2112: your take?

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

According to its self-description, The Long Now Foundation is an organization that seeks to become the seed of a very long-term cultural institution. It aims to provide a counterpoint to what it views as today's "faster/cheaper" mindset and to promote "slower/better" thinking. It hopes to "creatively foster responsibility" in the framework of the next 10,000 years, and so uses 5-digit dates to address the Year 10,000 problem (e.g. by writing 02012 rather than 2012). It has built the Clock of the Long Now (which is supposed to operate for many millenia with minimum human intervention) and has initiated The Rosetta Project, an effort to preserve all languages that are likely to go extinct within the next 100 years.

However, the focus of my inquiry here is more about one particular aspect of their research that is a recurring topic in their regular think-tank talks. The mid-term future of the world, i.e. concerning the period of the next 100 years (provided we don't exterminate ourselves like the morons that we are).

My question, should you take the challenge, is simple, and consists of several parts:

Q1) How do you imagine the political map of the world to look like? Which will be the major geopolitical powers of the world by the year 2112, which alliances will be the main players, which countries will cease to exist and which new ones will appear, and what will be the significance of state borders (if any), and state sovereignty? Will government exist at all, and in what form?

Q2) Which leads us to question #2. What about the political systems of the world? Which ones will be dominant in 2112, which new ones will emerge, and which political systems will disappear, and under what circumstances?

Q3) The state of international relations. More pacifist, or still the same old pattern of armed conflicts? What will be the military paradigm of the future? Full-out war, guerrilla war, cyber-warfare, space war, surveillance, terrorism, etc?

Q4) Energy & technology: which will be the new energy source of the future; what major direction will technology make a leap into, and how would that reflect on society? What about space exploration? Will we be still stuck down here on Earth, or will international rivalries be merely transferred into space? And will space exploration, and technology in more general, be dominated by private initiatives or be subject to state control, and how would either scenario reflect on their development?

Q5) And finally, the development of society. Will there be major shifts in the way society is set up, in the way it works, and will there be social innovations that we still can't think of right now? Ultimately, are we going to achieve a Type I civilization any time soon?

I'm aware that this will probably require a lot of fantasizing, but oh well. Why not. I guess it doesn't hurt occasionally going a bit off the every-day reality.

So go ahead, unleash your imagination! ;)

Comments

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

*gently rubs his magic orb*
One giant police state, is what I see.

I seen it. The stars have told me.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Alternately, I see a post-apocalyptic paradise. Beasts and forests return, and the surviving 2 million human inhabitants of Earth finally live in harmony with what has remained of nature, foraging and hunting like in the good old times. ;)

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Q1) How do you imagine the political map of the world to look like?

I expect a North American alliance of some sort - the US and Canada, for sure, maybe Mexico. I think it's inevitable, and will be when South America begins to become a bigger power than it is.

I expect China to collapse, not to succeed.

Q2) Which leads us to question #2. What about the political systems of the world? Which ones will be dominant in 2112, which new ones will emerge, and which political systems will disappear, and under what circumstances?

More democracies, parliamentary-style. It's impossible for brutal (or even benevolent) dictatorships to endure with technology so readily available.

Q4) Energy & technology: which will be the new energy source of the future

It hasn't been invented yet.

What about space exploration? Will we be still stuck down here on Earth, or will international rivalries be merely transferred into space?

My assumption is that humans will be exploring our solar system, mining asteroids and having a permanent base on the Moon or Mars. It's inevitable - with the SpaceX success of this week, things are going to move very quickly, and smart nations will be looking to climb on board.

And will space exploration, and technology in more general, be dominated by private initiatives or be subject to state control, and how would either scenario reflect on their development?

Private players contracted by public entities, most likely. Private rockets carring astronauts funded by European and Asian governments.

Q5) And finally, the development of society. Will there be major shifts in the way society is set up, in the way it works, and will there be social innovations that we still can't think of right now? Ultimately, are we going to achieve a Type I civilization any time soon?

Whatever we predict, it will be both more advanced and more primitive in reality than our brains can currently come up with in this area.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Two additional clarifications:
1) What makes dictatorship unsustainable in the long run, as opposed to democracy?
2) Come on, squeeze your imagination a bit more on Q4! Where could the next major energy source pop up from?

