The ever-accelerating pace of technological innovation makes the long-term future difficult to visualise. It’s important, when thinking in the long term, to understand that different problems will require different solutions. Interstellar travel and building habitats in space may help us survive the next billion years, but these technologies will not arrive in time to allow us to live out the century. If we want to be sure we will be around to tackle major problems, we’ll need to get a lot better at thinking beyond the next five years.