50 years from now

Economics Political Theory
1

With a given of "50 years from now the world (or at least a pretty decent geographic chunk of it) is living in a ‘free society’ " what would be the steps or key events in the timeline from now until then? Feel free to include any made up opinion polls throughout the timeline if you feel that the idea of history by single events is something that only happens in textbooks. Would the progression be linear or exponential? Would there be a hand in hand effort of the people disobeying with the state while the state itself becomes less and less intrusive through more people voting for whatever candidate is the most liberty minded?

Is 50 years beyond all comprehension of possibility? Then what year would it be possible if everything went as well as it could within reason?

2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UE3JeowaaE#t=4m50s

3

Can’t speak for the world, due to general ignorance of the experience of life in foreign nations, but in the US, I feel we are on the cusp of some serious changes.

Nov 2010 - CA legalizes recreational Marijuana usage, effectively nullifying federal drug laws in the state.

2010-2012 - more states begin to nullify federal weapons bans. CA example prompts other states to begin to nullify drug laws, resulting in renewed study into psychedelics.

2011 - LA defaults as city is unable to recoup budget deficit. Massive strikes of municipal employees incites rioting. National guard is called in to suppress rioters, turning public opinion against military, and exposing the regime’s true authoritarian colors.

That’s all I got so far.

4

I believe that will be followed by a 10-20 reign of the CHUDs, after which, the non-mutants will rise up, leading into a 10-20 year humano-CHUD war. The small number of remaining survivors will then huddle together in what was once Las Vegas, where they will form a new society out of the ashes: a society based on hard money, human rights based law, and a healthy disdain for CHUDs.

The Rev

5

With Kurt Russell as Snake Plissken [H]

6

Here’s what would be happening in your typical First World nation, mainly the Anglo-American world and western Europe.

  1. City governments start running out of funds and start cutting down on municipal workers, public services, and publicly owned schools, hospitals, and housing start shutting down. Already happening in parts of the United States of America.

  2. Unions start losing bargaining power, because there is no more of industry and commerce left of which they can be a part of, and the political candidates they vote in and fund become increasingly helpless in doing anything for them. They disintegrate, and every worker is now fighting for himself.

  3. Central governments pass more regulations to strictly control industry and commerce in troubled times, and foreign investors find these nations to be less attractive places to put their money on, and start taking risks of investing in Third World countries like Somalia where there is no more of a harsh regulatory environment.

  4. State governments also end up in a tight situation with respect to funds, but can’t tax people more in an increasingly depressed economic situation. They also start cutting down on public services.

  5. People voluntarily start taking initiatives to build and hold together their communities, and in poorer areas, low-cost for-profit private sector schools start coming, just the way it happens in India and parts of Africa. Privatization of such services happens, because there is no more of an alternative.

  6. Nonetheless, the warfare state becomes more powerful, because of more people with less opportunities available joining the army. We see an entire generation of people just hungering for war.

  7. The Anglo-American world sees the first real war they have ever fought since WW2, where unlike their other wars, they don’t just use a small portion of their total force to invade a country which can offer little resistance, but end up in a total war with all their total forces against genuine well-armed enemies like…Russia or China maybe.

  8. After millions of people see what war is really like, they come to hate it, and wish for it to come to as quick an end as possible.

  9. Governments are discredited, and there is nothing left for people other than to slowly pick back up their own lives and starting building things again on their own, without the help of a vote or a legislation.

After this, we may see a brief period of free society, and the western world reminds itself again why it always recovered and rebuilds great civilizations even after coming to near ruin, but then they will regress back to hold habits of legislating and voting. Unless, perhaps the libertarian movement slowly and easily spreads its message to those willing to listen, as it has been doing right now, so that people by then will learn what brought them to this state, and how they can avoid it.

7

I don’t believe in the Whig Theory of History. Things will get much worse before they ever get better.

8

Some time ago I read about the feds busting - or at least trying to bust - people in California over medical marijuana. Unless that has changed, I don’t see legalizing it for non-medical purposes change that. I’m not denying that CA police and jurisdiction leaving people alone over mj is gonna be a huge step forward, but I wouldn’t exactly call that “nullifying federal drug laws in the state” (unless I’m wrong on some important detail, in which case I’d happily be proven wrong).

9

Some real Hope and Change.

10

Now that’s fucking excellent.

It also means that I’ve become too out of touch with the news on law and politics to my liking. Two or three years ago I would have read something like that the day it made headlines.

11

2023- the EU crumbles. The has no money to stabilize it, and Cina refuses to send an army. declares independence.