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

The underlying thesis of my response is that progress never moves as quickly and completely as we wish. Call this the Jetsons Law or "Where is my flying car?" Hypothesis.

Q1) I think it will, broadly speaking, look the same. The geopolitical powers will be the same, but the relative power will be more evenly distributed between the current dominant powers (EU/USA/Japan) and the current rising powers (China/India). Ceteris parabis this will lead to a world less stable and more confrontational than now, especially in the South China Sea and most dangerously in the Indian Ocean and the Hindu Kush.

Q2) I think next century will see the final end for doctrinaire communism of the Cuban variety. Most nations will transition to some variant of the European mixed economy, some will break out with more liberal economies in the Anglophone tradition. At least I hope so. The dominant political system will continue to be varieties of popularly elected representative government.

Q3) To quote Talking Heads, Same as it ever was... same as it ever was... Human nature isn't changing anytime soon as far as I can see. Without Krugman's alien invasion, homo sapiens will still square off and fight each other when they feel it is advantageous or impossible to avoid. As to the nature of combat, I think that it is an easy prediction to say it will become increasingly remotely controlled and more active in orbital space. Due to the high cost of a major war between superpowers so tightly entwined economically, I think traditional war of the Prussian variety will be unlikely. Proxy, guerillia and civil wars will continue to blight our history.

Q4) Everybody wants to say fusion, amirite? I think the future lies in cleaner systems for available energy sources, efficiency gains from new technology and material science, more production from better mining and extraction methods, plus a healthy dose of good old fashioned nuclear. I'd like to see more research into space based solar. No cloudy days in orbit. Space exploration will hopefully continue, but still be unmanned. Futurists, in my opinion, discount the deleterious effects of long term micro gravity and the dangers of space based radiation on human beings. Also, the distances are just fantastically large. Without a revolution in propulsion, human exploration isn't practical. We needed to develop caravels and carracks to make transoceanic travel practical, we need something similar for the solar system. I'm not saying we shouldn't try, but I think the reach is still far beyond our grasp. All we have now is the equivalent of St. Brenden's currach.

Q5) Well, we can't know what we can't know, but looking back over the sweep of the last 1000 years, even given the rapid changes in the last 100 of those, I think we can safely say that human relationships and society will remain similar enough that we would be comfortable in 2112. Will we be Type 1? No. I think that would be very unlikely.

[jonathankorman.livejournal.com]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the first three questions are ill-framed because they implicitly assume the continuation of the Westphalian order of nation-states, which I think will have disintegrated in a century's time.

I have my speculations about what kinds of alternatives we will see, though I suspect that anything I say will look at least as silly as a Frenchman in 1750 imagining the political world of 1850.

It's at least plausible that either an ecological catastrophe or a Singularity technological rapture will end “civilization”, making these conversations a little absurd. But as others have said, likely we will muddle through without such melodramatic change. Since we already live in a world with global challenges, if we are to continue to have civilization we will need some form of global governance. But I also doubt that this will be the primary locus of political action as the nation-state is now; more likely, more politics will happen at the scale of cities and what are now small provinces.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

the first three questions are ill-framed because they implicitly assume the continuation of the Westphalian order of nation-states

But that's exactly the game. If you believe the Westphalian order of nation-states will be non-existent 100 years from now, all you'd need to do is to make this statement and then support it with some assumptions. Whether the questions have successfully managed to escape from the narrow framework of our current reality or not (or whether that was the purpose at all), is irrelevant - you could play along that framework, or you could easily transcend it completely. Nothing constrains you within the framework of these questions.

[soliloquy76.livejournal.com]

Q4) It'll be a diverse mix, dependent on regional factors like climate, access to resources, etc. I just saw this today, which is promising:

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

1200 meters tall??? Twice the height of the Burj Khalifa?? 3/4 of a mile high! 400 meters across?? That is just shy of a quarter mile. That they never mention what these dimensions mean makes me very skeptical.

