7 Top Futurists Make Some Pretty Surprising Predictions About What The Next Decade Will Bring

[haele]

15. Problem with predictions is the assumption of status quo

All things being the same, "X" should happen. However, people as a group are foolishly unpredictable, and there are too many variables to run a proper predictive analysis.

Could we have predicted Bush v. Gore, which enabled the disruptive atmosphere that has created the general social and civil decline, global instability, and income inequality we are experiancing now?
Well in hindsight, the environment that got us the Contract on America, the replacement of journalism with infotainment in Media, and public fear of change mixed with greed in general should have been a big warning sign that the lurching towards a reasonably positive society that had been FDR's legacy was in danger and that we were in the process of turning the country around and heading back to the turn of the 19th centrury instead of forward to the end of the 20th.

Here's my prediction looking at the current status quo.
Within the next 5 to 10 years (no matter who becomes President), Free Marketeering will pretty much ensure that even though there are a few small independent businesses in niche markets, the majority of the market will consist of four or five global monopolies or corporate -states with subsidieries and "partnerships" that funnel the profits up to the boards and major shareholder investor groups. Competition is nearly non-existant, along with any nation state regulation of these corporate organizations. Privatization of common resources and services is pretty much complete, along with the monitization of society. Most people will go about believing the illusion that they can control how they live and what they chose, because they don't want to admit that between Citizen's United and the codification of "Corporations are People", and Reagan's liberatarian homelies about the evils of Government and the moral rightgeousnous of selfishness call itself "self-reliance". It will just come about quicker if a Republican becomes president, but the Free Marketeers have basically hijacked the world economies, and that ship has already sailed.

In 10 years (2025), global climate change will be serious enough that even the Kochs won't be able to have a leg to stand on without getting wet anywhere they go. International Big Bizznus and the Shareholders will have to finally decide to spend money on trying to protect exisiting infrastructure because the costs will be to high not to do so. Privilidged trust-fund babies still won't admit Mummy, Daddy, and the Grandparents were selfish greedy bastards who looked the other way while common resources were being raped away, but they'll agree to be part of the "repair" work so long as they can keep their priviledge and status.

Technology will be focused on surviving the environment, not sustaining the environment.
Income Inequality will not have abaited as jobs grow scarcer and most workers can't afford to follow what jobs are left. Working and unemployed people will bear the brunt of the environmental degredation. Unless they had the skills or looks to be "famous", most will live lives of (as the song says) "quiet desperation", hoping that some crumb of comfort beyond making due with having sex, getting stoned, or doing something stupidly unaffordable for entertainment can be found somewhere.
Poor people will still bear the burden of Calvinism - "it's their fault they're poor".

In 25 years (2040), Technology will have advanced enough that a good third of all skilled jobs currently in the US will be automated, to add to all the jobs from the 1970's that had been automated, leading to a large amount of people who are basically over-trained and unemployable because the "good jobs" for the average person isn't there.
It will be a good future for those increasingly few who can afford it.
However, there will be a major "dropping off the grid" or disenfranchisement of the increasing amount of people who can't.
Now - that's with Status Quo as it is now.
There could be something that can change it. Heck, Aliens can come down pretending to be Jesus and rapture away the Prosperity Xtians along with the other fanaticists and we can start working on something better.
We can have a global awakening. Corporations may discover what it means to be a person, and figure out they need to participate with the rest of us.
But until then, I'd be skeptical of most futurists predictions.

Haele