Predicting the Future, Part II

 In an earlier article, I talked about technological advances I see on the horizon. This time, I want to go into the social trends that I foresee changing the world in the next few decades, as this has always been another area of keen interest for me. In part, I went into Psychology and Sociology so that I might do just this – use as much data as possible in order to create a predictive framework, and anticipate where we might be headed. This, in my mind, is the best way to design policies which can creatively address emerging problems, and even circumvent a great many as well. I hope someday to find a job in a charity or government organization that will let me do this for a living.

 Human history is a great predictor of future trends, and a familiarity with it is immensely helpful in making sense of complex social trends. The trick is to recognize which trends progress steadily, which progress exponentially, and which tend to fluctuate wildly. With the first two, accurate prediction is always a possibility with enough data, while in the latter, making accurate predictions are impossible, but sensible policy can help to mitigate the effects of uncertainty. In the twentieth century, we have seen a number of important advances which have changed the course of human societies. It is possible, with varying degrees of accuracy, to extrapolate how many of these will continue to affect our societies, and while I'm certainly not the first to do it, I may have a different vision to offer.

 We are, in the West at least, progressing toward a more equitable society, as we have had some time now to tinker with our democracies, figuring out through trial and error both what works and what doesn't. The civil rights battles that were fought over the last century, for example, have paved the way for those being fought today, particularly by gays and lesbians, and as this is a hot topic in the news lately, it is as good as any issue to address first. We now know, through our early struggles with segregation and apartheid, that these sort of policies have harshly negative impacts on a society. The negative impacts on the economy and moreover on the soul of a society should be apparent to anyone who conducts even a cursory review of history. Legally enshrining discrimination creates an atmosphere of uncertainty, institutionalizes cruelty, and can lead to the type of blatant scapegoating that the survivors of the Holocaust must be all too familiar with. It turns neighbour against neighbour, families against one another, and this atmosphere is corrosive to overall social well-being and cooperation.

 Social conservatives, who typically the ones to advocate such discrimination, tend to trumpet loudly how they are only seeking to “preserve family values”, but what they really mean is that they wish to preserve families like their own. This mentality - “there must be something wrong with anyone who's not like me” - belongs to the infancy of our species, and while many of us grow out of it as adults, learning to take a broader view and think in shades of grey rather than in black and white, not everyone has access to the sort of education and experience that would allow them to do so. Such attitudes are based on simple ignorance, for the most part, and it is easy to track how with greater knowledge of how real gays and lesbians actually live, the Western world has come to terms with the fact that they are normal, everyday people who simply want to live out their lives in peace, and who not only have families, but strong values as well.

 As we move forward, there is certainly resistance to this in more conservative countries, but as culture becomes more globalized through the power of the internet, the social and economic pressure will only increase against countries that choose to discriminate against their own LGBT citizens. We see this now with Uganda, which, after passing what could only be described as draconian anti-gay laws, has seen millions of dollars in aid from foreign countries evaporate within weeks. As with the civil rights movements of the past, momentum will likely continue to build, until the last holdouts are widely regarded as barbaric, and internationally ostracized. It will take time, but this will likely be as much of a non-issue in thirty years as it is in places like Canada and the Netherlands today.

 Another social issue that is ready to fall is similarly related to what we do with our own bodies – the use of narcotics. In the past, most nations have taken the position that the government has the right to dictate what substances its citizens may choose to ingest, but, as more and more around the world are coming to realize, this position has been a spectacular and expensive failure. Not only has it proven impossible to enforce, but in the course of trying to enforce such laws, they are often used as a tool to oppress minorities, which has become the clear pattern in many countries, most notably the United States. Initially, marijuana laws were used a means of controlling the Mexicans who primarily smoked it, but now, although both whites and blacks have similar patterns of use, blacks are incarcerated far, far more for the crime of simple possession. To be blunt, this is a shameful waste of human life and potential, an affront to justice, and probably one of the worst ways to effectively handle the real problem of drug addiction. As history has shown, particularly during Prohibition, the threat of punishment is an ineffective deterrent in fighting substance abuse, and driving the production and sale of controlled substances underground simply fuels criminal organizations, while depriving governments of taxable income. We now know that there are much more effective means of coping with these issues. 