But I was pretty fascinated until I realized how big that sucker had to be.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Q1) The map will be different, for one. The lowlands will most likely be underwater in 100 years. Say goodbye to the Maldives, to Bangladesh, much of Florida. Personally, I'll miss Amsterdam and Venice the most. I'll miss Florida not one whit.

Where those refugees go will determine much of the political map. To chaotic to predict, that one.

Q2) Systems, you ask? None of the past's predictions came true today, so I think it would be strange to predict myself. I will say that we will have a weird amalgam of yesterday and today. We won't be traveling as much per capita, but will be able to communicate as we do today, thanks to reducing the energy cost of digital communications. This will mean a decent possibility of independent press, which makes most wannabe dictatorships less likely. Those countries which will be in power tomorrow will still have what's left of the hydrocarbons. The rest will be smaller economically. Period.

Q3) This one pains me. We've been getting more and more peaceful over the last century, but resource constraints might take all that progress off the table in a hurry. We've already seen the US exercise its military and start shit just to secure oil access (AFRICOM is the latest move in that direction). China is doing exactly the same with its soft power to Africa and Australia, establishing economic ties mostly. The Arab Spring was largely a response to rising food prices due to fuel constraints; if that trend continues, the gloves might come off and who knows what 100 years will bring.

Q4) The watchword for tomorrow's energy will be "distributed." Say goodbye to all but a few large power plants that burn stuff, including today's nuclear. When one has trouble moving stuff, spare parts for nukes will be a casualty. Expect lots of storage arbitrage, lots of spot market distribution of stored wind, solar and biomass. Expect decentralization, so people become consumer/producers and not just passive participants. If it works out, nuclear waste reactors (http://www.terrapower.com/home.aspx) will supplement this mix nicely.

Oh, and this assumes civilizations survive the energy wars on the immediate horizon. If we do, the above. If we don't, Mad Max time, but with far fewer cars.

Q5) Our societies are powered by hydrocarbons. All of our societal progress is the direct result of shifting human and animal labor to machines, giving us the free time to muse on what a future might resemble. If we can shift to a less hydrocarbon intensive existence, this might continue. If not. . . . Slavery's return for many refugee and traditional ethnic minority populations might be the least of our worries.

Even if we can convert a fraction of our energy use to alternatives like traveling wave reactors, expect civilization to be simpler, less consumer-oriented, and smaller in population. There aren't enough rare earth metals in the crust to completely replace hydrocarbons with higher-tech. Therefore, more people get to go back to the land and start farming. Which would not be a bad thing at all.

[nairiporter.livejournal.com]

Mentioning Bangladesh, I can see a lot of political tension in that region, mostly due to a huge refugee problem emerging on the horizon.

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

Q1)
I hope to Bob that we will have abolished sovereign nation-states by 2112. They were a natural development back when little communities of humans began to have the technological ability and the economic need to trade and organize with other little communities, but travel and communication were expensive enough to make it more efficient at smaller scales.
It's been more than a century since Marconi's first transatlantic transmission, more than 50 years since the advent of intermodal shipping containers, and yet we humans are still mostly pledging allegiance to the vestigial remains of governments which date back to colonial times or before. You know what I call that? Fucking embarrassing. There is no practical reason for nation-states to exist anymore, and there hasn't been since before WW2, but they still exist because people who have power like to keep it for themselves and pass it on to their own kids.

Q2)
It would be nice if some apparatus for global governance evolves which embodies open-source principles, is transparent, and immune to perverse incentives. I see representative democracy as being a step away from monarchy and towards this ideal. In the age of good-but-imperfect communication and deep subject-matter specialization, representative democracy was a good compromise between keeping the decisions in-line with constituents' wants and needs and keeping the signal-to-noise ratio down (which is one of the main problems with 'direct democracy'). Communication is getting better and rhetorical forms are getting more streamlined. Just think about the innovation inherent in Livejournal's threaded-comment discussion format! A century ago it took a rigorously stodgy, organized debate format (such as Robert's Rules of Order (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert's_Rules_of_Order) in order to keep discussions well-structured, allow sub-issues to be resolved before their parent-issues are, maintain clear delineations about who is replying to whom, etc. Now all of that heavily codified, ritualized mumbo-jumbo is embedded right into the discussion medium! We, in this forum, are capable of discussions far deeper than what could be achieved in an old timey town-hall, simply because we have a good mechanism for grouping like messages with like. I think we can do even better.

