So around 1964 Isaac Asmiov wrote an essay predicting the world of 2014 (50 years into his future). It was a gutsy thing to do since he was/in one of the most celebrated science fiction and general science writers of all time and 50 years is far enough into the future for him to be wildly wrong and close enough for his fans to see him proven wrong
Well I have no great reputation as a futurist to put at risk so I thought I'd throw the question to the floor.
What will the world be like in 2067?
My initial thoughts
1-There's 200 countries in the world today (give or take, depending on who you ask), I predict 400 in the next 50 years and that the biggest countries will be the ones most likely to split (I can see the USA splitting 3 or more ways). A risky prediction since two independence bids were shut down in the last week but I stand by it. Basically keeping a country together requires being strong all the time, pulling one apart requires the government being weak only once.
2-Of course being a country will be a lot less relevant. Transnational organizations like the EU, NAFTA and the UN will continue to tie down countries with a thousand little threads. Even those that opt out (Brexit) won't gain much since they still have to play by EU rules to trade with their neighbors.
3-The closest thing to destiny we have is demographics. The most accurate stuff in Asimov's essay were the population predictions. So I expect the demographic collapse of the 'rich world' (Western Europe, Japan, South Korea) to continue and immigration to continue to rise. More urbanization, fewer farmers.
4-War among states will be rare, while war within states or with non-state actors (ISIS) will be more common. Wars will become really polarized with casualty-adverse rich groups using more drones against insurgents who have little tech. Terrorism will become (even more) common as a way to balance the scales.
With the way things are going right now in the world, I am pretty sure that by 2067, WW3 will have already been fought.
How the world will look like after that I don't know, but I suspect that the major powers of today (US, EU, Russia, China) will be severely weakened. After that, I could very likely see an increased role for international organisations. People would want to prevent such a horrific war from occurring again, which may provide the impetus for giving the UN a lot more actual power and authority.
Of course, this could just lead to increased tension between nationalist and internationalist ideologies.
I can also foresee a conflict between the rich Western world and the poor part of the world, as the demographic decline of the West continues and immigration increases. The outcome of this conflict, if it happens, seems quite predictable to me though, considering that wealth and power is all on one side. Even with a declining population, Western elites will be able to maintain their grip on world power. Advanced technology will make up for their small population size.
And regarding technology, I could very well see increased automation leading to a fundamentally different system of economy. Also, people will live probably live longer and we will have all kinds of cool gadgets. And flying cars.
I think that unless something is done very quickly, environmental degradation (global warming, pollution & destruction of biospheres) and its cause, overpopulation, will cause most third world (food) infrastructure to collapse, leading to famine and war over the few resources left there.
This, in turn, will lead to mass migrations into the perceived safe and rich western world.
Whether or not the mass migration is allowed in or halted will determine whether the West suffers a similar fate or manages to escape the worst of the collapse.
With the current move towards ever greater polarisation in politics, however, I fear that governments will remain deadlocked, and as the world collapses around us we'll continue to squabble about minor issues as most of the world's population dies, before settling on a (lower) average population.
Hopefully, afterwards Western style birth control (1-2 children per family, enough to keep the population stable, not enough for the explosive population growth we have now) will become the global standard, rather than the exception.
Kid_Kyoto wrote: So around 1964 Isaac Asmiov wrote an essay predicting the world of 2014 (50 years into his future). It was a gutsy thing to do since he was/in one of the most celebrated science fiction and general science writers of all time and 50 years is far enough into the future for him to be wildly wrong and close enough for his fans to see him proven wrong
Well I have no great reputation as a futurist to put at risk so I thought I'd throw the question to the floor.
What will the world be like in 2067?
My initial thoughts
1-There's 200 countries in the world today (give or take, depending on who you ask), I predict 400 in the next 50 years and that the biggest countries will be the ones most likely to split (I can see the USA splitting 3 or more ways). A risky prediction since two independence bids were shut down in the last week but I stand by it. Basically keeping a country together requires being strong all the time, pulling one apart requires the government being weak only once.
You think that in 50 years the USA will be 3 separate countries?
I really don't see that happening in the next 50 years...
But other than that, you're predictions look pretty good - and you haven't even written a single SF Novel, as far as we know!
Bran Dawri wrote: I think that unless something is done very quickly, environmental degradation (global warming, pollution & destruction of biospheres) and its cause, overpopulation, will cause most third world (food) infrastructure to collapse, leading to famine and war over the few resources left there.
This, in turn, will lead to mass migrations into the perceived safe and rich western world.
Not to disagree but let me throw out something scary. Having spent a lot of time in the developing world one thing I notice is most people's food comes from somewhere pretty close. I remember having dinner with a newspaper editor in Guyana and him showing me his chicken coops.
While in the developed world our food is the end product of a very complex system of transportation and processing.
A sudden shock would do a lot more to disrupt that system than the rather robust localized systems i've seen.
You think that in 50 years the USA will be 3 separate countries?
I really don't see that happening in the next 50 years...
But other than that, you're predictions look pretty good - and you haven't even written a single SF Novel, as far as we know!
It ain't no fun if you don't say something daring!
By 2067, we could be looking at Star Wars Episode XXXII The Force Goes To Bed!
As for the US breaking up, I can see Hawaii and Puerto Rico leaving easy. Texas or California maybe. And a big old crack up for the lower 48? I wouldn't consider it impossible. I remember a story by Dr Asimov predicated the Cold War continuing another 200 years. Yugoslavia and then the Soviet Union caught a lot of folks off guard, is changing the American map really impossible?
We will be lucky to have a functional global society that far into the 21st century.
We will have very bloody resource wars, massive ethnic unrest, mas migration and heavy destabilisation.
As western nations buckle under others will become Islamified, Balkanised, turn far right or all three.
At some point during all this the global economy will collapse.
Nuclear war at some point is not inconceivable, WMD based terror attacks are increasingly likely to the pojnt that it is a matter of not if but where.
Our politicians will still want to back the easy path, short term politics will triumph as long as possible, debt will spiral, warnings ignored and futures squandered. Voters will similarly reject harsh realities in favour of promises of 'jam today'. The wrong people will end up with the blame.
Orlanth wrote: We will be lucky to have a functional global society that far into the 21st century.
We will have very bloody resource wars, massive ethnic unrest, mas migration and heavy destabilisation.
As western nations buckle under others will become Islamified, Balkanised, turn far right or all three.
At some point during all this the global economy will collapse.
Nuclear war at some point is not inconceivable, WMD based terror attacks are increasingly likely to the pojnt that it is a matter of not if but where.
Our politicians will still want to back the easy path, short term politics will triumph as long as possible, debt will spiral, warnings ignored and futures squandered. Voters will similarly reject harsh realities in favour of promises of 'jam today'. The wrong people will end up with the blame.
I think the next fifty years will be incredibly tough but I live in hope that we’ll be ok. It’s always darkest before the dawn. I’ll be 78 if I make it that far, and I hope I do.
I think the sad truth is that is exactly the belief that motivates most politicians, business leaders, and other wealthy/influential people. They're rich enough to not be impacted by the initial problems, and they'll be dead before the gak really hits the fan.
Future War Cultist wrote: I think the next fifty years will be incredibly tough but I live in hope that we’ll be ok. It’s always darkest before the dawn. I’ll be 78 if I make it that far, and I hope I do.
It's actually this sort of thinking that gets us into the mess in the first place.
In the end as a populace we are acting like animals with big brains that have the ability to exploit the world like no other. But like any animal population if it grows too large and resources become too thin then that population dwindles from either famine, pestilence or conflict.
Despite warnings things are not being heeded. Climate change is accelerating and only a third of the carbon reductions have been committed to that need to be made. On the other hand I do think we will become less reliant on imports of energy because many of the places are currently unstable. This does have ramifications. Many middle east countries rely on oil and the money that brings. Switch that off and suddenly there is no money, that will generate civil unrest and given a lot of this land is barren will likely result in increased waves of migration (on top of that caused by climate change with sea level rises and growth of deserts etc) -look at Venezuela for example.
So what I'd predict is this. Climate change will continue unabated - last years unexpected increase in CO2 despite a levelling out of emissions is concerning. It may indicate we have hit a tipping point where feedback mechanisms are coming into play (melting of permafrost and release of methane for example). This will warm the planet, sea levels will slowly rise, weather will become more extreme. Some areas will become less inhabitable (most near the equator) where large numbers of poor people live. That will result in significant global migration. How that is managed is something we will have to learn to deal with (although if Wrexit and the president who shall not be named) is to go by might not be an easy transition for some people.
