What To Look for in 2030
Man with crystal ball
I just ran across some predictions for the stock market in the year 2030, which made me think about the so-called futurists (those who get paid to predict the future) and what they must be wrestling with.
Obviously, anyone who takes on such an endeavor faces a variety of challenges, but none of them greater than the effect known as the Black Swan, after essayist, scholar, and statistician Nassim Taleb’s 2007 book of that title, which means that unforeseeable events have huge impacts on our world, rendering predictions impossible. The best we can do is to suggest that no such events will take place, and that the future will look pretty much like an extension of the past and present.
Given that, i.e., no huge Black Swan events, here’s what the world could look like in 2030:
The “Trump Effect,” i.e., the societal regression into overt racism, xenophobia, indifference to human suffering and environmental devastation, war-mongering, lack of interest in education, etc. disappears as quickly and mysteriously as it came. Obviously, racists don’t become tolerant and war hawks don’t become hippies, but the most obvious signs of hate and ignorance disappear from view.
There is a brief period of instability as Trump is removed from office, but rule of law prevails. Perhaps he survives to the end of his term, though that seems unlikely at this point; in any case, the U.S. turns away from authoritarianism and returns to the neoliberalism that took root here in the early 1980s.
This whole period becomes a teachable moment for Americans and humankind at large, not unlike the Salem Witch Trials, the U.S. Civil War and the Third Reich. People wonder how the whole phenomenon was possible in the first place. School textbooks have whole chapters analyzing the event, as it’s obvious that this was one of the defining moments in U.S. and world history.
Proxy wars continue around the globe, but the super powers stay largely uninvolved directly, and none escalate into nuclear conflagration.
The progress of cost-effective energy technologies has advanced to the point that fossil fuels are being phased out rapidly. The consumption of resources to grow beef slow, as various technologies intercede for the better.
Yet, super-storms become so frequent and intense that climate change disinformation campaigns are useless, even on the most ignorant. The urgency of the situation is now generally recognized, though humankind lacks sufficient power to make changes of sufficient impact to turn the problem around, and the effects (drought, potable water shortages, wild fires, sea level rise, ocean acidification, etc.) wreak more damage, cause more suffering, and cost more to repair–all with no end in sight.
The end of the American Empire continues to unfurl itself, as the U.S., becomes increasingly irrelevant in world commerce. This is a function of many decades of anti-intellectualism and ignorance of the drivers of economic success, e.g., education and capital investment in important emerging technologies, especially cleantech. Additionally, we will have reached the end of countries and their people to exploit.
The privations stemming from climate change combine with the ever-widening chasm between rich and poor to greatly reduce the size of the middle class, leaving a plutocracy that controls the vast majority of wealth as well as the law-making process on one side, and billions of largely or completely disenfranchised people on the other. The armed rebellion that could have resulted as recently as 75 years ago is impossible due to the advancements in the technologies of weapons and crowd control. But force is not required to suppress the activist/rebels, as they remain relatively few in number; society is even more distracted by a variety of misdirections that play out in its 24/7 media torrent: professional sports, celebrity peccadilloes, scandals, and so forth–are all absorbed by a population most of which is soothed by alcohol and a large array of prescribed and illicit drugs.
There is widespread understanding that humankind has dug itself into a hole from which it appears incapable of escape, but no politician who wants to be taken seriously talks about the concept of sustainability, which is viewed as unrealistic and Pollyanna-ish, and has been largely abandoned.
Yet there are still people (like me) urging us to wake up before it’s too late, and there are still people (like certain of my detractors) telling us to shut up and mind our own business.
There it is. Hope I’m wrong. Bet I’m not.
Hi Craig,
Thank you for sharing you future predictions, they provide valuable insight into your thinking at this time.
Predicting the future has held a fascination for pundits since man first started to have time to contemplate what lay beyond tomorrow’s hunt.
I’m not so gloomy as you, maybe because the success of my smallish environmental projects leaves me feeling optimistic and less frustrated. My lack of rigid adherence to any particular political or ideological agenda also enables me to be more objective and optimistic.
Of course, I may simply be living in a fools paradise 🙂 but it seems to me the future is so very hard to predict,( especially my own), that like most people, I simply keep moving forward doing the best I can.
Unlike you, I don’t believe the President is in any danger of being removed from office, but I am saddened by the willingness of such news organizations as the fanatically biased and partisan New York Times and CNN constantly promoting such actions .