2024- So many regions near seek to join it that contains 208 cantons. It central government is abolished, remaining a loose military organization.

2028- there are 28 free cities in , controlled by former Organized Crime mobsters. By far the best run are those controlled by Albanians (I will content myself with Budapest)[:P]

2035 – there is no government in controlling more than 10 million people. Decentralization extends to , , , North African cities. As the whole “near area” decentd into civil war.

2050 – nuclear weapons are cheaper than ford. Wars among city-states freezes. Decentralization goes further to accommodate the flood of emigrants to the New Europe.

2061 – social experimentation hits maximum levels. Perhaps someone figures out how to outcompete the state.

2072– Hour of truth: the Year of the Dragon. An effective way to counter nuclear weapons in employed, making war feasible again. States begin to re-aggregate. If a viable market-based alternative has evolved, there will be anarchy. If not, well have had six decades of development. Still evolution has proceeded massively in former , and now the genetic seeds of future liberty are sown…

12

Scifi thread?

13

Why not? Its refreshing every now and then.

14

Hmmm, to play the what if game…

Okay.

First two decades stagflation as we have it will probably persist as a given, but in terms of long term investments in space and nanotech, this won’t matter. These two fields will continue to grow by leaps and bounds to the point that the space industries themselves will eclipse all publicly funded space ventures (I expect NASA to become possibly a fully private company by 2030, abouts.). Nanotech will become a fabrication industry by the mid-2020s, leading to their applications in electronics and then medicine (particularly in drug manufacturing). This will lead to a significant price drop in each industry it’s applied to respectively.

Also, I expect by the 2040s that space travel will be pennies per pound to lift not from any magical breakthrough, but from scale of economy as applied to rocketry, making it possible to offset the single cost of a rocket launch (as these will have backup rockets ready to go, one after another). About the same time, probably in the 2030s, I expect electronics to have universal circuitry, that is to mean that all circuits will be designed from a single base logic circuit (like a NAND gate or something like it) which will be reprogramable, thus allowing for what is known today as “morphware”, thus the idea of software and hardware as being two separate entities will cease to exist at least from an engineering point of view. This will also lead to further realizations in AI theory, where swarming will lead to AIs that will have learning capacities akin to a well trained dog or horse; thus freeing up many people from laborious jobs like manufacturing, textiles, warehousing/inventory, and many other similar ‘light’ industrial jobs.

What will this all mean for people that will live it? Two things. First, the very idea of nationality will become more meaningless than it is today. Even though today all business is international in some factor, I believe all business will be literally international in all factors as nanofabrication will make manufacturing smaller and less land intensive. Factories of the 2040s and beyond will be probably as small as a commercial warehouse or datacentre, which means just about any landlocked country or island can now participate in manufacturing of some goods without the significant environmental impact. So, I expect people in some cases to have several citizenships and many nations won’t get in the way or possibly they will even pass laws to make this easier to do (either to swap citizenships or something akin to same-day guest worker programmes).

Second, expect governments to shrink in their current roles of infrastructure and military and grow in areas of welfare and social programmes (aka education, arts, and etc) as ideas will have more impact than who has the most oil or guns. More or less government intrusion will about the same as it is today, but their focus will change to adapt the currently growing reality of the liquid nature of information (and how porous borders are in reality). This means that the basic ideas of social democracy will persist in modified forms, but will be neutered by the fact that people will have the means to move to a country that better fits their wishes.

Anyways, all of this is ASSumptions, so I can’t say it’s truth by any stretch of the imagination.

15

Reality always finds a way to embarrass any and all predictions. My predictions about MYSELF 5 YEARS into the future have been worthless. I can only imagine the futility of predicting where EVERYTHING ELSE would be 50 YEARS from now.

Z.

16

This could be fun. let’s see:

  • 2010: European Union breaks down, and Euro is hyper inflated.
  • 2011: Communist revolutions and riots breakout all over Europe as the welfare states collapse. Germany and the U.K resist the communist revolutions, but the rest of Europe does not. During that same year, the dollar collapses.
  • 2011-2015: A second American civil war erupts between the “conservatives” and the “liberals.” The fascist elements of both sides form an alliance and turn on the libertarians (both left and right).
  • 2016: America becomes a full-blown fascist state.
  • 2016: Democratic pro-capitalistic revolution in China.
  • 2017: Democratic and pro-capitalistic revolutions in South America.
  • 2020: Democratic and pro-capitalist revolutions succeed both in Asia and South America (with the exception of Brazil).
  • 2020: Fascist U.S and Communist Europe declare war on Liberal Germany and U.K. During the same year; China and liberal south American nations enter the war on the side of Germany/U.K (Brazil remains neutral). The Middle east finances both sides and supplies them with vital natural resources.
  • 2022: Revolutions breakout in the middle east, sparked by Islamic factions who don’t support the atheist communists and fascist Americans.
  • 2026: Fascist U.S and communist Europe are slowly losing the war due to the economic superiority of the liberal capitalist nations.
  • 2027: Islamic revolutions succeed and overthrow the Middle Eastern dictators. They throw their full support behind the Liberal capitalistic alliance.
  • 2028: Out of desperation, and in the face of certain defeat, the Fascists and communists launch nuclear missiles. 60% of world population is exterminated.
  • 2045: The fascist and communist elements have been exterminated. The world begins to rebuild, and society starts over.
17