People will be burning their ArmyFab kits in protest at 40k 22nd edition after the Pasta Militiamen codex gets buffed so much that the T'A'O'U 2^15 ClimateShock Suit ceases to be relevant.
Codexes will still cost more than most models.
Finecast will be looked back on fondly, now that recreational petroleum products are prohibited.
By 2067, custom genetic engineering will be taking place. Competitive sports will divide into augmented and normal divisions, briefly, before the normal divisions dwindle and it becomes all augmented all the time. Helmets will have VR cameras within them, and players will be compensated by the number of people streaming their POV. The Olympics will be waged by people that many will no longer consider human, as they are tailor made organisms well outside of the human norms of body type.
Other than intelligence buffs, metabolism modifiers, and appearance enhancements the wealthy will avoid any overt signs of genetic engineering, and privacy laws will be put into place to avoid anyone's genetic engineering status from being involuntarily shared. Scholarships or sponsor ships will be available to exceptional normal human individuals to gift their genetic material as the basis of a competitive entity.
There will be at least one space hotel, and someone will have tried asteroid mining. I suspect the industry will be characterized as a combination of crowd funding scams and improbable success stories the world hasn't seen since the early internet days of the .com boom.
Kid_Kyoto wrote: So around 1964 Isaac Asmiov wrote an essay predicting the world of 2014 (50 years into his future). It was a gutsy thing to do since he was/in one of the most celebrated science fiction and general science writers of all time and 50 years is far enough into the future for him to be wildly wrong and close enough for his fans to see him proven wrong
Well I have no great reputation as a futurist to put at risk so I thought I'd throw the question to the floor.
What will the world be like in 2067?
My initial thoughts
1-There's 200 countries in the world today (give or take, depending on who you ask), I predict 400 in the next 50 years and that the biggest countries will be the ones most likely to split (I can see the USA splitting 3 or more ways). A risky prediction since two independence bids were shut down in the last week but I stand by it. Basically keeping a country together requires being strong all the time, pulling one apart requires the government being weak only once.
2-Of course being a country will be a lot less relevant. Transnational organizations like the EU, NAFTA and the UN will continue to tie down countries with a thousand little threads. Even those that opt out (Brexit) won't gain much since they still have to play by EU rules to trade with their neighbors.
3-The closest thing to destiny we have is demographics. The most accurate stuff in Asimov's essay were the population predictions. So I expect the demographic collapse of the 'rich world' (Western Europe, Japan, South Korea) to continue and immigration to continue to rise. More urbanization, fewer farmers.
4-War among states will be rare, while war within states or with non-state actors (ISIS) will be more common. Wars will become really polarized with casualty-adverse rich groups using more drones against insurgents who have little tech. Terrorism will become (even more) common as a way to balance the scales.
So that's my start, what else we got?
I thought about offering some possibilities (from my cynical and jaded view; history favors the pessimist, after all). But in the interests of being a good sport, I will offer two.
1. Australia will be destroyed by the emus, who will rise up and finish the job. They will try to take New Zealand, but they will be blunted by heroic Kiwi Resistance Army. The kiwis will use their smaller size to wage an effective insurgency against the larger emus.
2. Weed Man will be ousted in Canada for his failure to provide free weed to every Canadian of legal stoner age.
You don't have to go back 50 years to notice that future forecasting produces awful results. Just go back 10 years to 2007 to see some awful forecasts that were miles off the mark. Thing is, our forecasts are almost always about the things we're really concerned about right now. But the things we're really concerned about are also the things that we put effort in to resolving. So those trends are exactly the ones that are most likely to end.
For instance, running out of food for the growing population has been a major concern throughout the post-war period. But because we've been aware of the problem we've put a lot of resources in to increasing crop yields and opening up new land to farming. As a result there's more surplus and wasted food produced now than ever before. Another example is hitting peak oil, which we've been calling as just around the corner for decades now - but a combination of higher oil prices and effective research has opened up more reserves to exploitation and allowed us to shift to NG and other oil replacements.
Basically, the things we're worried about right now we're almost certainly going to solve. The new issues will be stuff we didn't see coming.
So with that in mind, I predict...
There will be a new energy future where a mix of renewables steadily replaces greenhouse emitting sources. As battery tech becomes cheap most energy in the developed world becomes locally produced by solar, stored and then used locally. This new model effectively breaks the diminishing returns on energy production and in combination with increased automation drives a new surge in productivity.
The world's population will peak sometime before 2070, driven mostly through economic growth and women's equality programs in the developed world. The increase in food production up to that time will exceed the population growth.
Political stability will maintain, through a combination of isolating and containing specific negative world actors.
The current push to independence (whether its Brexit style or Catalonia style) will peter out within the next few years, as the newly seperated countries gain nothing from the process.
The current growing income inequality will be resolved, through a combination of expanded tax and transfer systems, and changing culture regarding the accumulation of mega-wealth.
Some new stuff will come out of the blue and have wild, unpredictable results that will screw up some of the above and also create a whole new set of problems we didn't even know we could have.
Smart analysis, don't agree with all of it but the thinking is basically sound.
The main error is that some of the disaster predictions were longer term and are yet to produce their fruit, but the fruit is ripening.
Concerns about deforestation from the 70's onwards are on schedule, they were not wrong, they just weren't predicting events would come to a head just around the corner.
I could definitely see a collapse, the world of today shares more than a few similarities with the late Bronze Age Mediterranean before the Bronze Age collapse, and with the late Roman Empire before its fall. A big difference is that today, the whole world is interconnected and interdependent, while back then, there were several civilisation clusters in the world, so that the Mediterranean could collapse while East Asia or Mesoamerica didn't. It could also go along as usual, with technology rapidly improving (and accelerating) like it has since the Industrial Revolution.
Orlanth wrote: Smart analysis, don't agree with all of it but the thinking is basically sound.
The main error is that some of the disaster predictions were longer term and are yet to produce their fruit, but the fruit is ripening.
Concerns about deforestation from the 70's onwards are on schedule, they were not wrong, they just weren't predicting events would come to a head just around the corner.
That's a fair point. To expand my first claim, I'd say that in many cases where the issue is identified early on when we don't act to resolve it, we at least have time to adapt to it. In many cases there is a trade off, where we identify that solving the problem is more expensive or politically harder than just learning to cope, and we choose that. The point being that a lot of forecasting seems to assume known issues and trends will continue until we hit a cliff and fall off it, but that's not something with a lot of history behind it. Most of the time when we fall off a cliff its because we had no idea it was coming.
Reading the original article by ole Isaac, he got a surprising amount of stuff pretty accurately considering he was guessing 50 years into the future based on a World's Fair from 1964!
Orlanth wrote: Smart analysis, don't agree with all of it but the thinking is basically sound.
The main error is that some of the disaster predictions were longer term and are yet to produce their fruit, but the fruit is ripening.
Concerns about deforestation from the 70's onwards are on schedule, they were not wrong, they just weren't predicting events would come to a head just around the corner.
That's a fair point. To expand my first claim, I'd say that in many cases where the issue is identified early on when we don't act to resolve it, we at least have time to adapt to it. In many cases there is a trade off, where we identify that solving the problem is more expensive or politically harder than just learning to cope, and we choose that. The point being that a lot of forecasting seems to assume known issues and trends will continue until we hit a cliff and fall off it, but that's not something with a lot of history behind it. Most of the time when we fall off a cliff its because we had no idea it was coming.
I see your point, and your initial argument that most of the perceived problems for the future are projections of current crises is a fair one. I have had to rethink my initial post as it fell into that mental trap.
Many of the problems might well be fixed and replaced by others, but by no means all. I think we need to quantify which incoming disasters are ongoing projections over several generations, and have a tracking of prediction. If long term awareness is not producing results or dovetails to a category where it is politically convenient not to apply results we can see the danger areas better.
It is this last point which is most important and shows where we differ in our thinking. You appear, correct me if I am wrong, to believe that man will develop either the technology or the will to deal with crisis issues and will be facing unrevealed threats. I can concur only up to a point, technology solves many issues, but most of our crises are where political expediency makes a solution impractical. Many of our problems will come to a head because human greed and pride gets in the way.
Environmental problems are a key example, I think nearly all of them boil down to a simple problem, the more you manage dwindling resources the more incentive there is for others to overharvest them. For example, if you introduce fishing quotas, the price of fish goes up due to supply/demand and livelihoods of fishermen are threatened. So people illegally fish, selling the fish for more and getting progressively richer and thus more motivated to ignore quotas or restrictions.
Deforestation follows a similar pattern as does carbon emissions and other environmental issues.
