I very much doubt I will be alive in the year 2102 – just writing is seems a very alien concept, never mind imagining it. If I am still alive, I doubt my mind will be in much of a state!
I don’t know who you’ll be, how old you’ll be, where you’ll live or what your lives will look like…but I thought, from what will now be the historic twenty first century, it might be quite fun to make some predictions…The idea of this was taken from BBC radio’s look back this year to their first broadcast, 90 years ago in 1922. They asked listeners to send in messages to place in a time capsule to give to their ancestors. I wasn’t really sure where to start, but I’ll give it a go:
World Powers and Superpowers
So China, India and Brazil must have risen to be population and economic superpowers in the middle of the twenty first century – they are poised, waiting in the wings at the moment as their economic outputs increase, and their political powers on the world stage grow. There are already clashes within Asia, countries such as Vietnam and Thailand which I have visited in the last few years, have been expanding with the likes of China, embedding the killer customer service and entrepreneurial combination into their cultures. Asia will have power, a lot of it, and the USA and Europe, which will now me part of ‘superpower blocks’ will have had to buy into Asian influence. China will have created a cyber war around intellectual property and internet censorship, it will have been a closed nation, allied with its peripheral little Asian allies who are powerless to resist it’s dragon like influence. Europe will be a super ‘block’ constantly annoyed by Russia but closely allied by the North American block with will incorporate Canada and Mexico. North America will have lost its power over the world, but will remain a hub for technological innovation. South America will be its own entity, as will previously oil rich but now rather helpless Middle East/Northern Africa. China and India will have completed a second colonisation of Africa and will wield its influence by controlling the continent. The production and ownership of minerals such as diamonds and cobalt will have become paramount in Africa, China will control much of this production and friction will exist with other superpower blocks because of it. Cobalt will be a particular issue because it will produce batteries and other components essential for new tools of technology such as the new generations of ipads and smartphones.
Australasia will be the bridge between the North American and European blocks, and the Asian block. Disagreements will be over technological aspects such as intellectual property and censorship, natural resources such as the remaining oil reserves, human rights issues and the ownership of weapons of mass destruction. Inevitability a new generation of loony demented dictators will have emerged, and will endanger the whole planet, as it a common story throughout history. After all history repeats itself. Allies will have been built through mutual hatred and objections to these aforementioned loons.
Part 2 will be on science and the environment..
Fresh Thinking Space 