When we do, I think direct democracy will become more viable. Imagine something vaguely Wiki-like (but better, obviously) which is focused around the collaborative development of government best-practices. I say 'collaborative' rather than 'adversarial' not because I don't think there will still be contentious issues and strenuous disagreements, but because I imagine these debates playing out very differently when they're unencumbered by the side-effects of representative democracy, the existence of political parties, and so on. Partisanship probably won't go away entirely, but I think it's likely to become more idea-focused than person-focused.

Q3)
This question sort of depends on the existence of nations, and I've already chucked that baby out the window. Pass.

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

Q4)
I see human technological development as being kind of like an airplane rolling toward a cliff. We've got a finite amount of energy resources on the planet (just how little is left is a matter of much partisan debate but let's ignore that.) Whether it's a quadrillion joules or a sextillion, there is some upper bound to the amount of energy we're going to get out of this rock, and even out of the sun it orbits. We are going to exhaust it eventually, because of how exponential growth works. We can spend that energy on any number of things, but one of the things we must do with it, is make ourselves ready to find energy elsewhere when it runs out. If we get to the cliff with sufficient velocity, then we fly off into the sky, colonize the stars, and grow to fill whatever space we can. If we don't have enough speed, the plane stalls, we stay on the planet, and we waste our time and energy fighting over the scraps of what's left, knowing we haven't got enough to stage a second launch attempt. That scenario probably ends in mass starvation and possibly extinction.

Q5) There will definitely be major shifts in the layout of society. To say that is trivial. The exact nature of those changes is anyone's guess, but I expect that they'll be driven by innovations in communication technology and later in neuroscience. Humans like to communicate and to socialize, and if that becomes arbitrarily easy, it's not hard to see how this might turn society into a sort of hive-mind. Star Trek's depiction of the Borg is a particularly grim version of that endgame, but I see no reason to suppose that hooking up a billion minds to each other would turn them into emotionless, perfection-obsessed automatons. That's a bit pessimistic. (http://dresdencodak.com/2009/09/22/caveman-science-fiction/)

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Q1) Which will be the major geopolitical powers of the world by the year 2112,

The priests of the temple of Sirus!

Given the massive landscape change, any resulting politics will be post migration politics. A cohesive world government/economy of some kind will be the norm.


Q2

World wide homogenization of governments and economies, with some migration based economies.


Q3)

More pacifist. More egalitarian and agricultural economies will prevail. Efficiently allocating resources will be the new mark of excellence and viability.


Q4

The fabric of the universe itself will be harnessed for power.
Space will continue to be explored as well as alternative dimensions.

Q5)

We will have had one major catastrophe that will lead to survival based egalitarian governments/economies. Type 1? Sure.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

The fabric of the universe itself will be harnessed for power.

Now you're talking! But... so soon? Sounds like we're leaping straight into Type III, which doesn't sound very wise at this point. I mean, monkeys being given the tools of, eh, "Creation"...

*shudders*

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

Here's hoping for a "humanistic (http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/85917.html?thread=4355229#t4355229) technocracy (http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/85917.html?thread=4355485#t4355485)" (yep, I can be an utopist sometimes). Would 100 years be enough? I doubt it. More likely we'll only expand all our current flaws and grievances on the much grander scale that is space. And that sounds kind of frightening, but oh well. Better have a shot at it than linger here and ultimately languish.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

P.S. The "hypo-spray" medical device seen in Star Trek is now a reality, no more needles (and yes, it can also do blood samples in reverse):

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

My question, should you take the challenge, is simple, and consists of several parts

I C wat U did dere!

[terminator44.livejournal.com]

This foundation is such a crock. Many so-called "experts" couldn't foresee what will happen in the next five years. The gap in technology between the 1970s and 2010s alone is more vast than even the people who created the innovations that lead to the 2010s could foresee. Humans are not wired for the kind of long-term thinking they envision. Like all creatures, evolution has made humans concerned with surviving long enough to reproduce.