The other major bugbear has an identical root, national debt and short term focus for fiscal policy. Nobody likes austerity in any form, and people vote for the party offering immediate benefit. So there is no incentive for long term financial thinking in democratic politics, long term planning is punished by the electorate and opens windows for money saved to be squandered by an oncoming leader promising an immediate upturn. There is no way around this without suspending voting rights or somehow educating the electorate as to the benefits of financial patience. The potential good news here is that the global financial system is entirely managed and entirely artificial, and can be reset. Its a dichotomy, monetary crises are both devastating and illusory. So we cannot predict if a collapse will result in a catastrophe or a fizzle and reset. The latter may well be desired but would disempower the elites so is only likely in more extreme circumstances.
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Easy E wrote: Reading the original article by ole Isaac, he got a surprising amount of stuff pretty accurately considering he was guessing 50 years into the future based on a World's Fair from 1964!
Visionary.
Here is another one, Arthur C Clarke predicts internet society:
Orlanth wrote: I see your point, and your initial argument that most of the perceived problems for the future are projections of current crises is a fair one. I have had to rethink my initial post as it fell into that mental trap.
Many of the problems might well be fixed and replaced by others, but by no means all. I think we need to quantify which incoming disasters are ongoing projections over several generations, and have a tracking of prediction. If long term awareness is not producing results or dovetails to a category where it is politically convenient not to apply results we can see the danger areas better.
It is this last point which is most important and shows where we differ in our thinking. You appear, correct me if I am wrong, to believe that man will develop either the technology or the will to deal with crisis issues and will be facing unrevealed threats. I can concur only up to a point, technology solves many issues, but most of our crises are where political expediency makes a solution impractical. Many of our problems will come to a head because human greed and pride gets in the way.
I probably gave the impression that I think technology or will alone will stop anything we can see coming, but I think its a bit more complex than that. I think that when we are aware of a problem, then in addition to technology and government policy there is also a level of social adjustment, people modifying their own behaviour.
An example is housing and debt leveraging in the finance sector, which caused the GFC. Before then people were aware of the risks of a housing crash but there was general ignorance about how much off balance sheet exposure there was in the greater finance sector, through derivative financial products. After the crisis there were huge calls to do something, and while bits and pieces were done in many countries, nothing real was done anywhere that would prevent the same. And of course there's no technological fix to the issue. But what did happen is that investors are now hyper-aware of off-balance sheet exposures, and any board that can't give a satisfactory answer to its potential derivative exposures will not last long. Because people are now aware of the issue individuals themselves adjust. As a result we're not going to see that same financial shock flowing through the system a second time.
Instead we'll get a whole new economic meltdown based around something new
Environmental problems are a key example, I think nearly all of them boil down to a simple problem, the more you manage dwindling resources the more incentive there is for others to overharvest them. For example, if you introduce fishing quotas, the price of fish goes up due to supply/demand and livelihoods of fishermen are threatened. So people illegally fish, selling the fish for more and getting progressively richer and thus more motivated to ignore quotas or restrictions.
Deforestation follows a similar pattern as does carbon emissions and other environmental issues.
I've seen some amazing work done in commercial fish farms, both as harvested stock and to repopulate areas. With deforestation its more complex, and even though we now have large scale commercial timber it hasn't solved the issue.
But those are just examples, I get your overall point and it is fair. It is certainly true that quotas and controls in themselves are not sufficient. Nor are the tech issues I mentioned above sufficient by themselves. But a combination of policy, tech and cultural changes are sufficient, I believe, if we are aware of the problem ahead of time.
The other major bugbear has an identical root, national debt and short term focus for fiscal policy. Nobody likes austerity in any form, and people vote for the party offering immediate benefit. So there is no incentive for long term financial thinking in democratic politics, long term planning is punished by the electorate and opens windows for money saved to be squandered by an oncoming leader promising an immediate upturn. There is no way around this without suspending voting rights or somehow educating the electorate as to the benefits of financial patience. The potential good news here is that the global financial system is entirely managed and entirely artificial, and can be reset. Its a dichotomy, monetary crises are both devastating and illusory. So we cannot predict if a collapse will result in a catastrophe or a fizzle and reset. The latter may well be desired but would disempower the elites so is only likely in more extreme circumstances.
That's a very good line 'monetary crises are both devastating and illusory'. I am going to steal that. I don't entirely agree with the rest - long term government debt is an issue, but this isn't really because the public doesn't worry about it. In fact the public often ranks government debt a much higher priority than macro-economists. I think this is because the public doesn't understand how total economic growth reduces the pressure of government debt. That doesn't mean all debt is good and that debt can go as high as whatever (which unfortunately is something some people will claim), but solutions that are popular with the public will often cause more harm to growth than they'd reduce debt.
Ultimately the issue with government debt isn't that we need more responsibility, its that we need a better informed debate.
1-There's 200 countries in the world today (give or take, depending on who you ask), I predict 400 in the next 50 years and that the biggest countries will be the ones most likely to split (I can see the USA splitting 3 or more ways). A risky prediction since two independence bids were shut down in the last week but I stand by it. Basically keeping a country together requires being strong all the time, pulling one apart requires the government being weak only once.
2-Of course being a country will be a lot less relevant. Transnational organizations like the EU, NAFTA and the UN will continue to tie down countries with a thousand little threads. Even those that opt out (Brexit) won't gain much since they still have to play by EU rules to trade with their neighbors.
3-The closest thing to destiny we have is demographics. The most accurate stuff in Asimov's essay were the population predictions. So I expect the demographic collapse of the 'rich world' (Western Europe, Japan, South Korea) to continue and immigration to continue to rise. More urbanization, fewer farmers.
4-War among states will be rare, while war within states or with non-state actors (ISIS) will be more common. Wars will become really polarized with casualty-adverse rich groups using more drones against insurgents who have little tech. Terrorism will become (even more) common as a way to balance the scales.
So that's my start, what else we got?
On #2, It may the pessimist in me, or the dystopian vision I have for the future, but I see less power in nations and organizations like the EU/NATO/UN, etc. and more power going to corporations. We may not be the United States of BP, but we may be in all but name given the sway many large companies have over the US government in particular (and I honestly don't know how much sway they have in other countries)
We'll all be evading oversized radioactive bugs and monsters, fighting our neighbours for the last packs of Blamco's Mac and Cheese, Salisbury Steak and Sugar Bombs; and waging war against each in the name of bastardized early 20th Century ideologies - the Brotherhood of Fascism and the Antifa Legion.
Unless we're all just angry men with cowhide armour trying to storm a wooden palisade by building a dirt ramp up to it.
I see you missed the reference?
No no I know it's fallout.
I just think fallout is silly for saying so. Being a popular game series does not allow one to abandon logic in pursuit of pithy silliness.
I think your mistake is interpreting it literally.
The theme of Fallout is about the human emotions and vices that lead to War. Greed. Envy. Hatred. Prejudice. Jingoism. Nationalism. Religious Fundamentalism. Its a dark, dystopian analysis of the human psyche.
And as such, the term "War never changes" refers not to the technology and weapons used to wage war, but the motivations behind why humanity wages war.
Hm, let me see if I can put in my two cents on this.
50 years isn't a long time, really. So I can't imagine many big changes that would be startling to us here and now.
America's fight on net neutrality will be over marking the end of the Information Age. Citing security reasons, the government will leave it to companies to have the internet regulated with paywalls/packages much in the same way cable providers offer them. News and information will have started to be regulated to the paying demographic.
This will not stop places like libraries, and places of education, from still being a resource of info, knowledge, and news for those in lower paywall demographics.
College education will continue to suffer from problems of rising cost and job placement. Trade schools will see a rise of attendance for people unable to afford the debt that college inflicts.
Tech will continue to progress and offer means for people to be connected, and distracted.
Unless we're all just angry men with cowhide armour trying to storm a wooden palisade by building a dirt ramp up to it.
I see you missed the reference?
No no I know it's fallout.
I just think fallout is silly for saying so. Being a popular game series does not allow one to abandon logic in pursuit of pithy silliness.
I think your mistake is interpreting it literally.
The theme of Fallout is about the human emotions and vices that lead to War. Greed. Envy. Hatred. Prejudice. Jingoism. Nationalism. Religious Fundamentalism. Its a dark, dystopian analysis of the human psyche.
And as such, the term "War never changes" refers not to the technology and weapons used to wage war, but the motivations behind why humanity wages war.
But wouldn't that just be "humans never change?" Equating something with its motivations is a linguistic stretch. That's what bothers me. It's like saying that "Coke never changes" because humans have always wanted something to drink.
