The world of 2030

[Guest CCI]

Sorry, everyone, but flying cars don't appear in the [url="http://us.lrd.yahoo.com/_ylt=Au_JdEqnEJaCQEN8k2Wg.vubCMZ_;_ylu=X3oDMTFka3BkYnE0BG1pdANCbG9nIEJvZHkEcG9zAzEEc2VjA01lZGlhQmxvZ0JvZHlBc3NlbWJseQ--;_ylg=X3oDMTM1b3Bicmx2BGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDN2Q2ZjMwM2YtYmE3ZS0zMTRhLTgyMzYtNTc2NzVhMWEwZjFmBHBzdGNhdANwb2xpdGljc3x0aGV0aWNrZXQEcHQDc3RvcnlwYWdl;_ylv=0/SIG=11nr4doi2/EXP=1356381369/**http%3A//www.dni.gov/nic/globaltrends"]"Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds"[/url] report that the director of national intelligence's office made public on Monday.

Instead, the National Intelligence Council paints the picture of a world in which the U.S. is no longer the unquestionably dominant global player; individuals and small groups may carry out devastating cyber or bioterror attacks; oh, and food and water may be running short in some places.

The 160-page report is a great read for anyone in the business of crafting the script for the next James Bond movie, a treasure trove of potential scenarios for international intrigue, not to mention super-villainy. But the council took pains to say that what it foresees is not set in stone. The goal is to provide policymakers with some idea of what the future holds in order to help them steer the right economic and military courses.
"We do not seek to predict the future—which would be an impossible feat—but instead provide a framework for thinking about possible futures and their implications," the report cautioned.

Other ideas the futurists reported: Global population will reach "somewhere close to 8.3 billion people," and food and water may be running scarce in some areas, especially regions like Africa and the Middle East.
"Climate change will worsen the outlook for the availability of these critical resources," the report said. "Climate change analysis suggests that the severity of existing weather patterns will intensify, with wet areas getting wetter, and dry and arid areas becoming more so."We are not necessarily headed into a world of scarcities, but policymakers and their private sector partners will need to be proactive to avoid such a future."

What about America in 2030? The report predicts that the U.S. "most likely will remain 'first among equals' among the other great powers." But "with the rapid rise of other countries, the 'unipolar moment' is over and Pax Americana—the era of American ascendancy in international politics that began in 1945—is fast winding down."
Also, "Asia will have surpassed North America and Europe combined in terms of global power, based upon GDP [Gross Domestic Product], population size, military spending and technological investment," the report said.

It also suggests that Islamist extremism may be a thing of the past in 2030. But that doesn't mean small groups won't try to wreak havoc.
"With more widespread access to lethal and disruptive technologies, individuals who are experts in such niche areas as cyber systems might sell their services to the highest bidder, including terrorists who would focus less on causing mass casualties and more on creating widespread economic and financial disruptions," said the report.
Four "megatrends" shaping the world were cited: growing individual empowerment; diffusion of power; major shifts in demographics; and rising demand for food, water and energy.

The report also sees the potential for "black swan" shocks to the system. These include: a severe pandemic; faster-than-forecast climate change; the collapse of the European Union; the collapse of China (or its embrace of democracy); and a reformed Iran that abandons its suspected nuclear weapons program. They also include a conflict using nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons, or a large-scale cyber-attack; solar geomagnetic storms that may knock out satellites and the electric grid; or a sudden retreat of the U.S. from global affairs.

So what about the flying cars, a staple of science fiction? The report is mum on that front, but it does raise the intriguing possibility that "self-driving cars could begin to address the worsening congestion in urban areas, reduce roadway accidents, and improve individuals' productivity (by allowing drivers the freedom to work through their commutes)."
And the cool cats over at Wired magazine's "Danger Room" national security blog have underlined how the report sees the growth of other technologies, including [url="http://us.lrd.yahoo.com/_ylt=Ai55rvEzrAcOAdrHghaJnV6bCMZ_;_ylu=X3oDMTFkZWgzYnZwBG1pdANCbG9nIEJvZHkEcG9zAzIEc2VjA01lZGlhQmxvZ0JvZHlBc3NlbWJseQ--;_ylg=X3oDMTM1b3Bicmx2BGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDN2Q2ZjMwM2YtYmE3ZS0zMTRhLTgyMzYtNTc2NzVhMWEwZjFmBHBzdGNhdANwb2xpdGljc3x0aGV0aWNrZXQEcHQDc3RvcnlwYWdl;_ylv=0/SIG=12ns2ler5/EXP=1356381369/**http%3A//www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/12/superhumans-instant-cities/"]"superhumans" potentially roaming the landscape[/url].

[url="http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/world-2030-u-declines-food-water-may-scarce-162757458--politics.html"]http://news.yahoo.co...--politics.html[/url]

[Djay3]

Fascinating and thought provoking.