I was considerably heartened to read Marc A. Thiessen of the Washington Post publish an article illuminating the lies and frauds committed by the Obama administration in dealing with Iran.
The article, “Obama took lying to new heights with the Iran deal” outlined some pretty shocking allegations if true. Even more disturbing is the former President refuses to answer these charges or even acknowledge the events took place and defend his deliberate misleading of Congress.
A particularly disturbing allegation is:
“First, President Barack Obama failed to disclose to Congress the existence of secret side deals on inspections when he transmitted the nuclear accord to Capitol Hill. (They were only uncovered by chance when then-Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., and Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., learned about them during a meeting with International Atomic Energy Agency officials in Vienna.) Then, we learned that the Obama administration had secretly sent a plane to Tehran loaded with $400 million in Swiss francs, euros and other currencies on the same day Iran released four American hostages, which was followed by two more secret flights carrying another $1.3 billion in cash “.
Maybe President Obama felt justified and there’s some argument for Presidents took authorize unorthodox action in matters of National Security, but imagine the furor if President Trump authorized such an action.
In light of these allegations, it’s become obvious President Trump’s contention the Iran deal is deeply flawed and should never have been approved, makes sense.
In contrast President Trump’s candor and openness seems refreshing. Trump’s “lies” are of a more personal nature, more about exaggerations and boastfulness than a cunning ability to deceive while wearing a mask of virtue.
Joe Public is becoming inured to the constant claims Trump is racist by leftist opponents and media. African Americans are becoming more vocal in support of a President who provided Presidential Pardons for a number of Black Americans ignored by previous Presidents, Accusations of antisemitism have also dried up as media outlets such as the NYT and CNN denounce the President for his support of Israel.
Likewise, the media portrays the President as being a persecutor of Muslims, while simultaneously colluding with various Arab nations and Muslim regimes.
I suspect in 2030 the world will look back on the policies of the Trump Presidency as being the dawn of a new era for America.
Like you I have great faith in new clean technology providing solutions for environmental problems. Unlike you, I don’t foresee the only hope being massive disruption and bloody revolution.
I see an exciting evolution. A future of gradual change where technology remove the need to constantly need to “ban” things and individual freedom and aspirations are encouraged to flourish.
I see a world of increasing prosperity based on even more consumer choice.
The future will, in my opinion look much like the present with the more negative aspects rendered obsolete.
But then, I’m an optimist !
Craig,
A good example of why the future is unpredictable, is the rise of Crypto-currency and Blockchain technology.
It seems almost over night, at frightening speed, a new industry already worth more than $1 trillion dollars and doubling rapidly, has arisen. Created out of nothing but idealism and a desire to circumvent central banks, the peer to peer aspects of crypto were only the start of the attraction.
It seems inevitable Crypto currencies will (already in process) develop the whole trading panoply of options, derivatives and other instruments of exchange and trade in competition with traditional currencies.
Already, crypto-investment and alt-coin hedge funds are appearing as financial institutions increasingly accept these tokens as security, like bonds and other instruments of value.
Bit-coin and blockchain technology is less than a decade in the public arena, yet huge fortunes are being made, and lost, while bit-coin mining alone is using vast swathes of electrical energy .
The annual energy demand for this kind of computer power equals the consumption of nations the size of Ireland or Denmark !
Only a decade ago this was unforeseeable, and unthinkable by pundits. To people of our generation, the ramifications are incomprehensible and all too easily dismissed as a mere fad.
Fortunately, I invested in a team of sharp young minds who can explain these trends to an old dinosaur like me. In a mere four months of her employment with me, my young American assistant has made herself an expert in trading Crypto-currency and like many of her contemporaries has personally earned more in that period than the average worker would earn in 20 years, and this is just the beginning.
I met her while on my ” Odyssey” through the US coal industry and industrial rust belt. Like most bright young university graduates she was eager to learn about the world and find a future. Engaged originally as a guide in the Southern regions of the US , her personality and attractive appearance proved to be assets in making the people I interviewed feel comfortable.
As a research assistant she seized to opportunity to develop skills in newly developing industries and investment opportunists often overlooked.
At her age, she can understand the challenges “futurologists” can’t foresee. What we used to call computer games, now a $120 billion dollar industry, employing hundreds of thousands on high wages.(Average Californian game developer is paid over $120,000 per year).
Whole new industries have arisen, most energy hungry and impatient. Technology is both a cornucopia of plenty and a curse. In a globalized world, energy demand keeps increasing as more populations become connected and fall under the allure of technology.
Something to think about in the twilight of our years 🙂