The distant future. The ultimate question for America.

[Person Man]

What do you think? I think the current incarnation of the U.S. could be brought to the end soon,  but I do think that America, like China is destined to be a more or less eternal indivisible continent that swings between civil war and isolation and global dominance.

[Person Man]

So, we could go to a Zarkarian world, where the US doesn't start to splinter or weaken, but the world simply becomes flatter because everyone else becomes more like us.

[Person Man]

Republic is funny word. While I am skeptical of Sam Spade's economic collaspe, US turning into a dictatorship thing, mainly because I don't think an openly totalitarian or authoritarian system would work here, I have a hunch that the next century will not be good for anyone, whether it be China, Europe, or the US.

I think resource shortage, falling birthrates, and ethnic strife will hit everyone. Of these three, I actually think the US is best able to weather them. China has a demographic disaster, while Europe is less able to absorb the immigrants it is bringing in as the solution to its own. The US will suffer, but the fact is that is also isolated from where the giant humanitarian disasters are likely to be(Africa, Sub-Continent).

Weather is a mutable word. As the world heads for disaster in the 2020s, I fully expect the US to turn isolationist and xenophobic, probably with a soft-authoritarian de facto one party state. More Children of Men than V for Vendetta.

Oddly I actually came up with a time-line about this in my head that I never posted.

So. Will the 21st century be like the 20th century, the 5th century or the 14th century?

[Person Man]

Republic is funny word. While I am skeptical of Sam Spade's economic collaspe, US turning into a dictatorship thing, mainly because I don't think an openly totalitarian or authoritarian system would work here, I have a hunch that the next century will not be good for anyone, whether it be China, Europe, or the US.

I think resource shortage, falling birthrates, and ethnic strife will hit everyone. Of these three, I actually think the US is best able to weather them. China has a demographic disaster, while Europe is less able to absorb the immigrants it is bringing in as the solution to its own. The US will suffer, but the fact is that is also isolated from where the giant humanitarian disasters are likely to be(Africa, Sub-Continent).

Weather is a mutable word. As the world heads for disaster in the 2020s, I fully expect the US to turn isolationist and xenophobic, probably with a soft-authoritarian de facto one party state. More Children of Men than V for Vendetta.

Oddly I actually came up with a time-line about this in my head that I never posted.

So. Will the 21st century be like the 20th century, the 5th century or the 14th century?

I think a bit like the 5th century. A lot of modern civilization is only possible because of cheap energy. All this talk of alternative energy, new drilling, etc. ignores a key fact, which is that we are on a long-term path of inflation. All alternative fuel types, whether electric or ethanol are still subject to this at the end of the day. How people adapt to that is going to be interesting.

Basically I see in Europe the anti-immigrant euro-skeptic right taking power, either through people like Wilders(not like Haider or Le Pen, they are not credible) or by co-option of the traditional right. This will lead to a cycle of increased polarization, efforts by an EU bureaucracy to crack down that feed anti-EU sentiment. i expect the EU to collapse by the 2030s.

The reason for this is simple. Freedom of trade, freedom of movement are only beneficial if the whole pie is growing. That largely stopped in the West a while ago, and the illusion of it has been kept up by currency inflation. When this myth falls, and it becomes clear that there is a shrinking finite pie, then the cries of the people at Goldman Sachs for efficiency and a flat world will be replaced by demands we keep people employed at our own car companies even if they are inefficient.

Despite the present fight over immigration, I expect the US to mostly avoid that problem, but the rise in gas prices will lead to a lot of political problems and a move towards isolationism. Self-sufficiency.

The really brutal thing will be China trying to grasp resources like oil that it needs cheap, but the sources of which will begin to dry up. Watch what China does in Central Asia. I fully expect them to be the target of Islamic extremism not the West as the US recedes into isolationism.

Ah this sounds science fictiony. Probably better on the other thread.

What will this new society in the U.S. look like? Are we heading towards theocracy or socialism and what kind of problems will this cause? The way people are all talking, it appears that almost everybody is just desperate in wanting to be killed. The world that the 21st century looks like is making the unification war and the society in the Brave New World look better and better. It would probably suck ass, but at least I would not have to worry about being killed, or one day starving to death.

[Person Man]

In My Opinion, The "Rome" option is the most likely. We are dominant in almost everything. The question is, I don't think a "superpower" will replace us. I believe we are the last superpower. Nothing will replace us in that sense. What will replace us, centuries from now, is a supranational one world government modeled after the original EU, which will become the "European Federation" one day. Most of Continental Europe will be members, except for Britain, Ireland, Switzerland, some of the Balkans and some of Scandanavia. I can't see an EU-like structure taking hold here, as some as suggested. I also see an "African Union" (which exists, it just is less sucessful then the EU) comprising of some african states. The Far East, which will be powerful economically, will be like a bunch of "Japan/Germany" type economies. I also think that (rather foolishly, and hopefully) we may see Colonization and terraforming of Mars, possibly Venus, and extrasolar planets.

Well, the instagation of human exploration and small-scale colonization of the Moon and Mars seems to have the world's attention...nevermind the full colonization of LEO...after that...well, we will have to see. ...but like what Ronald Reagan said in his Watchmen-inspired address to the UN in 1986- There would be no "international relations" or need for them if we were invaded by little green or grey men. We would either become One Nation One World or get our asses kicked, whether that means being made to die out or thousands of years of darkness for us.

[Person Man]

Oh. I am pretty sure there are aliens out there. They probably have never visited Earth, but I think that I am being abducted when I get sleep paralysis at night. My Fundamentalist aunt tells me to pray when that happens and I do that anyways. ...but long story short- they are out there and we cannot yet make any assumptions about them.