Having said that, I might as well take a crack at this, even though Q1, Q2, and Q5 overlap too much. Keep in mind, these are cautious predictions, so they are almost certain to be wrong:

Q1/Q2/Q5: The PRC will not survive in the long term. In the short term, it will make inroads into Africa and likely purchase (or seize) eastern Siberia from Russia. Within 50 years, however, its demographic realities and stifling political system will cause it to decline and collapse, possibly sooner if there is a war between the U.S. and PRC (over Taiwan) or the U.S./South Korea and North Korea (the resulting refugee crisis will overwhelm it).

The U.S. will become more authoritarian in the next decade or two, but two factors will awaken the apathetic public. The first will be economic stagnation caused by a smothering public sector and a debt crisis. The second will be a war with Iran, where we will be joined by Israel and possibly Saudi Arabia. This war will disrupt the world economy and ruin what little credibility the U.S. has abroad. It will also cause a new social revolution which will disrupt America's status quo and end the partisan duopoly on the political system. Finally, it will galvanize support for a separate Palestine, and Israel will be forced to accept a two-state solution.

Russia's government will remain mostly the same, though it will lose relevance as the world becomes less dependent on its economy's only strength: oil (more on that in Q4).

The big change, though, is that nation-states as we know them will fade away. The world will gradually be dominated by large political blocs encompassing regions of the world and centered on the leading nation in that region. For example, there will be a Union of American States composed of the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. There will be a South American alliance pushed forward by Brazil, and the various states in Europe and some on its periphery (especially Turkey) will become part of the EU, except perhaps the U.K. (and Greece, which will be dropped like a sack of potatoes). The governments of the various members will still exist on paper for a time, but actual policy will be decided by these continent spanning alliances (I don't yet know what else to name them) led by representative bodies from each member. Local culture will be more subsumed by the melting pot of aesthetic styles brought on by the Internet, but local autonomy will actually increase as it becomes clear that no one governing body can handle hundreds of millions of people. I do not believe such a move would bring us any closer to a one world government, as the interests of these alliances will be mutually exclusive. I am thankful for that. The main areas which will prove the exception are Russia (which is too stubborn to ever join with its western or eastern neighbors, East/Southeast Asia (too much bad blood from WWII to allow for the nations to join together, at least in the foreseeable future) and Africa (as all of the world powers will endeavor to prevent the rise of an Africa independent from them).

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Crock or no crock, at least there are a few people daydreaming, and going as far as to institutionalize their daydreaming practices. Whereas most others keep living their day to day life until then look back while already on their death-bed, realizing they've done (or even dreamt of) nothing.

[terminator44.livejournal.com]

Q3: Full-out war, guerrilla war, cyber-warfare, space war, surveillance, terrorism, etc? All of the above. Cyber warfare in particular will become more prominent. Nations that go to war will have teams of hackers trying to disrupt the other side's military and civilian infrastructure. Terrorist organizations will also start employing more engineers as saboteurs, as the policies of the large powers will turn many of the increasing professional class in developing nations against them. Speaking of sabotage, we may see the first use of nanobots for exactly this purpose As for conventional armies they will increasingly be dominated by small numbers of elite specialist troops working in conjunction with unmanned autonomous vehicles on the ground, in the sea, and in the air. It is my hope that nations do not allow the use of weapons designed to destroy satellites. Such a development would be incredibly foolish, as it would jeopardize peaceful space exploration and potentially cut off global communications. As I have previously mentioned, however, humans are myopic creatures.

Q4: Technology is advancing so fast that is is difficult, if not nearly impossible, to predict what new directions it will take. All I can say for sure is that the computer will still be central to everything we do. Other than that, nuclear energy and coal (whether it becomes cleaner or not) will dominate energy generation, perhaps backed up by waste-to-energy facilities. Electric vehicles will begin to reduce our dependence on petroleum, though it will still be a major part of our energy needs well into the next century. I simply don't see wind and solar power becoming a significant part of our energy output. The demands on land are too great and the power generated is too small. Don't even get me started on ethanol. The various alliances will use rockets designed by private entities to reach the Mars and establish an outpost on the Moon. Computing power will continue to increase, spurred by advances in fields like chemistry (better super conductors). If there is one field that shows the most promise, however, it is nanotechnology. Mastering it would cause a revolution in virtually every other scientific field. What the world will look like in the Nano Age I dare not even try to imagine.