Cream Tea wrote: I could definitely see a collapse, the world of today shares more than a few similarities with the late Bronze Age Mediterranean before the Bronze Age collapse, and with the late Roman Empire before its fall. A big difference is that today, the whole world is interconnected and interdependent, while back then, there were several civilisation clusters in the world, so that the Mediterranean could collapse while East Asia or Mesoamerica didn't. It could also go along as usual, with technology rapidly improving (and accelerating) like it has since the Industrial Revolution.
My prediction is that the global organizations, like the EU and UN, will actually become irrelevant. Even now, the EU is fracturing. Give it another 50 years or so and I think most of the members will have realized that it was a huge mistake. And heck, the UN is basically irrelevant as it is right now. They have no real power to enforce any legislation without the consent of the involved parties, and the Veto bearing members are usually at odds with each other so nothing meaningful can get passed anyway.
You'll see more fracturing of global politics, not more consolidation.
I just think fallout is silly for saying so. Being a popular game series does not allow one to abandon logic in pursuit of pithy silliness.
The quote has been stripped of its original context in subsequent games. This is from the first game;
"War. War never changes. The Romans waged war to gather slaves and wealth. Spain built an empire from its lust for gold and territory. Hitler shaped a battered Germany into an economic superpower. But war never changes. In the 21st century, war was still waged over the resources that could be acquired. Only this time, the spoils of war were also its weapons: Petroleum and Uranium."
It goes on from there. It's saying that wars are always over resources. I don't agree with the actual, FWIW, but it was internally consistent. I agree the quote makes little sense in later games, because it was just given as a single line, often used to intro war terms of total planetary destruction, which is the exact opposite of war never changing.
1) An increase in population, pollution, and limited resources causes a small renaissance of technological advancement. I think we may be seeing a bit of it now with space exploration taking off again a bit, electric cars that are economical, and the internet becoming close to ubiquitous due to the smart phones being more or less available world wide. Not sure if 50 years is enough time where we may be living on Mars or the Moon in any significant numbers but I think we would be on the cusp of that. I think that material sciences may also be primed for some interesting advancements in the next 50 years.
2) One of the existing rogue states with nuclear weapons, or one that develops or steals them in the near future basically starts WWIII. This could easily escalate wildly out of control and will end with a horrific death toll, to be honest it is a minor miracle something like this has not already happened considering how many times the USSR and the United States came close to nuclear war, often times only avoiding it through what can be generously considered dumb luck. I think once enough countries/groups have nuclear weapons the worlds dumb luck runs out eventually.
While I realize I started with the World, it might be good to give some specific thoughts to America in 2017 (though many will apply to all of the rich world).
1. You probably never heard of it - The Balkanization of culture will continue and grow with no one watching the same shows, listening to the same music or reading the same books. The idea of a common culture even with touchstones like Shakespeare, Mark Twain or I Love Lucy is already being lost and may vanish entirely. We live in a world where every TV show, book, movie, song ever made are available always at any time so there's no reason to be exposed to stuff outside your bubble, because everyone's bubble is big and getting bigger. I spend way too much time on GW stuff and I cannot claim to have read every rule book from the last few years, much less every novel, audiobook, etc, etc. I can't even keep up with my own bubble, where is the time for a common culture or getting into someone else's bubble?
2. Fake News - now extend that to news and history and it gets scary. Why are we suddenly re-litigating the Civil War? Why is the status of George Washington or Christopher Columbus in question? Because we're retreating into our own news/history/culture bubbles but, unlike what music you listen to, our understanding of history and the present has real impacts in law, economics and voting. And if there's no common understanding of those then how do you make policy? Which brings me to...
3. Disunited States - With no common culture or history (or religion or language) the question becomes why are we hanging out together? I don't think anyone would be shocked to hear a prediction that Puerto Rico or Guam will eventually go their own way (though PR voted this year in favor of statehood). What if I threw Alaska, Hawaii, California, Texas or even the old South into that mix? I won't draw a map, but I will predict that in 2067 the United States will be smaller and there will be several splinter states.
Assuming the Federal Government allows it. As for Fake News, it ought to be shouted down as what it is whenever it shows its ugly face. Lies. Falsehoods. Propaganda.
And while I'm not very familiar with the history or status of George Washington or aware of a reinterpretation of his role, Cristopher Columbus' reinterpretation I can see some logic to it.
But then, we in Europe never had the reverence for him that the USA seems to.
The world will be one of renewable energy and electric powered vehicles by 2067... while we have to build seawalls around all of our coastal cities due to the effects of global warming. Basically, I forsee humanity adopting clean energy far too late to have prevented global climate change. At that point the debate over global climate change won't be over it's existence but how best to mitigate it. I also forsee the migrant crisis in Europe to get much, much, much worse as droughts worsen in Africa. China might even start seeing folks trying to get in. By then the EU will also fracture and we may even see another European war.
Unless we reform the election process the US will likely see another civil war. Probably a very brief one but some stats *Cough* California *Cough* will attempt secession. That or some states may break off from the mega-cities in them due to the conservative/liberal divide. I do think the US will have "City-states" in the future. Also, due to mega hurricanes annually wiping entire communities off the map the US government might start slowly evacuating much of the American south east. That, or we start building stuff there to be extremely hardy.
Also, World of Warcraft will announce it's new expansion: World of Warcraft: Return to Pandaria (Again) (again)
In 2067, the Millenials and Echo-boomers and Generation Y will all be calling the Gnereation behind them lazy and the reason no one can have nice things!
TheCustomLime wrote: The world will be one of renewable energy and electric powered vehicles by 2067... while we have to build seawalls around all of our coastal cities due to the effects of global warming. Basically, I forsee humanity adopting clean energy far too late to have prevented global climate change. At that point the debate over global climate change won't be over it's existence but how best to mitigate it.
Honestly, what I've seen of the discussion within the scientific community is already over how to mitigate it. The scientists at my school are working with/on models that slow down warming, rather than reverse it, because the consensus is that it is already too late to reverse the process.
Now, whether 50 years from now means the common lay-person congress-critter (lay-person as in, non-scientific background) is having this same debate as it going on today??? Well, judging by what evidence we have from some sectors of the governmental halls, I doubt it.
Bran Dawri wrote: Assuming the Federal Government allows it. As for Fake News, it ought to be shouted down as what it is whenever it shows its ugly face. Lies. Falsehoods. Propaganda.
And while I'm not very familiar with the history or status of George Washington or aware of a reinterpretation of his role, Cristopher Columbus' reinterpretation I can see some logic to it.
But then, we in Europe never had the reverence for him that the USA seems to.
See, as an American, I don't really see that we revere Columbus much at all. He's certainly not anywhere close to revered as the Founding Fathers or any other number of important figures. We just have a holiday named after him. I've never met anybody who really holds him up as some pillar of our society. He just discovered the continent and as far as I can tell he's given due credit.
Discovering a new continent and basically changing the course of western civilization seems at least worth one day off work each year. Regardless of how you feel about the rest of what he did.
I really don't get why people are all offended over Columbus Day. Sure, he was pretty cruel to the natives. So were tons of other (in)famous conquistadors. It's just part of the history.
I remember a friend commenting on the film Children of Men, saying one of the most amazing things about that film is that the world is ending, but it barely changes how anyone behaves because here in the real world we already act like the world is going to end.
It was an interesting point that I never fully believed. This thread has helped me understand that point, understand the movie, and maybe also understand a lot about why people do what they do.
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Grey Templar wrote: See, as an American, I don't really see that we revere Columbus much at all. He's certainly not anywhere close to revered as the Founding Fathers or any other number of important figures. We just have a holiday named after him. I've never met anybody who really holds him up as some pillar of our society. He just discovered the continent and as far as I can tell he's given due credit.
Discovering a new continent and basically changing the course of western civilization seems at least worth one day off work each year. Regardless of how you feel about the rest of what he did.
He landed in the Bahamas. He later went to Puerto Rico, and while he did reach the coast of Central America. But it's kind of debatable what he discovered, because he certainly had no idea. He always believed where he'd landed was part of Asia, and not a new continent. So despite his amazing good fortune of bumping in to a new continent while on a fool's errand, he doubled down on his stupidity and insisting on being wrong until his death.
Nor was he the first to reach the new world. He just happened to do it at a time when Europe was ready to follow his journey with a massive expansion of trade.
I really don't get why people are all offended over Columbus Day. Sure, he was pretty cruel to the natives. So were tons of other (in)famous conquistadors. It's just part of the history.
