See the future. It begins the day after tomorrow.

Larry Kummer, Editor

8 years ago

Summary: Here is a brief look at the future, seen thru my guesses, focusing on long-standing themes on the FM website. Enjoy, and I hope these will spark your own investigations into what lies ahead.

Good news – a new industrial revolution

A new industrial revolution has begun, ending the long stagnation since WWII ended. Wonders await us that we cannot even imagine, much as the people of 1860 could not imagine the world of 1950. The rate of economic growth will accelerate, bringing more security and prosperity to the world’s poor. The challenge of the next few generations will be harnessing this new tech and managing the political and social disruption it creates.

Pollution as we know it will be almost gone by 2100, and the challenge of the 22nd century will be repairing the damage done in the early 21st — as the world’s population grew to 10 or 12 billion. The world will become a garden again as the population crashes.

This will be a singularity like those in the past (e.g., fire, agriculture, writing). There will be no “singularity” in the sense of tech advancement making us like gods. See more about singularities here.

See my posts about the new industrial revolution here.

Good news: there will be no climate apocalypse

Bad news for the Left! There will be no climate apocalypse that destroys society, discredits capitalism, and gives them absolute political power. The world will continue to warm, with results both bad (as predicted) and good (not predicted, as this would ruin the narrative). The IPCC’s worst-case scenario, RCP8.5, will not happen. New energy technology will stabilize greenhouse gas emissions (e.g., CO2 and methane) by 2050. If necessary, measures will be taken in the following decades to reduce CO2 levels.

The failure of the highly publicized extreme predictions about future climate will contribute to the replication crisis in science. The resulting institutional changes in the conduct of science will make it far more effective.

See posts about the climate’s future here, and especially these about RCP8.5:

Good news: about the wars among the great powers

Powerful elements among America’s elites are pushing for war with China or Russia. We are the world’s militarized belligerent great power, as Prussia/Germany was in the old world (details here). I am confident that they will fail to get the war they want, although there will be close calls. The American people might resist them. More likely, the rest of the world will rebel against us – and defend the international order build by the Greatest Generation on the ashes of WWII.

Or we might nuke somebody, probably a small nation – even non-nuclear armed one. Then the other major powers might ally against us, using economic sanctions to force us to become a client state under their supervision. See this scenario here.

News about the American Republic

On July 4, 2006 I wrote about the death of the Constitution. Since then I’ve documented the growing evidence. The system it created needs updating (details here), but that is not the core problem. America isn’t falling like the Roman Empire. It’s falling like Rome’s Republic. We no longer wish to bear the burden of self-government. We are sorting into classes: the bourgeoisie (who own almost everything), the inner party (who run America for its owners), the outer party of professionals and small businessmen, and the proles. See A picture of America, showing a path to political reform.

I have written over a hundred posts about ways to reform America, but none tell how to rekindle a love of liberty in a people. The political machinery bequeathed to us by the Founders remains there, decisive if powered by our will. Perhaps the Second Republic’s day has passed (the Articles of Confederation founded the First). But should a future generation desire freedom, the Third Republic lies in our future.

The gender wars

Dr. Jekyll tests his potion on himself. What could go wrong?

The story of the 20th century was the Left’s conquest of entire nations to use as lab rats to test their greatest creation – communism. The experiment failed. The casualties were beyond count. Russia has not yet healed. The story of the 21st century is the Left’s conquest of the West’s institutions, using us (and especially our children) as lab rats to test their vision of new men and women. The Left’s ideologies confidently. spin the dials our society’s controls. It will certainly fail, with results similar to allowing monkeys to manage a nuclear power plant. Several generations will become wreckage.

Perhaps we will learn about the danger of radical social changes without experimentation and testing. Perhaps we will learn wisdom after these expensive lessons. We can only guess about the specific ways this will go wrong. The mass drugging and oppression of boys will have awful consequences echoing far into the future. I believe that increasing numbers of men will refuse to marry, seeing that the risks, costs, and benefits no longer make sense.

The women of Generation Z and beyond will see the Boomers and Generation X as the golden age of women: they were able to marry, have children, and (if they wish) divorce on favorable terms for any reason. The increasing regulation of interpersonal relations by feminist-governing institutions will do little for them, especially in exchange for opportunities they have lost.

