Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Very interesting article on the UK's Ministry of Defense's view of what life in the UK (and the world) will be like 30 years from now. It's not pretty:
Quote:
Information chips implanted in the brain. Electromagnetic pulse weapons. The middle classes becoming revolutionary, taking on the role of Marx's proletariat. The population of countries in the Middle East increasing by 132%, while Europe's drops as fertility falls. "Flashmobs" - groups rapidly mobilised by criminal gangs or terrorists groups.
This is the world in 30 years' time envisaged by a Ministry of Defence team responsible for painting a picture of the "future strategic context" likely to face Britain's armed forces. It includes an "analysis of the key risks and shocks". Rear Admiral Chris Parry, head of the MoD's Development, Concepts & Doctrine Centre which drew up the report, describes the assessments as "probability-based, rather than predictive".
The 90-page report comments on widely discussed issues such as the growing economic importance of India and China, the militarisation of space, and even what it calls "declining news quality" with the rise of "internet-enabled, citizen-journalists" and pressure to release stories "at the expense of facts". It includes other, some frightening, some reassuring, potential developments that are not so often discussed. [article continues]-Guardian Unlimited
Interesting article. I wonder how much more material on the theme was available, but not printed. These are all predictions and subject to change, but I have a hunch most will come true. We have very sophisticated microchips now, but who knows what scientific breakthroughs may yet occur.
The 21st Century certainly has started badly, and I think will get worse by the decade.
Being a pessimist about the future, I have for some years been feeling relieved that I (hopefully) will be be dead before these things happen.
I will stop here and listen to my Sex Pistols CD, the one with "No Future" on it.
Interesting thoughts, and I've long held an interest in such predictions, some of which will undoubtedly prove true. To those who scoff at this, I can only say "why do you think this WON'T happen?"....in other words, if this stuff sounds too weird, or too gloomy ,to be believable, just ask yourself how our present-day situation might have sounded to someone living in the reality of, say, 1948. or 1957?....
Fascinating article, and as AmaznJohn says very Orwellian in part. Sadly I suspect some of this is fairly likely. I can't say I am really looking forward to our future and hope I will be gone, ashes to the wind, before I get to see too many of those coming to reality.
As fas as I'm concerned we are self-destructing in so many ways ( environmentally, socially,economically, culturally, intellectually, etc..) that our future is a very bleak one indeed,if we carry on the way we have been for the last 50 years.
Potent message but I don't think many people are listening...
I've had similar thoughts of the future all along... and, as a normal, healthy 20-something, I will be around to see it happen. This actually has brought an interesting debate among hubby and myself when it comes to children. While we're both open to having kids in the future, my argument is what if all this DOES happen... what if the future is as bleak as all indicators are pointing? I don't want to subject a child of mine to that... (don't worry, we're not letting my thoughts of the world's future be the only deciding factor to have kids...)
I've had similar thoughts of the future all along... and, as a normal, healthy 20-something, I will be around to see it happen. This actually has brought an interesting debate among hubby and myself when it comes to children. While we're both open to having kids in the future, my argument is what if all this DOES happen... what if the future is as bleak as all indicators are pointing? I don't want to subject a child of mine to that... (don't worry, we're not letting my thoughts of the world's future be the only deciding factor to have kids...)
Bubbagirl, though I'm generally a believer in the "dark dystopia" of the Orwellian future (feeling that in some ways it's already beginning), I will say to you that the human being is endlessly adaptable; and that, weird though the future may seem to you and me, your potential future child will undoubtedly adapt to it quite well, since to him/her it will be the only world he knows. He will not suffer regret for a past that he never experienced.
After all, we all live right now in a world so regimented and stiflingly suppressed that it would be considered absolutely intolerable to the "mountain men" of the old West--or even to some of our own ancestors--and yet most of us do quite well, for we never personally experienced that bygone freedom.
Just wanted to point that out---The best to you
I've had similar thoughts of the future all along... and, as a normal, healthy 20-something, I will be around to see it happen. This actually has brought an interesting debate among hubby and myself when it comes to children. While we're both open to having kids in the future, my argument is what if all this DOES happen... what if the future is as bleak as all indicators are pointing? I don't want to subject a child of mine to that... (don't worry, we're not letting my thoughts of the world's future be the only deciding factor to have kids...)
Things will be pretty bleak in places. Pretty much anywhere that allows unchecked illegal immigration will deteriorate dramatically. Look at the problems France has had with illegals rioting in the streets. Other places like Japan, that keep tight controls on their borders, will continue to prosper. I don't have any children, but if I did I'd move up as far north as I could.
For those of you longing for the "good old days"....I just think you should read a little more history before you are so sure.
I have a book on the Roman Colliseum where prisoners were condemned to die by such means as "excited giraffe"....don't ask. Keep in mind this was entertainment for tens of thousands of the most educated people and developed nations on the planet at that time.
I went to the WW1 museum in Kansas City this past weekend, top notch, the british had 80,000 casualties in ONE day during the battle of the Somme. (We now grow concerned over losing 600 guys a year in Iraq).
The global spread of news means that you hear about every sensational tradgedy...don't let it color your view of the world as it is today.
Todays world is more literate, more tolerant, more educated, healthier and even less warlike (ironically I think nukes are the big reason for this) than since the dawn of human history.
Plus, were I born in a previous century....I'd already be dead from the appendix I had removed at age 21.
Pick an era that was better and we can debate it for fun if you like.
For those of you longing for the "good old days"....I just think you should read a little more history before you are so sure.
Pick an era that was better and we can debate it for fun if you like.
Sorry but I won't debate you because what you say is true-- my above "mountain man" remark was made with the understanding that while a few people did enjoy a freedom quite unlike anything we have today, the vast majority led lives of unending drudgery or even slavery. And even the "mountain men" lived only long enough until such time as a well-aimed arrow, or a hungry puma, or ruptured appendix brought their glory days to an end.
In fact, while I believe I'm unusually sensitive to bouts of nostalgia, I'm fully cognizant of the fact that there really were no "good old days". I was born in 1948. Immediately preceding my birth were a half decade of World War, preceded by 10 years of ruinous depression.
I've often felt that the "good old days" are an honest tendency in people to remember their OWN "good old days" of childhood. Even the Great Depression was probably remembered fondly by a child who remembers "we moved in with my cousins, and it was fun", not realizing that the parents moved in with relatives because they lost their home.
My grandmother always spoke fondly of her memories of the great San Francisco earthquake (1906)-- she was 16, and found it exciting to "live in a tent for a year". I bet her parents weren't thrilled, though...
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
(don't worry, we're not letting my thoughts of the world's future be the only deciding factor to have kids...)