He was unacceptably brutal even by the standards of the time, and that's saying something. He was removed by Spain from his role as governor, and an investigation in to his brutality was undertaken. They found Columbus routinely mutilated people, cutting off ears and tongues for the slightest of offences. Because of his connections and the fact he'd made the crown very rich his prison sentence was ended and he was funded to go exploring again, but he was never given another governorship.
So yeah, Columbus, staggering idiot and a brutal monster. Who never reached mainland USA, and never even knew what he'd actually found. I'm not offended by Columbus Day, but you guys have hundreds of amazing people who did amazing things, who never cut out a single human's tongue and actually knew what continent they were on, so it does seem a strange choice for a person to celebrate.
Bran Dawri wrote: Assuming the Federal Government allows it. As for Fake News, it ought to be shouted down as what it is whenever it shows its ugly face. Lies. Falsehoods. Propaganda.
And while I'm not very familiar with the history or status of George Washington or aware of a reinterpretation of his role, Cristopher Columbus' reinterpretation I can see some logic to it.
But then, we in Europe never had the reverence for him that the USA seems to.
See, as an American, I don't really see that we revere Columbus much at all. He's certainly not anywhere close to revered as the Founding Fathers or any other number of important figures. We just have a holiday named after him. I've never met anybody who really holds him up as some pillar of our society. He just discovered the continent and as far as I can tell he's given due credit.
Discovering a new continent and basically changing the course of western civilization seems at least worth one day off work each year. Regardless of how you feel about the rest of what he did.
I really don't get why people are all offended over Columbus Day. Sure, he was pretty cruel to the natives. So were tons of other (in)famous conquistadors. It's just part of the history.
Probably has to do with how, some of us of a certain age "learned" about the "great explorer" from around 1st grade through 7th or 8th grade, if not on into high school. . . It wasn't until University courses that I had an honest class about him (mind you, I'd read some actual history books that involved him/his actions prior to, so no big surprises)
I don't think that its so much that we hero worship Columbus. .. .but the education system definitely holds him in a VERY rose-tinted light.
Human cybernetics. Eye implants that all normal vision from semi- and full blindness. Eye implants that allow a soldier to see in 50x magnification, IR spectrum, and with HUD to determine friendlies from not-friendlies without a visor or helmet.
well the mathetician giant Isaac Newton spent most of his time on the end of the world and it is supposed to be in that very decade by his calculations.
interesting.
As a Farmer I an told by the industry that the world will have a population of about 10 to 11 billion by then.
As a person that understands basic math and history I think the industry is way way off.
So lets see...almost a doubling in 100 years then 75 years, then 40 years....
Yea....I think more like 15 billion during those future dates and there is no way we can feed that many even if GMO's triple our food supply. Sorry 3rd worlders...you need to stop the breeding us into extinction.
Is it the 3rd world eating us out of house and homeworld?
By all accounts in the news, it is Western meat-eaters taking up lots of the land for animal feed, and leaving little for actual food.
As for 2067:
People will see little need to travel as much, as remote access to most information and experiences will bring everything to them.
Less travel makes tourism less desirable, and places that rely on it will suffer. Some countries rely on it, and will have to turn to other ways to exist.
Skinnereal wrote: Is it the 3rd world eating us out of house and homeworld? By all accounts in the news, it is Western meat-eaters taking up lots of the land for animal feed, and leaving little for actual food.
Wait is it only westerners who eat meat?
I always got meat in my Chinese and Indian and Thai and Russian food... am I doing it wrong?
Get rich and stop substence farming.
Allow women to control their fertility.
Reduce infant mortality.
Actually, subsistence farmers don't have all that staggering birthrates (higher than post-industrial societies, but nothing shocking). After all, on a small farm a few children are enough to do all the work, and any extra child is simply an extra mouth to feed. Agricultural societies tend to have very stable populations with little growth. The really high birthrates are mostly found in industrial societies, where every child can earn money by working, and thus the more children you have the more income you get. Just look at historic population graphs to see the huge population booms in different places in the world coinciding with the increasing importance of industry there. And unfortunately enough, the only way to get rich and develop a post-industrial society with low birth rates are by going through that industrial phase and its huge population boom. So getting rich actually leads to more people, not less.
Skinnereal wrote: Is it the 3rd world eating us out of house and homeworld?
By all accounts in the news, it is Western meat-eaters taking up lots of the land for animal feed, and leaving little for actual food.
Wait is it only westerners who eat meat?
I always got meat in my Chinese and Indian and Thai and Russian food... am I doing it wrong?
I think the media has a thing about the amount of meat eaten in the Western World. The articles I remember reading imply that 'Easterners' eat less meat, using less farmland to produce it.
Skinnereal wrote: Is it the 3rd world eating us out of house and homeworld?
By all accounts in the news, it is Western meat-eaters taking up lots of the land for animal feed, and leaving little for actual food.
Wait is it only westerners who eat meat?
I always got meat in my Chinese and Indian and Thai and Russian food... am I doing it wrong?
I think the media has a thing about the amount of meat eaten in the Western World. The articles I remember reading imply that 'Easterners' eat less meat, using less farmland to produce it.
Oh, if the media says it, it must be true. Carry on.
Skinnereal wrote: Is it the 3rd world eating us out of house and homeworld?
By all accounts in the news, it is Western meat-eaters taking up lots of the land for animal feed, and leaving little for actual food.
Wait is it only westerners who eat meat?
I always got meat in my Chinese and Indian and Thai and Russian food... am I doing it wrong?
I think the media has a thing about the amount of meat eaten in the Western World. The articles I remember reading imply that 'Easterners' eat less meat, using less farmland to produce it.
Oh, if the media says it, it must be true. Carry on.
"Meat demand is associated with higher incomes and a shift - due to urbanisation - to food consumption changes that favour increased proteins from animal sources in diets."
The media are going by 'per capita' - the average amount eaten by a person in a year and the more affluent First Worlders score high on that chart. 'Total meat consumed by nation' seems harder to find...
"Meat demand is associated with higher incomes and a shift - due to urbanisation - to food consumption changes that favour increased proteins from animal sources in diets."
MarkNorfolk wrote:The media are going by 'per capita' - the average amount eaten by a person in a year and the more affluent First Worlders score high on that chart. 'Total meat consumed by nation' seems harder to find...
The chart is above yours.
If only those Western Developed Nations like Paraguay and Uruguay would leave meat for those poorer countries that consume less, like the collective 28 nations of the EU.
"Meat demand is associated with higher incomes and a shift - due to urbanisation - to food consumption changes that favour increased proteins from animal sources in diets."
WTH Israel? Do people eat anything besides chicken over there? :p Anyways, I would like to propose that any country that consumes more than 30kg of any kind of meat per person per year takes drastic measures to reduce such extravagant consumption. It surprises me that the EU doesn't consume more meat. Coming from Russia to the Netherlands, the much larger amounts of meat people eat here I definitely noticed. Here you often get a big hump of meat with every meal, whereas in Russia meat is usually only served as a component of specific dishes. I think the high meat consumption of the north-western countries in the EU is pulled down by the lower meat consumption of Eastern European countries which have culinary traditions similar to Russia and Southern European countries like Italy where afaik they also do not eat a lot of meat.
Well my vegetarian friends talk about 16 pounds of grain can be grown for 1 pound of meat. Yet almost all good agriculture land is in grains or other fruiting/vegetable crops. For the most part the animals are in small contained areas or in open pasture that has horrible conditions to grow much of anything. So the animals do not take up valuable land resources.
The current practices feed those grain crops to the animal herds. That is where the abundance of grain stores are diverted.
Still when the average family in Indonesia is 17....there is something definitely wrong.
In the 80's there was a glut of mountains of wheat in the USA. Meanwhile European farmers were producing about 2 to 1 or better in yields per acre. Now the USA farmers have managed similar yields....but there is a shortage of Wheat except for in Russia. Why....Field Corn is being grown instead and sold for Ethanol and far less wheat is grown the world over. No more mountains of left over food.
Fun Fact: 90% by volume of food produced in the USA is a grain/vegetable type....only 10% are from flowering fruit (ie tomatoes and almonds) So the crisis on honey bees will be pushed aside if food shortages get bad worldwide for the consideration of pure volume of foodstocks. Supply and demand will give variety to the rich and a mono diet to the unfortunate.
Skinnereal wrote: Is it the 3rd world eating us out of house and homeworld?
By all accounts in the news, it is Western meat-eaters taking up lots of the land for animal feed, and leaving little for actual food.
Yes and no.