Long ago, I was taught at Cornell the basics of gender studies and feminism by Professor Judith Long Laws (author of The Second X: Sex Role and Social Role, 1978). She said that gender was a social construct. Time has proven her correct. Much of what we considered “feminine” behavior was taught. Now women are freed to seek their own nature in dress and behavior. This is their right. But it will prove incompatible with anything remotely resembling our family structure. Perhaps incompatible with a functioning family structure. Both men and women might go their own way, leading separate lives. Alone. Sexbots will be poor substitutes.

See my hundreds of posts exploring this, what might be the greatest revolution in western history. Perhaps one of the largest in human history, large beyond our ability to see.

Europe: it is time to die

“Thou know’st it’s common; all that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.”
— Queen Gertrude to Hamlet (Act I, scene 2).

European culture is dying, past the point of no return. Allowing in millions of migrants – proud and strong – with radically different values has revealed the senescence of Europe’s institutions. Europe’s ability to assimilate foreigners is minimal — as the bloody history of Jews in Europe proves. Now comes a cage match: a people who no longer believe in themselves vs. people with strong beliefs.

“Men do stupid things regularly and mad things occasionally. And sometimes, the impulse to self-destruction is so overwhelming it overtakes an entire nation. …The best a person can hope for when he goes mad is that he runs into a brick wall quickly …before he has a chance to build up speed. That is why success, in war and investing, is often a greater menace than failure. …

“People seem to make such obvious and moronic errors that it seems as if they were driven to it by some instinct of self-destruction — like lemmings periodically exterminating themselves in a march off the cliffs. What’s more, this diabolical instinct seems to report for duty at the very moment when the future seems the brightest — that is, when it is most needed! Just when men are most proud, most confident, most expansive in their ambitions and hopes …that is when they make the most lunkheaded judgments.”

— Bill Bonner in “Corrections” in March 2001.

The eventual outcome is certain but the conflict might wreck Europe. Perhaps the civilization that replaces it will be glorious, combining the best features of both in a new Islamic renaissance. Europe is rolling the dice, stacking everything they have built and everything they are on this gamble with open borders.

“I felt that Europe, in its state of derangement, had passed its own death sentence.”
— From The World of Yesterday. The Austrian writer Stefan Zweig wrote that before WWII. He was early. Now that death sentence is being carried out – by Europe on itself.

The advocates for open borders mock those who worry, since the migrants and their descendents will be a small minority for the next two generations – and a minority until the late 21st century.

That’s a foolish misunderstanding of social dynamics and of history. They would learn much by reading Richard Adam’s wonderful novel Watership Down. It is rich with lessons about nations and about leadership. Such as this, describing the nature of conflict among both rabbits and people.

“What he had learned from all his experience of fighting was that nearly always there are those who want to fight and those who do not but feel they cannot avoid it. More than once he had fought alone and imposed his will on crowds of other rabbits. He held down a great warren with the help of a handful of devoted officers.

“It did not occur to him now – and if it had, he would not have thought it mattered – that most of his rabbits were still outside; that those who were with him were fewer than those on the other side of the wall and that until Groundsel had got the runs open they could not get out even if they wanted to. This sort of thing does not count among fighting rabbits. Ferocity and aggression are everything.

“What Woundwort knew was that those beyond the wall were afraid of him and that on this account he had the advantage.”

For more about this see my posts about immigration and about Islam, and especially these ….

The essence of modern American politics

The Left seeks to remold our society, with or without our consent. The Right are agents of the 1% seeking to exploit and rule us. In this, the early stages of their clash, each allows the other’s operations – confident that their side will have ultimate victory. Both are our foes. Since the extremes control our institutions, we are helpless pawns.

This forces people to choose sides. It is a commonplace in prisons. Alone you are a victim. Do you join the Black gangsters, the neo-Nazis, or one of the other ethnic gangs? There are no nice choices. This is how societies polarize. This is the essence of Weimerica. It can end well for us, but only if we mobilize quickly. Otherwise we inherit the dust, as the Bible and Disney foretell.

See my posts about this.

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