My wife was wondering if by 2030 they addressed these:

On "Days of Our Lives" .....
Does Nick doctor the lab test results?
Will Gabi and Nick's wedding be rocked by a series of tragic events?
Will Dan's hand tremors be cured? Edited December 11, 2012 by Djay3

[Clod Stomper]

Self-driving cars? Meh... That's fine for most "drivers". Would make it safer and less stressful for the rest of us.

But, if we don't have flying cars by then, I'm building my own.

Will

[Chucktshoes]

[quote name='Clod Stomper' timestamp='1355202938' post='858275']Self-driving cars? Meh... That's fine for most "drivers". Would make it safer and less stressful for the rest of us.

But, if we don't have flying cars by then, I'm building my own.

Will[/quote]
Self driving cars? F- that! Even in 2030, if it doesn't have a manual transmission, I don't want any part of it.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

I think I'd rather trust Buck Rogers over the Director of National Intelligence's office, any day of the week.

[Will H]

[quote name='Chucktshoes' timestamp='1355203749' post='858281']
Self driving cars? F- that! Even in 2030, if it doesn't have a manual transmission, I don't want any part of it.
[/quote]

Exactly. My wife saw an article saying that the manual transmission was on it's way out with the exception of high end sports cars. I told her no problem, I will just keep my little Cobalt forever.

[Clod Stomper]

I bought my first automatic transmission car ever in 2005.  I really want another manual.  But yeah, they're almost impossible to find in newer model cars.  People are just too lazy and it's hard to change gears manually when you're texting, eating and putting on makeup at the same time with a little dog in your lap.

 

Heck, I don't want a computer controlling any part of my vehicle, let alone driving for me.  For most people on the road around here, I think it would be an improvement, though.

 

But the flying car?  Oh yeah, I'd be all over that.

[UncleJak]

Reminds me of the Zager and Evans song: 2525

[Guest Lester Weevils]

I wanted a personal rocket pack but all I got was a dirt cheap multi-core computer, faster and with more memory than people in the 50's dreamed possible except the unknowably remote future.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

I'm still waiting to see that wrist radio TV. I guess the Iphone is close, eh?

[Chucktshoes]

I'm still waiting to see that wrist radio TV. I guess the Iphone is close, eh?

I'd say the iPhone far surpasses the Dick Tracy gadget.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Yep I think the iPhone kicks the butt of Dick Tracy's wrist TV. Well, first it was a wrist radio then got improved to a wrist TV after wrist radios became feasible.

 

It is interesting how SF writers and "more serious" academic futurists get it right versus how they get it wrong. Getting it wrong more often than not of course.

 

There was "fantasy SF" or "Far-future SF" where great liberties could be taken with "known laws of science" because no one knows what laws might be discovered to be "breakable" or at least "bendable" some time in the "unforseeable" far future.

 

But "hard sf" was intended to follow known scientific laws as best possible. If a hard sf writer went too far afield with speculation he wouldn't be taken seriously, any more than an academic futurist would be taken seriously predicting antigravity or faster than light travel.

 

After WWII, after Von Braun began playing for our team, he wrote a detailed plan for a mars mission achievable in the 1950's or worst case late 1960's. You mass-produce multi-stage launchers with reusable re-entry vehicles "much smaller" than the space shuttle turned out to be. You send up a work crew and a crude construction hut, then send thousands of materials launches in cheap Atlas-sized rockets to build the big wheel space station. Then you build a dozen or so vehicles in space and send the manned fleet on the 2 year trip to mars. After a year or two exploring, some of the explorers stay behind to inhabit the first mars base and the rest make a 2 year trip home. Easy peasy. Von Braun figgered it would cost about as much as a small war. So maybe in some alternate time-line, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon blew our social security taxes on a mars mission rather than blowing the money on vietnam and a massive nukular weapons arsenal!  :)

 

Von Braun predicted a first mars mission of numerous chemical powered small space vehicles as "scientific/engineering feasible" but strangely he estimated that communications between earth space station and the mars mission would be low power single-channel shortwave or microwave, using CW code! Not even voice comm between the mars mission and earth! And then in the real world, hardly more than a decade later, the moon landing was much cruder rocketry-wise, toy engines, tinfoil wrapped erector set struts, on a wing and a prayer, but on the other hand the wimpy little vehicle was covered by live TV to earth, not one of the astronauts nerding out tapping a code key to describe to earth what was going on.

 

Hard SF writers even into the 1960's kinda HAD to write about fabulous advanced rockets with tube-gear radios-- Big-brained astronauts calculating orbital navigation with paper, pencil and slide rule. It was "believable" to write about nuclear rockets, but "unbelievable" to describe solid state full color hifi voice and video comm from space, or handheld puters hundreds of times more powerful than IBM's biggest mainframe monsters. Or calculators that obsolete the venerable slide rule in about 2 years after release. Instruments strong enough to calculate space orbits, cheap enough to be carried by school children who don't know how to run them and can barely add and subtract. The electronics advances were simply fantasy-land unbelievable. But it was the nuclear rockets which short term turned out ultimately unfeasible, not the fabulous calculating and communications instruments.

Edited December 12, 2012 by Lester Weevils