There is a lot of misinformation regarding meat production out there. You really shouldn't trust most of the information that comes from the anti-meat side of the aisle. They use data that is ancient or outright lies. like propaganda about Chicken Growth Hormones, which haven't been used for over 60 years, yet they'll claim they still get used. Or a general distrust of medicating animals for anything. yeah, lets withhold medical treatment from these animals, thats humane and healthy...
First off, not all agricultural land is created equal. You also need to differentiate between Arable and non-Arable land. Arable land is land you can actually grow crops on, but non-arable land can still be used for food production. Namely grazing, which produces meat and milk. So its not a case of Either/Or production. There are plenty of places you can graze livestock which is utterly useless for anything else.
The real inefficiencies, if you are talking about theoretically producing the maximum possible food, is when you're feeding stuff like grain to cattle instead of grazing them. Cows have a rather inefficient feed conversion ratio and they are slow to mature. You can speed the process up by feeding them high calorie corn. but Corn itself is a very inefficient food crop, its high in calories, but it takes way more space to grow an equivalent amount of food than with other crops.
Pigs and Chickens however are much more efficient producers of meat. While Cows have a feed conversion ratio of roughly 6:1(6 lbs of feed per pound of weight gain), Pigs are around 2.44:1 while Chickens are 2:1.
So really. Heavy meat consumption isn't really an issue in and of itself. Its that we largely prefer the "wrong kind" of meat. We like very tasty beef.
Of course, this is if you are artificially viewing the world as a single homogeneous entity and disregard logistics of moving food from one place to another. Realistically, you should divide the world into food systems. Treat each portion of the world separately and diagnose their food problem's on an individual basis.
Lets just go by continent.
Africa is the main problem child here in terms of food production. Large growing populations, but no means to sustain them. This is actually largely to blame on the physical attributes of the area. Africa has poor availability of good arable land. There simply isn't good crop production potential. Africa doesn't have enough landmass in the Temperate zones to provide good soil for crop production. This has led to Africa importing a lot of food, namely cheap grain from North America. Sure, they need it badly. However this has led to their local food production being out competed, so they haven't developed any self-sufficiency.
North America, and Europe to a lesser extent, on the other hand, has the opposite problem(if you can truly call it a problem). Being largely in the temperate zone of the world means we have huge quantities of good arable land and fertile soil. This is largely which led to western civilization being so successful in the first place. In some ways, too successful. We have to artificially limit crop production, paying farmers not the grow crops. We use so little of our potential crop land, we have the luxury of being able to devote crops to raising vast quantities of better tasting, but energy inefficient, meats while letting land lie unused. So its not really a squandering of resources to devote stuff to inefficient meat production, its simply a product of having the best resource distribution and having the excess resources to devote to better quality things.
The logistical constraints of moving food around the world means that even though all the food which gets wasted by western civilization could theoretically be used to feed areas of the world which are starving, it's practically speaking not possible to actually drive out those inefficiencies. The food we waste is usually food which spoils quickly and couldn't get shipped over to africa in the first place. The food which we waste less of, grain products, is stuff which does actually get sold to places in Africa.
Africa is also not helped by having massive corruption problems. Civil wars, tribal conflicts, corrupt governments, and other sources of conflict serve to keep Africa from developing the infrastructure and stability needed to be self-sufficient. Socially, many places are still in the stone age, but trying to grasp modern developments and as a result having massive social issues.
Ethanol is of course total cancer. It artificially drives up the price of corn, and is even less efficient than growing beef. It drives up the price of meat, dairy, and general transportation costs.
kronk wrote:Human cybernetics. Eye implants that all normal vision from semi- and full blindness. Eye implants that allow a soldier to see in 50x magnification, IR spectrum, and with HUD to determine friendlies from not-friendlies without a visor or helmet.
I can't find it right now there was a twitter rant about AI/neural nets and how easily it can be deceived to miss-categorise (with tiny changes that are not visible for humans but confound neural nets) and why killer drones should never be automated and one can't rely on those for decision making. The soldiers might think they see friendlies or not-friendlies and implicitly trust the system but end up killing their own buddies without knowing why they were categorised as enemies.
admironheart wrote:well the mathetician giant Isaac Newton spent most of his time on the end of the world and it is supposed to be in that very decade by his calculations.
interesting.
As a Farmer I an told by the industry that the world will have a population of about 10 to 11 billion by then.
As a person that understands basic math and history I think the industry is way way off.
So lets see...almost a doubling in 100 years then 75 years, then 40 years....
Yea....I think more like 15 billion during those future dates and there is no way we can feed that many even if GMO's triple our food supply. Sorry 3rd worlders...you need to stop the breeding us into extinction.
So lets see...almost a doubling in 100 years then 75 years, then 40 years....
Back of the envelope calculations like yours are not a good way to dispute actual studies on population growth. Because people who do this for a living track not just the current growth in the population, but also the rate of change in population growth and the factors causing that change. Their figures are better than yours.
Yea....I think more like 15 billion during those future dates and there is no way we can feed that many even if GMO's triple our food supply. Sorry 3rd worlders...you need to stop the breeding us into extinction.
We could have 20 billion people if we lived like many in the third world do. We don't want to live that like, which is fine and good, but we should stop pretending that sheer population numbers are the problem - resource consumption by wealthier countries is at least half the problem.
I always got meat in my Chinese and Indian and Thai and Russian food... am I doing it wrong?
Go to China, go get a meal outside of Beijing or Shanghai, and sit there expecting something like the food you get in a western Chinese restaurant. You will get quite a shock
admironheart wrote: Still when the average family in Indonesia is 17....there is something definitely wrong.
There is something wrong, with your stat. In Indonesia there is 2.44 children per woman. Miles below the figure you gave.
For what its worth, this number has dropped from close to 6 in 1960. The reduction in rates like that is precisely why the rate of population growth is falling.
In the 80's there was a glut of mountains of wheat in the USA. Meanwhile European farmers were producing about 2 to 1 or better in yields per acre. Now the USA farmers have managed similar yields....but there is a shortage of Wheat except for in Russia. Why....Field Corn is being grown instead and sold for Ethanol and far less wheat is grown the world over. No more mountains of left over food.
Actually its because global trade negotiations and internal government reforms stopped the nonsense of protecting over supply of wheat. The idea that we shouldn't produce double the wheat we need seemed like a no brainer.
I always got meat in my Chinese and Indian and Thai and Russian food... am I doing it wrong?
Go to China, go get a meal outside of Beijing or Shanghai, and sit there expecting something like the food you get in a western Chinese restaurant. You will get quite a shock
Or New Delhi. Consuming beef is illegal in many parts of the country.
Kid_Kyoto wrote: Or New Delhi. Consuming beef is illegal in many parts of the country.
You can get beef in Delhi, you just have to go to the Tibetan quarter. I went there just for the sake of saying I'd eaten beef in Delhi. And there I discovered momos. And they are glorious.
sebster wrote: Go to China, go get a meal outside of Beijing or Shanghai, and sit there expecting something like the food you get in a western Chinese restaurant. You will get quite a shock
Kid_Kyoto wrote: Or New Delhi. Consuming beef is illegal in many parts of the country.
You can get beef in Delhi, you just have to go to the Tibetan quarter. I went there just for the sake of saying I'd eaten beef in Delhi. And there I discovered momos. And they are glorious.
And at the Canadian Embassy, but sssssh it's a secret.
sebster wrote: There is something wrong, with your stat.
A couple points from those posts. It Assumes that the population growth will fall in line with his model. over 30% of the population in the developing world are under 15 and will reproduce at the rates that explodes the population.
In the one chart he makes a critical error. He states there is an expotential growth from 1900 to 1960. That is really incorrect. There has been real linear growth for a couple hundred years now by actual numbers. He says since 1970 we have been linear.....I say we have been linear since by actual numbers.
Example of his numbers as false: 10 million population thru 1 billion. He said the actual surviving children were 2 for each parent set. This is a flat line scale. Obviously it is more like 2.5 or 3 at the very least. So don't take everything he says as fact.... 'the experts' have a knack of distorting the truth to prop up their arguments to make themselves more important.
Some unlikely conclusions of the speaker. First, history showed that India had a consistent famine and death cycle for a long long time. Then in the 1920's modern Fertilization and Farming practices were introduced and there was that 'population explosion' the speaker spoke of. Same number of kids...they just did not die now as often.
China and India at both in a race to keep the title the most populace so there has been encouragement to grow their numbers
The speaker 'assumes' that INVESTMENT will happen. That will be shoddily done at best. Humans for the most part have never proved to be altruistic to look after each other long term. We are too concerned with our own cultures. So there will always be peoples that will never move out of the 'shoe' box. Those will continue to grow our population.
