MIT’s Look at Civilization’s Megatrends

Here are 9 top megatrends as seen by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

1. Demographics: People are living longer. By 2030, more than a billion people will be over 65. 
2. Urbanization: More and more people will move to cities. By 2030, more than two-thirds of the world will live in urban centers. 
3. Transparency: The amount of data collected on every person, product, and organization will continue to grow exponentially, as will the pressure to share that information. Keeping secrets will no longer be possible. 
4. Climate Crisis: Despite rising awareness, governments continue to struggle to balance long-term environmental needs with short-term economics.
5. Resource Pressures: Water will be a stressed resource. Many cities will be constantly in a state of water shortage and drought.
6. Clean Tech: Because of Nos. 4 and 5, we will also see an explosion of data-driven technologies that make our collective infrastructure substantially more efficient.
7. Technology Shifts: Connectivity will continue to spread. 2030 will also see affordable A.I. achieve human levels of intelligence. 
8. Global Policy: Global problems require globally unified responses, yet it seems less and less likely that nation states will be able to effectively govern collectively, let alone collaboratively. As a result, it will be up to business to take the lead on solving these issues.
9. Nationalism: The rise of nationalism may increase, with xenophobia continuing to grow.

To all this I would add “widening chasm between rich and poor,” and note how this affects the other nine.  It appears that the United States is in the process of taking away the last traces of power from the so-called “99%,” through dismantling every apparatus that formerly empowered them, in particular, by destroying public education, eliminating what’s left of organized labor, massive disinformation campaigns and denial of science, privatizing public resources, and rendering more people without healthcare and racked by student loans.  At that point, the U.S. will have completed its transition and will have become a full-fledged oligarchy, and it will be interesting to see where the top 0.01% want to take us from there.

Also, let’s note how bleak all this looks for climate change mitigation, particularly in light of #8.  Human civilization, organized as it is in 200+ sovereign nations, seems supremely ill-equipped to come together to solve a common problem, even one whose impacts are so catastrophic.  Here in the U.S., our “America First” mentality appears to be taking a difficult situation and making it completely impossible. Around the globe, and certainly in the U.S, there seems to be virtually no progress in the direction of sustainability, i.e., of meeting our own needs in a manner in which future generations are able to meet theirs.

Hope I’m wrong.