[chron-job.livejournal.com]

Fun fun!!!

Q1) Vestiges of the nation state continue to exist, but are becoming ever more irrelevant as cultural integration takes precedence over political. I suspect that Americans and Canadians will still be in separate countries, but the significance of that fact will be more on the level of England versus Wales than a true international border. Economic integration of the United States of Europe leads to further cultural homogeneity, with all languages except German, French, Spanish and English taking on an air of the quaint, and entering a period of "Museum preservation" status. Russia looses its East Asian possessions and finally invests itself wholeheartedly in Europe, those eastern states now predominantly trading with (and culturally approaching) China. Australia's trade and population increasingly have more to do with South East Asia. South America is dominated by a Brazilian hegemony. All of Africa (except the southern tip) combines with the middle east to make a solid Islamic trading block. It is the only area left on earth where Religious authority is still taken seriously.

Q2) Nearly universal E-democracy supporting mixed social welfare economies.

Q3) International conflict consists mostly of competition to win over marginal 'swing provinces' to the major trading blocks. Armed conflict is still dominated by the residual nation states in name, but the trends emphasizing the commercial nature of these conflicts continues. Armies are more police forces safeguarding commercial interests, and overall there is somewhat less actual war, but more sub-lethal posturing.

Q4) The Energy technologies of the day will be dominated by the infrastructure put in place to combat Global Warming. High Earth Orbit solar mirrors are controlled by major commercial interests associated with the major trading blocks, which negotiate with each other to alternate between reflecting increased solation onto solar energy production facilities, or reflecting solation away to space to insure the global temperature status quo. Global Energy production is variegated and 'best of breed' renewable and thorium breeder tech, but the majority of world energy needs are met via the solar farms already noted. The need for transportation fuel has been replaced by electrical battery technology, though some extremely high energy density needs (mostly military and aerospace related) are serviced by hydrogen produced via electrolysis. Fledgling extraterrestrial economy exists, mostly to build and maintain the energy infrastructure. Long term, self sufficient habitation of Mars, but on a very small scale.

Q5) Advances in medicine plus awareness of population effects combine to solidify a cultural penchant for omnipresent access to birth control and religious/cultural acceptance of population control techniques like euthanasia and 'birth intervention'. Strong cultural taboos against eugenics, but no actual laws. Slowly increasing sub-group of eugenicaly produced individuals suffer cultural bigotry, but that's a question for the next 100 years to sort out.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

I like your e-democracy idea, but I'm afraid the internet will be more likely used for mass manipulation and control rather than mass freedom. I'd really like to be proven wrong but the pattern of internet use by governments has suggested so in the recent years.

Or maybe the people will e-rebel and e-throw the e-oppressors? (OK, I got carried away a bit).

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

Q1) How do you imagine the political map of the world to look like? Which will be the major geopolitical powers of the world by the year 2112, which alliances will be the main players, which countries will cease to exist and which new ones will appear, and what will be the significance of state borders (if any), and state sovereignty? Will government exist at all, and in what form?

Given the example of the Euro, we know that without soveriegnty of currency there isn;t economic cushion to protect nations from debts. So large continental free trade regions are going to have to have to experiment more if this is ever going to work. But gven that growth is not infinite, but limited by energy and other resources I predict hard times ahead for all nations regardless if the align or remain independent.

Q2) Which leads us to question #2. What about the political systems of the world? Which ones will be dominant in 2112, which new ones will emerge, and which political systems will disappear, and under what circumstances?

parliamentary democracies seem to have far less corporate influence. USA refuses to see this as an issue and this ignorance will crush them as it has in fascist countries. Blessed are nations like Cuba who don't suffer from commercialism. BRIC nations will have to work hard to keep commercial interests strong while keeping corporate interests at bay.

Q3) The state of international relations. More pacifist, or still the same old pattern of armed conflicts? What will be the military paradigm of the future? Full-out war, guerrilla war, cyber-warfare, space war, surveillance, terrorism, etc?

