? ~ What will the next century bring

So much for the good old days!!

100 years from now, wow have things changed

The nanotech revolution fundamentally altered our economy in the 2040's by making the curent, mine, refinery, factory processes obsolete by rendering raw materials directly into finished products using nanites. The other by product of nanotechnology was the downfall of metals as industrial diamond and nanotube latices replaced titanium, aluminum, and steel in most aplications. Almost every home is equiped with a 'autochef' that mines carbon out of the atmosphere, and uses nanites to construct food, that is in every sense 'real' as if it were hacked of an animal or pulled out of the ground. With 4 star meals avalible at the touch of a finger tip, cooking sudenly becomes a hobby, and the resturaunt industry was devesated. 1,000,000s of acres of land, now no longer needed for agriculter and let to revert back to their natural state, or are sculpted into massive outdoor peices of art.

Medicine has taken a quantum leap forward, with the mapping of the human genome, and pronnome in the early 21st century. By 2015 with the mastery of retroviral engineering that allowed corrections and alterations of the genome of a adult person to be made, the aging vacine become avalible in the western world, and the life expectancy of an indivdual is now between 250 and 275 years. The unfortunate side effect of the aging vacine is that it works to correct cell division error by reinserting healty DNA into cells, unfortunately it is unable to differantiare gamete's from body cells so it's only side effect is serility. Of course this side steped the population problem that it would have caused otherwise. The other not so unhappy side effect is that it provides an effective immunity to all viruses

The Global population is down to a little less then 3 billion, due to the Pakistan/China/India "little" nuclear war that wiped out nearly half of the worlds already shrinking population

Canada joined the United State in 2021 with the signing of the United Americas accord in Denver.

There are now thriving colonies on the Moon, Mars, and the astroid belt with several orbital colonies at the larange points in the Earth/Moon system. The offworld colonies are the only place right now that are actually expiriancing population growth.

The space elevator was lowered into position and docked on an artifical island on the equator in 2031. Built by a consortium of GM Lockheed Martin, and Applied Nanotechnologies it made getting into space cheaper then getting to the island it was on. Fallowing this was the great American Sky Lift of 2035 when a full 5% of the population of the United States relocated to the new frontier.

There are nearly no 'hard labor' jobs left, we are now an 'idea economy' since with the help of nanotechnolgy anything that can be designed can be built. Money is now measured in 'manufactory seconds/minutes/hours' to denote time to acess the local automated production facilities.

The Goverment still exists but not in it's current incarnation. Fallowing a wave a liberalism in the early 20th and 21st century and the fisco that fallowed was the 'conservative renesance'. The US became the worlds first direct democracy, nearly every agency of the goveremnt was disbanded save for national defense, wich was now the federal goverments sole perveiw.

The UN did not exist to see it's 100th birthday, after the UN pulled it's recognition of the UN with due to the 'Carbon Tax' debacle it imploded.

There are now nearly 9,000 miles of maglev track around North America.

The future is brighter then it has ever been [:D]

On the downside, personal weapons cost an average of $85,000,000 each and merely thinking about guns in an urban area will trigger sensors placed by the thought police and land you 125 years in orbital jail.  The use of thought sensors rendered the court system irrelevant and incarceration usually takes place within 45 minutes of the crime.  The cost savings was passed on to the tax paying public (the 12% who aren't dependent on public welfare), effectively lowering the average personal income tax to only 88%.  Things are really peachy down here.

In related news AR15.com received its 15,000,000 new user this day and after having been given statehood almost 25 years ago. GoatBoy was quoted as saying, "Huh , I can't hear or see very well you'll have to speak up sonny!"

Steyr Aug's weapons were sold at action today at Southby's for a whopping 1.5 Trillion $USGold

The AR Rifle refuses to die a graceful death, with Bushmaster 3002 catalog displaying a nice 100Watt Phased Plasma upper, with DCM auto lasing lower giving the user semi, 3pulse burst, or solid stream. Ammoman is selling dilithium crystals for $1250USGold / box 1000.  and has M394855  62gr Green Tip frangible rail gun rounds for $2500USGold / box 1000.

Weapons R US bi yearly catolog

Calico Libety 1500
The latest offering from the new worlds most creative weapons design house, the new Calico Liberty 1500. It is an electromagnetic rifle, or rail gun that accelorates a tungstun flechette to 12  kilometers per second. Utilizing their signiture overhead helical drum, the L-1500 has an amunition capacity of 230 rounds of 1.5mm tungstun fletchlettes. Fires in both semi, burst (3rnd, 6rnd, and 9rnd) and auto. Includes 3 magazines, collapsable stock, solid stock, and loader.
*as of 01/01/07 no NFA rules apply
2 manufactory minutes/downloadable now

Bushmaster PPG-4
The latest offering from the old world is the new Bushmaster PPG-4, phased plasma rifle. It utilizes a crytal battery which is ratted for 5,000 shots before recharging. The action is based of the early Stromer series rifles and uses a 56megajoulse synthetic ruby laser to ionize air and is fired down a super conductive barrle. Maximum effective range is 3.5 miles. (Earth sea level) Will defeat class VI exo-armor

3.5 manufactory minutes, click here to download now.

Remember, having an automatic weapon in your home is not just a good idea, IT'S THE LAW!

Hi 1GUNRUNNER:
Please fully disclose your source (including URL).
Thank you,
Regards,
FRIZ

Armed Scientist I like the way you think.