Russ Steele
I have read the Rebane and Dickenson forecasts for the next Twenty Years at Rebane's Ruminations, and while I agree with elements of both, I believe that in the next twenty years unanticipated events could have more impact on our lives than those anticipated by George or Dick.
Let’s dispatch the agreements first, then discuss an unanticipated event that will shape our lives and world politics over the next twenty years.
Yes, our Democracy is in danger as we slide ever closer to socialism, as more of our citizens depend on a nanny government. Dick sees this as some kind of political stability, with the government taking over health care, energy rationing, and environmental protection. When the government takes over, the market no longer works and then we are subject to government central planning. The failure of Cuba and the Soviet empire should be enough of a lesson that central planning does not work. As George points out, the result will be pragmatic autocracies and authoritarian collectivism. Not a pretty picture.
We have a centrally planned education system, and it is failing our children as it pushes multi-cultural solutions, lowering standards to accommodate those who refuse to learn English, and assimilate in our uniquely American culture. As a result, we no longer teach American history and the Constitution, which might be offensive to students of other cultures. We are producing an ignorant class unwilling or unable to assimilate. The emerging multi-culturalism creates distrust between neighbors, neighborhoods and minority dominated communities. As a result we are developing more technology to watch those who insist on being different. Smile, you are on camera.
Change is a slow, relentless process that few recognize. Computers become smaller, faster and more capable; communications bandwidth increases and becomes more and more ubiquitous, yet few take notice of the long term implications, other than they can get their email from any street corner, and web pages download faster. Most people cannot even define nanotechnology, let alone worry about it’s ethical implications. Genetic engineering is all about cloned rabbits, sheep and cows to most people on the street, yet we humans are only a few twists of the helix away from having our own clones. We are on the cusp of the Singularity, the confluence of nanotechnology, genetic engineering and machine intelligence. For a preview, check out Blade Runner. The Singularity will dominate the conversation near the end of the next twenty years, but few will know what to do but chatter about it. It will be happening, and nothing can be done as the machines become more dominate in our lives and the nanny government will be ineffective to do anything but make war on the machines. The outcome will not be as satisfying as a science fiction movie -- where the humans win, or not.
China will manufacture the robots designed in Japan and controlled by
software developed in India. Business will have to have them to serve
the public, as our undereducated labor force will be incapable and
unwilling to provide competitive levels of service. As the robots become more important, they will assume more control over our lives. The unemployment
lines will grow as the nanny government struggles to find palliatives
for empty lives with no hope, and no future. All this will be commerce
as usual until the unexpected happens and we are forced to address the
realization that we can not live with out the robots and food supplies
are insufficient to sustain our growing populations of unproductive
humans due to an unanticipated event.
What might that unexpected event be -- global cooling. We live in a
cyclical universe, subject chaotic events. Our solar system wobbles in
and out of the galactic plane about every 64 million years or so,
bathing the planet in cosmic rays. We live on a planet that cycles between being covered with ice and more
tolerable interglacial periods. The Sun, our main source of energy, has
its own cycles that warm the planet, more some times, less others.
Scientists have found a plethora of cycles, some overlap and have
combined to produce a Little Ice Age, the Medieval and Roman Warm
Periods, which are not unlike our current warm period. Though there is
geological evidence that MWP and RWP were much warmer than today,
including Greenland farms and villages just now emerging from the
glaciers.
We are on the cusp of a major cooling cycle. Past periods of cooling have starved millions when crops failed, sparking wars, finally killing off those who had managed to survive the early stages of the crippling cold. A cold earth will kill more of us humans than global warming ever will. We will have to rely on the our robotic twins to survive the coming dark ages, where they will slowly take more control of our future. Our choice will be to evolve, or relent. Are you ready? Not sure, read the Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology and then answer my question.
