A useful exercise is to ponder possible future scenarios. What could happen? What would that mean to different stakeholders? You can think at a personal scale – you and your immediate loved ones. It’s also helpful at community, state, national, and geopolitical scales, too.
A few scenarios that I’ve been doodling on…
What will the response be to efforts to normalize/celebrate polyamory and polygamy? Reduced age of majority? Many countries in the West have arrived (and quickly) with same-sex marriage, transgender, and no-fault divorce being accepted by large fractions of the population. Once someone takes the position that marriage is whatever we legally define it to be, then polyamory and polygamy are only a quarter-step away.
Where does food come from if Ukraine and Russia can no longer be the massive exporters they have been in the last 20 years? The war has degraded agriculture exports in both countries. Both countries will struggle to feed themselves in the near term, even though Russia has remarkably good yields this year. Western Europe no longer feeds itself, nor Africa, nor China. What can North America (I include Mexico) do to feed more of the world’s population? And what will that require in terms of energy and trade policies? Related scenario: What do we do in 50 years if our current topsoil loss rate continues?
Suppose there is a wonderful breakthrough in battery technology or wireless power transfers that revolutionizes electric vehicles. What become the new limiting factors – aside from raw materials for manufacturing vehicles and infrastructure? Will we ‘incentivize’ EV adoption via government push, or will the economics be compelling enough for voluntary adoption at a fast rate (like smartphones)? How quickly might this change economic incentives in developing countries which are currently struggling with lack of quality electricity?
What could be accomplished if every child could access a personal AI tutor for learning the fundamentals of reading, writing, and math, for $100/year or less? What if this was true for 10% of children? Would we continue with the same public education models we have today? Who “loses” some aspect of power and control that exists today, and what will they say and do? How many families would embrace personalized tutors?
What comes after the current CCP regime? Demographic and economic trends are not good for China, which gives the political leadership more license to squeeze and control. (Stalin could have only wished for the CCP’s technology ability to monitor its citizens. This makes them more dangerous in the next few years. Leaders tend to spin up external conflict to distract from internal failures. Something I never hear geopolitical analysts discuss: the Christian communities in China have been systematically praying for decades, and it was the stalwart religious faithful in other communist countries who played a catalytic role in their collapse.
The ability to fake anything digital – email addresses, names, photos, videos, audio messages, entire websites – has been a boon to scammers and mass persuaders. You simply cannot trust what’s presented to you onscreen. If a message matches your predisposition and worldview, look out, because you’re especially vulnerable to manipulation through intentionally falsified information. What does this mean going forward for trusting businesses, advocates, leaders, service providers, and institutions of all kinds? What new mechanisms can Captain Skeptical use to verify the authenticity of a message?
What would it take for people to stop staring at their digital devices for 8+ hours a day? I’m thinking mostly of smartphones, but screens are ubiquitous. There’s a different effect of scrolling “social media” (which is oddly named since it seems to make people lonelier and depressed) and watching MIT’s engineering classes. I have a hard time imagining a world without ubiquitous screens going forward. Is the content question any different than fostering a love for good books vs. trashy novels and yellow journalism a century ago?
I’m curious to hear about the scenarios you have in mind, too.