Cultures like the Asian sub continent and Africa have VASTLY DIFFERENT experiences than the western world and to assume they will become as educated and consumeristic as us is a long reach. Why do westerners always think others will behave like us. That is elitist thinking and an insult to other cultures.
Wars and Food will determine if we stay at 9 billion or surpass 15 billion in the next 40 years.....not this guys' boxes of assumptions.
Automatically Appended Next Post: fun fact:
China is one of the worlds greatest producers of food
They are number one in Apples, Pigs, Rice, wheat, potato,Grapes, Sheep, Goat and many more.
20% of the worlds food supply on 10% of the worlds agriculture lands
admironheart wrote: A couple points from those posts. It Assumes that the population growth will fall in line with his model. over 30% of the population in the developing world are under 15 and will reproduce at the rates that explodes the population.
Look at all the stuff you posted, without ever admitting you were miles wrong about Indonesian birth rates. Happy to have a conversation about this, but there's no point when you'll claim stats that are wrong by a factor of 7, and then when corrected you'll just switch to other stats without ever acknowledging the error.
In the one chart he makes a critical error.
What chart? Later on you refer to 'a speaker' who made false conclusions - what speaker? Who are you addressing the rest of your post towards?
Cultures like the Asian sub continent and Africa have VASTLY DIFFERENT experiences than the western world and to assume they will become as educated and consumeristic as us is a long reach. Why do westerners always think others will behave like us. That is elitist thinking and an insult to other cultures.
No-one is assuming anything. Countries like China and India are rapidly expanding their education, and developing strong consumer cultures. This transformation is happening right now, in part it is directed by government policy, in part it is a natural result of ecnomic development. There's nothing elitist about recognizing the reality in front of us.
Grey Templar wrote: Ethanol is of course total cancer. It artificially drives up the price of corn, and is even less efficient than growing beef. It drives up the price of meat, dairy, and general transportation costs.
Whole heartedly agree with you. My state is a major producer of corn, and so of course is home to a huge ethanol lobby, but ethanol is a really gakky scam that just shifts gas costs elsewhere.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
sebster wrote: for the sake of saying I'd eaten beef in Delhi. And there I discovered momos. And they are glorious.
Was it beef, or water buffalo? And if it was water buffalo, can you (or anyone else) say what it tasted like? I bet it's just like beef.
Ouze wrote: Was it beef, or water buffalo? And if it was water buffalo, can you (or anyone else) say what it tasted like? I bet it's just like beef.
It said beef on the menu, and I was told they are allowed to sell beef in the Tibetan quarter. But it might have been water buffalo. I mean, it might have been dog for all I know, once you mince it, wrap it in dough, steam it and eat it with chilli sauce it could be damn near anything
Ouze wrote: Was it beef, or water buffalo? And if it was water buffalo, can you (or anyone else) say what it tasted like? I bet it's just like beef.
It said beef on the menu, and I was told they are allowed to sell beef in the Tibetan quarter. But it might have been water buffalo. I mean, it might have been dog for all I know, once you mince it, wrap it in dough, steam it and eat it with chilli sauce it could be damn near anything
Soylent Green?
Speaking of food, anyone have any thoughts on the state of water resources in 2067?
Ouze wrote: Was it beef, or water buffalo? And if it was water buffalo, can you (or anyone else) say what it tasted like? I bet it's just like beef.
It said beef on the menu, and I was told they are allowed to sell beef in the Tibetan quarter. But it might have been water buffalo. I mean, it might have been dog for all I know, once you mince it, wrap it in dough, steam it and eat it with chilli sauce it could be damn near anything
Soylent Green?
Speaking of food, anyone have any thoughts on the state of water resources in 2067?
Water is a funny thing. The truth is that Earth has the same amount of water as it had at the dawn of time. Water never runs out or gets used up. Its just a question of having it at the place where it's convenient for you.
I think you'll see a lot more dams and other water storage systems get built to compensate for loss of snow pack in areas where water is becoming less abundant. Certain areas of course will enjoy the opposite. They'll get more rainfall.
A good technology to look into would be ways to channel surface water directly into aquifers. Either by lakes which you drill a large pipe to allow the water to directly go back into the ground, a reverse well if you will.
For water there's going to have to be a #$%^ load of desalination going on. Rising sea levels will turn a lot of deltas into undrinkable swamps and we're already exhausting ground water that took epochs to form.
Plus changing rain patterns, less snow etc.
That leaves the seas. Desalination. Israel and the Gulf already rely on it.
1. Food supplies will be fine - mobile, scalable indoor farming is having a breakthrough at the moment due to new high-efficiency LED lighting which can be optimised for individual plant types. See: http://www.hortidaily.com/article/24546/Belgium-Urban-Crops-opens-largest-automated-plant-factory-in-Europe amongst many others, stacking food vertically and in controlled environments frees up land and mitigates much of the effect of climate issues. Vertical / indoor farming is also 97% more water efficient, releasing huge amounts of potable water for the rest of humanity. Bung a few of those on huge ships with desalination or truck convoys and you have rapid disaster relief globally as well.
2. The political pendulum will keep swinging back and forth. The US will start on universal healthcare in the next 8-12 years or so as a result of demographic changes and adjusting tolerance, which will ultimately have very positive knock on effects for the country as a whole. If I'm optimistic but improbable, it could go as far as an anti-corruption drive like the trust busting of old that lubricates a lot of tech.
3. Google, amazon and apple will grow in power and be too big to dismantle. Facebook will fade as people continue to migrate away from its core offering, as it pursues revenue at the expense of experience until it gets replaced by a competitor.
4. Some country will team up with one or more of the big data companies from (3) and be able to generate crime probability rates for people based on their location, their friends, known reported crimes and times, facial recognition from photos, etc. Crime rates will dramatically decrease as people call for it to be used and dumb and opportunistic crimes will become rare. People will be casual about their 'freedom' being taken away as they will think that they can leave their phones at home (even though facial recognition on CCTV and other photos in the area will still get them).
5. Some countries will be inspired by China's 'social credit system' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System and will team up with big data to make an even 'better' version. People will generally be happy at their positive scores and it will lead to heavy gamification of the social / govt part of people's lives. When people get negative scores, a small minority will ragequit society and we'll see a bigger punk/cyberpunk cabal then any time in the past. Most will not want to rock the boat as they will be rewarded with govt backed mortgages, accelerated places in queues when interacting with the govt (getting passports, driving licenses, etc), tax credits, and so forth. It will be a big net positive for society as a whole but many will moan about the lack of independence that they used to have (credit report on steroids!)
6. AI will make large swathes of middle class jobs much more efficient, and therefore reduce the number of people that need to do them. Most working class jobs will be made obsolete by the 40-50 year mark as robots take over many industries like construction, transport, etc.
7. Household robots will be common place, with humanoid forms very common due to their ability to efficiently interact with everything and everyone. People will no longer have to clean their houses or hire cleaners as their robot will do it. A whole industry of sex robots (you buy them for cleaning but they have 'other' functions) will lead to very different social experiences and a broad liberalisation of attitudes over time with the expected anti-robosexual protests. Humanoid robots will be able to play live music, give therapeutic massage, clean and tidy, guard and patrol property, etc.
8. New classes of antibiotics will be developed and there will not be an antibiotic crisis. New ways to treat viruses and other diseases will evolve, and the first steps to curing aging will occur, but will not be ready in 50 years.
9. I agree that some countries will split into multiple countries, but the nation as a whole will be less important than ever. There will be more minor conflict as countries manufacture wars to unify their population against a common enemy.
Water is a funny thing. The truth is that Earth has the same amount of water as it had at the dawn of time. Water never runs out or gets used up. Its just a question of having it at the place where it's convenient for you..
Kid_Kyoto wrote: For water there's going to have to be a #$%^ load of desalination going on. Rising sea levels will turn a lot of deltas into undrinkable swamps and we're already exhausting ground water that took epochs to form.
Plus changing rain patterns, less snow etc.
That leaves the seas. Desalination. Israel and the Gulf already rely on it.
Here in Western Australia we're expanding desalination every year, and pushing down the energy use and price year on year. Still uses a lot more power than other methods though, so expansion of desalination is going to either rely on societies accepting that's the price they gotta pay, or people doing some clever stuff with cheaper future solar power.
Water is a funny thing. The truth is that Earth has the same amount of water as it had at the dawn of time. Water never runs out or gets used up. Its just a question of having it at the place where it's convenient for you..