[Person Man]

Oh. I am pretty sure there are aliens out there. They probably have never visited Earth, but I think that I am being abducted when I get sleep paralysis at night. My Fundamentalist aunt tells me to pray when that happens and I do that anyways. ...but long story short- they are out there and we cannot yet make any assumptions about them.

I'm sure there are aliens out there given the incomprehensible size of the universe, but are they intelligent? I'm not so sure. It is possible there is intelligent life out there, but what would they be like, or look like, would they be humanoid, or some sort of spacefaring insectoid guided by a hive-mind intelligence? Like spacefaring bees? That would be my worst nightmare.

Nope. Can't neogotiate something like that. There are most likely intellegent life forms in our galaxy and they are probably at least as physically complicated as we are....but they will not be like anything that is on our Earth....then again, maybe little grey men are real...but how do they biologically compare with Earth Life?

Long story short- anything we can think of is probably real...even in this galaxy.

[Person Man]

Well, what would we do if it does come to your Malthusian problem? I sort of agree with you on the New Deal but agree with it on a sociological level, not an economic level. The basic goal of "prolonging the pain" is to simply spread it over time. I mean, the market WILL correct itself in the end, but at what cost?

[Person Man]

So, we are in an era of a Great Washington Covenant, a New Deal that spread across the world.

Therefore, some questions I have is how it could implode or be pushed against. However, the biggest question is what would it mean to the average person.  So far, the erosion of our Washington Covenant has just been less job security and more reliance on credit to survive. A mixture that apparently did not work come the Great Land Depression of 2007-2010. After tunneling through this issue, we will go back to the way were we before the last bubble- How do we maintain our standard of living and security? Deregulation has failed us. Another way could be to simply build our way out of the fall of our dynasty, but unless people are afraid for their lives, they will not try to modify the current system. Perhaps if the system were to become damaged enough, people would not have the same vested interest in it. Basically, the goal of the United States in 2010s-2030s will be a way to end the current system in a way that is the least disruptive and yet disruptive enough to cause a strong enough political will to raise taxes, cut spending and build more great projects. In a sense, Planet Earth needs to be put on rehab. We need to wein the world of the use of our military and place our burden on other powers that would have the same interests that we currently have. Perhaps putting India in charge of the Middle East and China in charge of Eurasia and perhaps Brazil over the Global South. ...and the United States can just focus on the Northwestern Hemisphere as we encourage a strong enough EU to keep russia at bay. None of these powers would be able to challenge us right away, but they could possibly help us cut spending and free up money for the infrastructure that we need. Perhaps the world of 2045 will look like the world of 1913, but perhaps the advent of hypersonic travel and other transportation would make keeping in touch a little easier. Then at this point, the goal will be to find a way to keep us from blowing us up, but that was what we dealt with between 1945-1972, when America was had the most economic oppurtunities.

[Person Man]

The only question is whether we will be protactive and get these changes to work for us or whether or we will wait for change to come to us, with its natural consequences.

[Person Man]

Other, until the end of time.

Well, our continent would have been warped by Plate Tectonics in a few million years and then our planet will overeat in a few hundred million after that or at least that is when the molecular precursor to sexual reproduction begins to unravel....Let's just put it this way, 700 million years from now, the Planet Earth will not be able to sustain complex life....and in 3-4 billion years, not able to sustain life at all.

[Person Man]

Well, if people even exist 700 million years from now, they will be radically different from people today, and much more evolved. When the universe ends, if it expands forever, I can see people becoming Androids like in the movies, by transferring their memory into it. I don't want to think about that though, I just want to enjoy the time I have on Earth with my family and friends.

Actually, you got to get more creative than that. I would say that Doctor Who probably has it right. I think that humanity is in enough control of itself to change radically and then revert back to its original self. It fights a lot of odds, but somehow very plausable given the fact that whether or not to be "human-human" could become a matter of choice to future generations.

[Person Man]

In Doctor Who, humanity evolved into neo-humans or merged with aliens, plants or animals by the time the Earth was destroyed by the Sun. Eventually, trillions of years later when the universe was about to be torn apart by entropy, humanity had evovled back to the way it was originally.

[Person Man]

The United States will last for an another two centuries or so after which it will join a world government assuming no Apocalypse or any other disaster.

An Apocalypse or World Government would be on opposite sides of a continum. A World Government would only come into being if it was truely feasible (a competent understanding of unified physics and engineering) and if there was an alien power that could unite the planet against it.

The most likely apocalyptic scenario was the Earth2100 documentary scenario that made the birthers, towners and neocons go crazy. Basically, the economy becomes so hard to handle and climate change becomes so bad that there are major famines, storms and pandemics by the 2070s and by the 2080s, only about 1 or 2 billion people are still alive. For the United States, it means that the Federal Government will liquidate and the governance of the people will revert to the remaining states. Many cities will be abandoned and many states will be totally depopulated. However, there could be several states that adapted fast enough in safe enough places to maintain their personality.

The Earth that I am thinking will exist in 2100 is a world where we have had one or two major global upheavals that are larger than WWII, but do not cause the apocalypse. The United States is a super-power, but must share the world with the rapidly growing third-world countries of today and some modern countries that have managed to overcome their demographic problems without destroying a progressive civil society. Think Turkey, India, Japan, Poland and something resembling the Western Roman Empire (plus Southern Scandinavia, minus North Africa). We will probably see all of the technological change we are hoping for today, but will probably still not have the ability to manipulate the laws of physics or have anything more than some basic proof that aliens exist.