IslamicMuslim nations have the cloud of intolerance over them, especially Indonesia and eastern Africa. Everyone seems worried about the middle east but I;m not. I think they are sorting that out in these Arab springs. I don't predict major wars elsewhere.

Q4) Energy & technology: which will be the new energy source of the future; what major direction will technology make a leap into, and how would that reflect on society? What about space exploration? Will we be still stuck down here on Earth, or will international rivalries be merely transferred into space? And will space exploration, and technology in more general, be dominated by private initiatives or be subject to state control, and how would either scenario reflect on their development?

200yrs for space to be a major issue. Even with major advances in science the distances are too far for the leap to be made any sooner . Advances in agriculture will be huge advancement. While farming has changed much in last 100yrs, it's still farming. Most is very dependent on weather. More importantly it;s dependent on logistics. The next leap in science will eliminate these issues.

Q5) And finally, the development of society. Will there be major shifts in the way society is set up, in the way it works, and will there be social innovations that we still can't think of right now? Ultimately, are we going to achieve a Type I civilization any time soon?

I'm predicting much more happening on local scenes. Advances in transportation were wonderful but heavy energy users. As energy dries up we'll be forced to do things closer to home for efficiency reasons. Local gov'ts will rise in profile and power.

[nairiporter.livejournal.com]

This thread has been a lot of fun to read. It's curious to have a glimpse at the way people think about the future because we are too preoccupied with our present and past.

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

LJ ate my first response... this is something that will not be fixed by 2112.

Q1) Most countries will continue to exist. There may be some that break up, but the major players will still be around except Russia will decline and India will take its place. This is purely because of demographics and the deprecation of fossil fuels as a source of political power.
Governments will exist. If the Chinese have proven one thing, it’s that you can’t destroy a bureaucracy.

Q2) The world will be divided between what are called the Anglo and continental model of capitalism today. Socialism, as it existed last century will cease to exist. SOSHULIZM!! OMG! will of course still be a potent political force but only as a label for one’s political opponents. North Korea will either have merged with the South or the entire peninsula will have become uninhabitable.
The US and UK will be far more like the states of Europe than they are today, the Anglo countries will be the Asian emerging economies.

Q3) Same pattern but by different means. The total war thing really existed for only about 60 years, it’s time to get back to the kinds of limited conflicts between small groups of highly trained and expensive professionals that we’ve seen through most of history. A general 50 years from now would be as unlikely to draft from the general population as an NFL coach would today.

Q4) We’ll make our energy from an almost free and pretty ubiquitous source. Maybe water, maybe sunshine, maybe agricultural waste, maybe all of the above. The idea of importing fossil fuels from some far away and unfriendly place will be seen with as much contempt as we view Jim Crow laws. Seriously, what were we thinking?
Most of us will be stuck on earth, but going to outer space will be about as challenging as going to Antarctica is today. If you are really determined, you can probably make the trip in some way. Technology will be a similar combination of universities, companies, and government like it is today, only it will happen faster. This will leave us older farts, who will be in our early to mid-100’s by that time, behind, typing on our outdated keyboards rather than just plugging our brains in.

Q5) We’ll be more urbanized and communicate a lot more electronically. If you want your kids to clean their room, you will do some equivalent of emailing your request and the consequences for not finishing on time, which will of course be enforced electronically. Your kids will then have downloaded the newest whine and excuse module which will send an automated response.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I think that the Rosetta Project is an absolute good, while I find predictions of the future to be something where prophets are only prophetic in hindsight.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

This being said, with that as a caveat, here are my predictions:

Q1) How do you imagine the political map of the world to look like? Which will be the major geopolitical powers of the world by the year 2112, which alliances will be the main players, which countries will cease to exist and which new ones will appear, and what will be the significance of state borders (if any), and state sovereignty? Will government exist at all, and in what form?

Honestly, given this is another century starting with the disintegration of long-established regimes, I don't even know. Governments will exist, which governments is a different question.


Q2) Which leads us to question #2. What about the political systems of the world? Which ones will be dominant in 2112, which new ones will emerge, and which political systems will disappear, and under what circumstances?

The Cold War relics are probably going to not make it to 2112, and with them dies Communism, but I predict that we'll see a multi-polar world, not a single dominant hegemon.