 In Portugal, for example, all substance abuse laws were struck down, not just those relating to marijuana, and instead substance abuse is now treated as a public health issue. This policy has proven stunningly effective, and in addition, has saved huge amounts of money that can be then utilized more effectively elsewhere. In Colorado, which has recently legalized the sale and purchase of marijuana, the tax revenues have exceeded expectations, and they can now spend more money on programs designed to prevent children from using drugs in the first place, which are, incidentally, far more effective a deterrent than the threat of jail. Across the world, the tide of opinion is shifting on this issue, and as more success stories like those above emerge, the further it will shift. Uruguay, the first country to entirely legalize the sale of marijuana, is most likely to be the first of many, as nations realize that they are missing out on a massive, untapped source of revenue, from a product that has been demonstrated to be far less harmful than alcohol, non-addictive, and that may even have health benefits. In thirty years, the worldwide use of marijuana, through state-regulated sources, will likely rival the use of alcohol, and the archaic way we handle addiction to more dangerous substances will likely see a great deal of reform.

 Inevitably, we must circle back to the economy in any discussion about the future of society, as it too will likely change radically over the next thirty years or so. In the past century, what we have seen is the running-out of the capitalist model, as it consistently demonstrates its rather glaring weaknesses. While it may have been well-adapted to the conditions of the previous century, as conditions change it seems increasingly ready to give way to better models. The foremost weakness of capitalism is its inability to incorporate factors which, although essential to consider in the long term, lie outside the purview of the traditional Neo-Classical economic model. “Externalities”, as they have come to be called, encompass such factors as the value of the services provided by the environment, the effects of pollution, the human costs of unfair labour practices, the social impact of corner-cutting when essential services are privatized, and so on. Capitalism is, at its heart, about the bottom line, and while this may be important when talking strictly about the economy, it cannot be all we talk about in a real-world discussion of the economy, because in reality its impact can be felt far beyond the financial sector. Economic decisions have social and environmental blow-back, a fact we are beginning to truly come to terms with, and in time this may steer us to elect leaders with experience beyond simply the business world. While economic understanding may be a necessary prerequisite for leadership, it should no longer be a sufficient one.

 Beyond this however, we must also consider that the very basis for our current economy may be outdated in very short order. As it stands, energy and production are cornerstones of our global economy, but technology is on the brink of forever changing how we look at both. Today, we are passing the point at which clean energy can compete with fossil fuels, and where science is finding ways to derive energy from an increasing number of sources, with ever-increasing efficiency. In under thirty years, fossil fuels will fall by the wayside, partially out of environmental necessity, but largely driven by market competition, and energy will be cheaply, widely available, a virtually inexhaustible resource. If you doubt this, simply consider that enough energy falls to the Earth every day as sunlight to power civilization for hundreds of years – and this is to say nothing of wind and tidal energy, which we are also becoming adept at tapping into. We are, and will continue to be, driven by environmental and economic necessity to push these technologies forward, and when the “free energy” tipping point is reached, it will unlock the potential for technology to boost our quality of life in ways previously undreamed of.

 Another technology, which is already beginning to change the fundamental nature of production, is 3-D printing. As we become increasingly adept at creating what goods we need on demand, the mass-production paradigm will simply collapse. Already, individuals can purchase 3-D printers for home use, and as such can make many of the goods that they used to have to buy in stores, tailoring them more specifically to their desires, and in many cases producing them more cheaply. Removing a supply chain and all the costs associated with it is vastly more efficient, and for this reason alone the market will inevitably have to adapt. Product design will become paramount, as goods designed to last longer rather than be thrown away after a few uses will be what people will want to print at home, and thus the sale of such designs rather than the sale of the items themselves will become a focal point of the economy. The ease and low cost of home printing, in tandem with lowering energy costs and the boom in robotics, will fundamentally change the way we live our lives, making them more comfortable, and adding to our leisure time. Creativity, rather than manual production, will be the cornerstone of the economy for the first time in history, as machines will do virtually everything that we would rather not. National economies that prepare for this best will naturally reap the greatest rewards, and education will be paramount in maintaining this type of infrastructure. Nations that ignore this in the near-term will find themselves becoming increasingly irrelevant in the long-term global economic climate.

 On a happy note, I would like to close by noting a positive social trend, one that I only hope will continue – the popularization of science and scientific literacy among the general population. Again thanks to the internet, scientific information is spread around the world at unprecedented rates, and as such, rates of scientific literacy are higher now than they have ever been. As access to the internet extends further and further into remote areas, allowing for cheaper and more balanced education, as well as more free access to the press and world events, people will continue to better understand the world and the universe at large. The recent fundamentalist surge in reaction to this is understandable in a sense, as scientific literacy is a fairly reliable inoculation against fundamentalism, but this is a battle that the fundamentalists cannot win. Knowledge, once it is spread, can't be stuffed back where it came from. We are (slowly but surely) getting smarter as a species, and I can only hope that this means we will be able to safely navigate all the changes that are, at this very moment, rushing our way.