I'll admit I was being hyperbolic. Those articles admit that Earth's water today is practically a closed system. We're not losing water at any appreciable rate.
No but we're losing potable water in accessible places. While in a geological sense we're not losing water but in a ' can I water my crops, bathe myself, feed my kids' sense we are.
All I need to see in the next 50 years is for some nation or company to finally get round to building a nice sized base on the moon.
With the main components of the ISS getting very old I forsee it getting decommissioned in the next 20-30 years if not earlier. That will get the ball rolling and hopefully we will end up getting a small operation getting set up on the moon operated by a nice selection of the planet's nations.
It would be a good starting point for a proper lunar colony which would be totally doable (if not a little uncomfortable) with our current technology. With so many predictions of our inevitable doom in this thread alone it seems a necessary thing to do simply so that the human race has a backup plan should everything get a little spicy down on Earth...
legoburner wrote: 5. Some countries will be inspired by China's 'social credit system' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System and will team up with big data to make an even 'better' version. People will generally be happy at their positive scores and it will lead to heavy gamification of the social / govt part of people's lives. When people get negative scores, a small minority will ragequit society and we'll see a bigger punk/cyberpunk cabal then any time in the past. Most will not want to rock the boat as they will be rewarded with govt backed mortgages, accelerated places in queues when interacting with the govt (getting passports, driving licenses, etc), tax credits, and so forth. It will be a big net positive for society as a whole but many will moan about the lack of independence that they used to have (credit report on steroids!)
That is fething insane. Do you WANT an Orwellian dystopia? Because that is how you get an Orwellian dystopia.
legoburner wrote: 5. Some countries will be inspired by China's 'social credit system' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System and will team up with big data to make an even 'better' version. People will generally be happy at their positive scores and it will lead to heavy gamification of the social / govt part of people's lives. When people get negative scores, a small minority will ragequit society and we'll see a bigger punk/cyberpunk cabal then any time in the past. Most will not want to rock the boat as they will be rewarded with govt backed mortgages, accelerated places in queues when interacting with the govt (getting passports, driving licenses, etc), tax credits, and so forth. It will be a big net positive for society as a whole but many will moan about the lack of independence that they used to have (credit report on steroids!)
That is fething insane. Do you WANT an Orwellian dystopia? Because that is how you get an Orwellian dystopia.
Right now as a corporation I can buy access to all the data to make such a system, but it would be expensive as a lot of the lookups are not automated. As those services automate and decrease in cost, a private company is going to step up and do this, and a govt is going to to find it useful enough to encourage it and start the snowball effect towards it being widely implemented somewhere.
The reason the Chinese are implementing their social credit system is not to create awesome freedom and joy. It's the same reason you can't publish books or software in China, or vote for anyone except President Xi.
Such systems have been imagined in novels like Charles Stross's Accelerando. The thing is that the author expects that the people who rise to the top will be intelligent, engaging, helpful and all round jolly good human beings. In reality, if we look at social media now, for every "Bill Nigh Science Guy" there are a dozen Zoella teen fashion icons.
I've got nothing against Zoella in herself, but she isn't going to invent a cure for cancer. She entertains and informs a generation of teenage girls on how to do makeup. If that's the future of humanity, most of us are going to opt out.
legoburner wrote: 5. Some countries will be inspired by China's 'social credit system' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System and will team up with big data to make an even 'better' version. People will generally be happy at their positive scores and it will lead to heavy gamification of the social / govt part of people's lives. When people get negative scores, a small minority will ragequit society and we'll see a bigger punk/cyberpunk cabal then any time in the past. Most will not want to rock the boat as they will be rewarded with govt backed mortgages, accelerated places in queues when interacting with the govt (getting passports, driving licenses, etc), tax credits, and so forth. It will be a big net positive for society as a whole but many will moan about the lack of independence that they used to have (credit report on steroids!)
That is fething insane. Do you WANT an Orwellian dystopia? Because that is how you get an Orwellian dystopia.
Right now as a corporation I can buy access to all the data to make such a system, but it would be expensive as a lot of the lookups are not automated. As those services automate and decrease in cost, a private company is going to step up and do this, and a govt is going to to find it useful enough to encourage it and start the snowball effect towards it being widely implemented somewhere.
I reject your claim that it will be a net positive for society. It will be an authoritarian nightmare that will hand over complete control of society to Governments.
There was also recently an article about some digital billboard that crashed and people could identify bits and pieces of the facial recognition code (Sweden, I think?)
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Right now as a corporation I can buy access to all the data to make such a system, but it would be expensive as a lot of the lookups are not automated. As those services automate and decrease in cost, a private company is going to step up and do this, and a govt is going to to find it useful enough to encourage it and start the snowball effect towards it being widely implemented somewhere.
I reject your claim that it will be a net positive for society. It will be an authoritarian nightmare that will hand over complete control of society to Governments.
I don't think the claim was that it'll be positive for society, just that it's already somewhat feasible and it'll be useful soon. Useful for governments and companies (the people in power), not for you (we are fethed).
There was recently also an article about CCTV tracking in China and it was really comprehensive. They are/were willing to spend the money on stuff like that.
There was also recently an article about some digital billboard that crashed and people could identify bits and pieces of the facial recognition code (Sweden, I think?)
Yes, and? I find these billboards worrying.
I don't think the claim was that it'll be positive for society,
legoburner wrote: It will be a big net positive for society as a whole...
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote: I reject your claim that it will be a net positive for society. It will be an authoritarian nightmare that will hand over complete control of society to Governments.
Even worse than that, it will hand control of society to angry internet mobs. At least authoritarian governments tend to tire of pointless, ideological cruelty within a few years and just settle down to only oppressing people to protect their power and privilege. But with this plan there will always be a new crop of enthusiastic amateurs ready to prove their own virtue by destroying some person who said or did something wrong.
Shadow Captain Edithae: About the legoburner quote you quoted just now. That was nested three deep. I though you were replying to the quoted part directly above and that legoburner quote read to me more along the lines of "it's unavoidable", not necessarily positive (I hadn't even looked at the other two quotes two or three layers deep in that quote but didn't want to mess the quotes up too much by deleting even more stuff). I hope that makes sense.
That's also why I quoted your other quote separately (with the multiquote feature). Yes, those billboards are worrying. I was just trying to show that this stuff has been already invisibly creeping into our lives without us knowing or expecting it. The Orwellian dystopia that you fear is coming has just parked and already started unloading its tech. Your warning is too late.
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote: I reject your claim that it will be a net positive for society. It will be an authoritarian nightmare that will hand over complete control of society to Governments.
Even worse than that, it will hand control of society to angry internet mobs. At least authoritarian governments tend to tire of pointless, ideological cruelty within a few years and just settle down to only oppressing people to protect their power and privilege. But with this plan there will always be a new crop of enthusiastic amateurs ready to prove their own virtue by destroying some person who said or did something wrong.
Um, aren't we already at the point where an "angry internet mob" can destroy someone's public life just because they don't like something person has said/done?
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote: I reject your claim that it will be a net positive for society. It will be an authoritarian nightmare that will hand over complete control of society to Governments.
Even worse than that, it will hand control of society to angry internet mobs. At least authoritarian governments tend to tire of pointless, ideological cruelty within a few years and just settle down to only oppressing people to protect their power and privilege. But with this plan there will always be a new crop of enthusiastic amateurs ready to prove their own virtue by destroying some person who said or did something wrong.
Um, aren't we already at the point where an "angry internet mob" can destroy someone's public life just because they don't like something person has said/done?
Tannhauser42 wrote: Um, aren't we already at the point where an "angry internet mob" can destroy someone's public life just because they don't like something person has said/done?
That's the point. We're at the point where it can happen and does happen sometimes. This will be giving the process government and social sanction, it will make it happen constantly. Imagine China's Cultural Revolution, but the fethers won't even have to get out of their chairs to destroy someone's life.
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote: I reject your claim that it will be a net positive for society. It will be an authoritarian nightmare that will hand over complete control of society to Governments.
Even worse than that, it will hand control of society to angry internet mobs. At least authoritarian governments tend to tire of pointless, ideological cruelty within a few years and just settle down to only oppressing people to protect their power and privilege. But with this plan there will always be a new crop of enthusiastic amateurs ready to prove their own virtue by destroying some person who said or did something wrong.
Um, aren't we already at the point where an "angry internet mob" can destroy someone's public life just because they don't like something person has said/done?
Yes but this will hand them a powerful weapon.
I can't wait to be a part of that one episode of The Orville for real.
I see you missed the reference? 
