Thread: The Next 100 Years

I think predicting the future is a fool's errand but a book just published has brought up some interesting ideas about where the world is headed.

It's called "The Next 100 Years: A Forecast For The 21st Century" by George Friedman.

Some quotes I've picked up so far:

At a certain level, when it comes to the future, the only thing one can be sure of is that common sense will be wrong

Like the Spanish- American War, a hundred years from now the war between the United States and the radical Islamists will be little remembered regardless of the prevailing sentiment of this time.

And here's one that will surely piss off our resident Continentals:

but the argument I'm making is that the world does, in fact, pivot around the United
States

Here are a few of his predictions:

• The U.S.-Jihadist war will conclude—replaced by a second full-blown Cold War with Russia.
• China will undergo a major extended internal crisis, and Mexico will emerge as an important world power.
• A new global war will unfold toward the middle of the century between the United States and an unexpected coalition from Eastern Europe, Eurasia and the Far East, but armies will be much smaller and wars less deadly.
• Technology will focus on space—both for major military uses and for a dramatic new energy resource that will have radical environmental implications.
• The United States will experience a Golden Age in the second half of the century.

These quotes are only from the first few pages, I haven't finished reading all the online bits yet, which you can read here: The Next 100 Years - A Forecast for the 21st Century - By George Friedman

This Friedman guy sounds like an idiot

Why are half of the world's writer's named Friedman?

within a 100 years, I would guess that eventually the people of the earth will come to realise that there's no reason to have so many people on the planet and so they will have smaller families starting the move toward something better. Before this happens there will be a lot of fighting due to lack of resources. The world's fresh water will go from 3% to 1.5% by the next 100 years. Half of the species in the wild today will be gone from the wild. People will be planting more trees worldwide by 100 years. The artic regions probably will only have seasonal snow and icecover. The people of developed countries will have become so unhealthy due to their diets that somethign will have to have been done. The rest of the world will now be unhealthy from the modern processed foods. Thailand will have moved beyond golden sunshine. English or Chinese will become first languages in some countries they are not today. Cancer will be cured. People will live so long they'll want to die. McDonald's number one competitor will be a Chinese restaurant chain called MrDonHo's

Originally Posted by Rattanaburi

I would guess that eventually the people of the earth will come to realise that there's no reason to have so many people on the planet

Something along those lines was mentioned in the prelude. He states that by the middle of the century the U.S. will be begging Mexicans to immigrate.

Mexico is a complete basket case.
If any of this is to come to pass, Mexico sure has a long way to go.

Denver Post
Jan 19, 2009


MEXICO CITY — Indiscriminate kidnappings. Nearly daily beheadings. Gangs that mock and kill government agents.

This isn't Iraq or Pakistan. It's Mexico, which the U.S. government and a growing number of experts say is becoming one of the world's biggest security risks.

The prospect that America's southern neighbor could melt into lawlessness provides an unexpected challenge to Barack Obama's new government. In its latest report anticipating possible global security risks, the U.S. Joint Forces Command lumps Mexico and Pakistan together as being at risk of a "rapid and sudden collapse."

"The Mexican possibility may seem less likely, but the government, its politicians, police and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained assault and pressure by criminal gangs and drug cartels," the command said in the report published Nov. 25.

"How that internal conflict turns out over the next several years will have a major impact on the stability of the Mexican state." Retiring CIA chief Michael Hayden told reporters on Friday that that Mexico could rank alongside Iran as a challenge for Obama — perhaps a greater problem than Iraq.

The U.S. Justice Department said last month that Mexican gangs are the "biggest organized crime threat to the United States." National security adviser Stephen Hadley said last week that the worsening violence threatens Mexico's very democracy.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff recently told The New York Times he ordered additional border security plans to be drawn up this summer as kidnappings and killings spilled into the U.S.

The alarm is spreading to the private sector as well. Mexico, Latin America's second biggest economy and the United States' third biggest oil supplier, is one of the top 10 global risks for 2009 identified by the Eurasia Group, a New York-based consulting firm.

Is Mexico on verge of collapse? - The Denver Post

I can't be concerned about what might be {or not} in the next 100 years. Perhaps I would be curious for my grand children.....futurist are freaks. They're bent to tight. Imaginary thought towards....do themselves more of a favour if they might give next month some thought.

One of the themes of the Friedman book is how some things that seem permanent are not. He uses the the last 100 years as an example. Many countries rose and fell in that time, not to mention the British Empire. The U.S. in 1900 was a relative backwater, as far as foreign affairs were concerned, but after 2 world wars and a Great Depression we've ascended to a level of power unknown to any empire in history. Things change rapidly and the basket case that is Mexico now could be a real player by the end of the century.

Originally Posted by Rural Surin

Perhaps I would be curious for my grand children

Exactly why he wrote the book, so he states. (I'm sure money was secondary )

Probably more useful to read books about the past if you want to know about the future

Originally Posted by slimboyfat

Probably more useful to read books about the past if you want to know about the future

....we never learn, though.

Most of these shoddy cement building in LOS will have crumbled away.