Q3) The state of international relations. More pacifist, or still the same old pattern of armed conflicts? What will be the military paradigm of the future? Full-out war, guerrilla war, cyber-warfare, space war, surveillance, terrorism, etc?

I have no idea, nobody in the 20th Century would have seen WWI or WWII as being as long, bloody, and sordid as they were judging from the foundations already present there. I thus refuse to answer as there is ultimately only wishful thinking to answer this question, and really all of them for that matter.

Q4) Energy & technology: which will be the new energy source of the future; what major direction will technology make a leap into, and how would that reflect on society? What about space exploration? Will we be still stuck down here on Earth, or will international rivalries be merely transferred into space? And will space exploration, and technology in more general, be dominated by private initiatives or be subject to state control, and how would either scenario reflect on their development?

See number 3.


Q5) And finally, the development of society. Will there be major shifts in the way society is set up, in the way it works, and will there be social innovations that we still can't think of right now? Ultimately, are we going to achieve a Type I civilization any time soon?


See number three. People in Europe in 1900 would not have predicted the world of 2012, so we could be equally off about the world of 2112.

[ford-prefect42.livejournal.com]

Fun experiment!

First observation: "faster/cheaper" vs "slower/better" seems to assume unlimited resources on it's face. "faster/cheaper" implies that the least possible resources have been committed to that particular venture. "slower/better" means that you have labor and material resources to commit to that project that are not needed elsewhere.

Second observation: What exactly is the advantage to preserving language that may go extinct? What is the negative overall impact of languages falling into the slush pile? Is it really desireable to keep humanity divided to the greatest degree possible? Is there *really* a liberal project devoted to opposing the creation of a new "tower of babel"?



Anyway, to the quiz. 2112.

Q1) The US, Canada, and the EU have balkanized, various border wars have been fought. The US is now divided into several mutually hostile nation states. The EU has broken up, europe now is made up of 3-6 conglomerations of nation-states, which have shifted membership over the intervening years. Other than that, the lines look rather similar to today. There are movements in the lines, but relatively few overall births and deaths of nations. Even in the nations that have undergone turmoil, such as the US and Europe, the political *lines* remain relatively unchanged, missouri is still missouri, France is still France. But now the western border is an international line rather than an interstate one. The primary economic and military force in the world will be an asian industrial empire which may be China or India, depending primarilly on who exactly succeeds wen Jiabow. The significance of state boundaries, the existence of governments, etcetera, will be virtually unchanged.

Q2) There will be little to no change in the political systems of the world. None will disappear, none will completely dominate. There will continue to be the republic, the military junta, there will be somewhat fewer socialistic democracies, and virtually no libertarian democracies (unchanged from now). Most political systems will move toward quasi-authoritarian redistributive democratic forms. To the continued detriment of all.

Q3) Same old wars. Islam will play a much larger role in conflicts, with increased sectarian violence between a larger number of muslim-majority states, but that's a minor change on this sale of things.

Q4) Oil consumption and production will have fallen off dramatically. Battery technology will have improved to the point that personal transportation is primarily done using grid energy. There will be shortages of grid energy in most places, forcing transportation prices to still be high. The primary source of energy on the planet will be nuclear, with coal waning steadily, wind slowly increasing to, at that point, perhaps 20% of generated energy, PV *finally* taking primetime energy production market-share (10%), and other "renewables" matching their current penetration. Fusion power will have *just* completed large scale pilot plant trials.

Space exploration will *primarily* be being carried out by private firms, with some limited lunar colonization/manufacturing/extraction being carried out on permanent bases. Governments will be attempting to establish bases in the asteroid belts and on mars, but having limited success.

Q5) Varies by geography. The middle east will remain a repressive theocracy, western europe will be mixed repressive islamic theology with "free love future", to a very slightly greater than current extent. North America will be significantly more of a "free-love future", with significantly less stigma on deviant activity than even current (which is almost nonexistant). The nuclear family will have completely broken down, and by that point, will have been replaced by a matrilineal extended family format in which the "fathers" are virtually interchangeable and irrelevant.

Nothing will get rid of the "job".