The one thing I am sadly sure we will see over the next fifty years is a US-China war. There’s no saying if this will be an all-out “Resources War” as portrayed in the Fallout videogame series, a new Cold War or a series of “limited” conflicts involving US and Chinese forces. Despite their enormous military might and fearsome nuclear arsenal I am not sure the US could walk out of it as the winners. The only thing that can stop this is a serious economical collapse forcing the US to downsize their ambitions (both internal and external) and crippling their ability to wage war thousands of miles from home. But as the present economical downturn proved US citizens are easily tricked into believing their own government about everything. And the bigger the lies the better.

Another thing that really bothers me is the possibility of a nuclear war in the Middle East. I am not talking about Iran’s feeble attempts at building a nuclear industry (which will most likely be pounded into dust by a fleet of US bombers in the next ten years) but about Israel. Right now Israel has all neighboring governments under control and can call Uncle Sam at the rescue each time she wants. But what if following a crippling military defeat or economical crisis the US aren’t able to provide this support anymore? What if the Egyptian dictatorship, stripped of US and EU funds, is toppled by a hardcore Muslim coup? What if the corrupt and brutal Saudi royal family is cast into exile by “true believers”? Israel’s military might rests on the US being able to provide large quantities of very advanced material and the funds to operate them. Most analysts believe in a life or death scenario Israel will turn to nuclear weapons, the Mecca being their first target. This contingency scenario has been popularly nicknamed “Operation Samson” after the Biblical hero who killed himself together with many leading Philistines by collapsing a palace.

Then there’s my land, Europe. I personally believe the EU and the EMU won’t see the next decade, at least in the present form. The German voters aren’t very keen on sacrificing their own lifestyle to prop up a bunch of failed States and they won’t tolerate another Weimar. They may be well ready to tighten their collective belt for the Fatherland but aren’t very keen on paying more taxes for the bureaucrats in Brussels or the cleptocrats in Athens. “Let them sort their own mess!” will become a rallying cry over the next few years, especially if consumers prices start to rise (and we are already there). Spain is in for a very rough ride and there’s no saying what will happen there.

And that’s all I want to say right now. As you see I am very pessimistic about the future and as I become even more so each passing day.

18

will nuke the sh*t out of every invading army, when it’s standing precisely at the border. Its the old French nuclear doctrine, leave cities alone and strike armies when they’r at the border. They will not be foolish enough to strike (although they are bickering too damn much with the Dome of Rock). The best would be for every ME country to get nukes and then real peace talk can begin (I’d sell nuke right away to and which, being monarchies, will be very careful in using them and will balance the region).

19

Not necessarily. Israel never envisioned her nuclear arsenal as “tactical”. Ernst Bergmann, the so called “father of Israel’s bomb” was already proposing nuclear tipped strategic missiles in 1949 when collaboration with France started.

In 1991 a very interesting and well researched book came out: The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and America’s Foreign Policy by Seymour Hersh. Hersh painstakingly rebuilt the history of Israel’s nuclear program and how it has been used by Israeli leaders to “shape” foreign policies. It’s still very actual, to the point that in 2007 George W. Bush candidly stated “If you want to see World War Three, you know, a way to do that is to attack Israel with a nuclear weapon.”

Moshe Dayan, the legendary one-eyed Tsa’hal officer who became Golda Meir’s Secretary of Defense and authorized the assembly of the first fully working nuclear bombs, always maintained that Israel should be seen as a mad, rabid dog “too dangerous to bother”. Over the years various Zionists have made not so-veiled threats of nuclear annihilation against Europe, the Soviet Union, various Muslim States and even the United States. The threat is always the same: if Israel fails, all of the world must follow into the abyss.

20

Suddenly I feel a lot less optimistic (my brother is studying in Haifa). C’mon guys, let pay everyone 100 dollars and buy Jordan a nuke before its to late.