THE GLOBAL FUTURIST

Showing posts with label civilization. Show all posts

Monday, April 22, 2013

5 Top Megatrends: Human Civilization 2013 - 2033 [Updated]

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There are five top MegaTrends which will alter the structure of Human civilization, the quality of life for all peoples, the methods by which we deal with industrial and healthcare issues, the way in which we communicate [reference: The Sending Signals Blog], and the dominant and dangerous dependencies which will become all the more powerful because of our A) failure to find alternatives, and our B) building virtually every aspect of our socialization and commerce upon them. As said before in The Global Futurist Blog, these are neither all good nor all bad -- they are just megatrends to be prepared for in terms of our basic behavioral responses, as Human Beings, to change:

Douglas E. Castle's Three Psycho-Socio Anticipatory Responses To Predictions

Acceptance (a passive approach, wherein we accept what is given us and do not exert our will to shape the anticipated change, nor do we exert our will to resist the change heading toward us) -- which is the reaction of the greatest percentage of our species;

Active Participation -- An approach where we do not leave the future to chance, but instead proactively and aggressively participate in an effort to change the course of the future or to pointedly build the future to our anticipated needs and desires (this is the rarest of responses from the standpoint of behavioral psychology and sociological dynamics;

Revolt Or Revolution -- A purely reactive response to predictions, when we are sufficiently threatened by the likelihood of their coming true. This is the second most popular type of anticipatory response to change when it is already happening

Here are the predictions, outlined cursorily, and in no particular order temporally or in terms of priority, greatest potential effect, or any other ordinal criteria:

1) Demographics - Amongst the educated and intellectually superior individuals in the most industrialized nations, marriage will become less popular, reproduction will become less popular, and the family unit and geographical "neighborhood" concept will all but disappear. Amongst the uneducated and poor, reproduction will continue at its present rate, creating an even greater disparity between social classes, and imposing an impossible strain upon governments seeking to "reallocate" via fiscal policy or monetary policy, resources to provide for all citizens and residents. Governments will become either resource-depleted and abandoned by the most resourceful and promising individuals, or they will try to enslave their peoples with tighter monitoring and controls both fiscally and physically.

2) Privacy - Electronic communications of every sort will not be private or protected by any means, and will have been completely compromised by a wide variety of agencies with a wide variety of motives and for an ever-increasing variety of uses. There will be no privacy between Human Beings where electronic, satellite, wave or other physical technologies are employed. Privacy will be very rare, hard to orchestrate and very expensive to arrange.Variations on RFID, GPS and other tracking technologies will be used to geo locate every inventoriable pereson. A small percentage of the population of the world will attempt to circumvent this intrusiveness by living "off the grid" in self-sufficient hideaways.

3) Health, Wellness And Medicine - The quality of life for those very few who will be able to afford it will be quite good, with excellent prospects for healthy, robust longevity of at least 33.33% greater than it is at present. The technologies employed will include: genetic engineering and re-engineering: cloning, nanotechnology, stem cell 'directing', electromagnetism and auto-donorship or regrowth of body parts, systems, organs and tissues. Such issues as skeletal, muscular, ocular and cardiac deterioration (as associated with telomere shortening) will occur much further on (i.e., later) in life, and diseases of the brain and nervous system will all but have been eliminated.

4) Mechanical Creationism - Through the utilization of three-dimesional computer-generated real-world objects, the ideations of visionaries will be birthed into the real world via computer design, programming and production. Whole objects, from individual molecules of a chemical substance for industrial or medical use to cars and buildings will be generated from diagrams -- rather like putting dough into a pasta-making machine. There will be a spate of mechanical "concept to corporeal" designs and increasing unemployment as manual skills will be in ever-diminishing demand, and only highly-skilled technicians, project managers and senior-level management will have any means of entry into a limited, telecommuter-filled marketplace. This bodes well for a better work-life balance, but it also portends further economic class divisions and poverty for those who cannot become entrepreneurs or solopreneurs in various niche markets.

5) Home and office security, as well as data and device access will have become multivariate biometric, with voice recognition to accompany the various reads and scans, and with passwords or smart cards (chip- or strip-implanted) only as a final line of defense in the security protocol of people, property, processes and data. And then again, data are never truly safe if transmitted by way of electrons, referring back to item #1, listed above.

Thank you as always, for reading me, and for sharing The Global Futurist Blog and The Internationalist Page Blog Articles with your connections and colleagues through your social media dashboards and channels.

Douglas E. Castle

Join me on LinkedIn at http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/douglascastle

Sponsored by:
CFI - CrowdFunding Incubator LLC
Global Edge Technologies Group LLC
ICS - International Connection Services

*And now, a brief contemporary social observation and commentary (as public laughter and open amusement are legal for the time being, and because the Future, with the exception of certain major geological or astronomical events, can still be quite bright if that is how we choose to make it...:

FORGIVE ME READERS, FOR I KNOW NOT WHAT I'M DOING (Too Much Of The Time!)

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WebCrawler - Scrub The Entire Web For Everything About Future Prediction

Friday, April 12, 2013

Shocking World Forecasts: 2013 - 2063

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As the author of The Global Futurist Blog, I take the more conservative road in predictions.

When I forecast for the near-term, I endeavor to keep my visionary insights turned off to the greatest extent possible, while I choose certain specific variable relating to equally specific trends which I feel will either peak and fall (in the fairly near-term), or which have sufficient gravity (as used here, I am speaking of combination of such factors as: their importance to the economy; widespread media coverage; ongoing research grant allocations and investment; the amplitude of the change they would create; the power of the established industries or technologies which they would have to -- David and Goliath style -- disrupt and displace; and the views of other futurists and prognosticators looking at the same variables in the shorter-term) to be carried forward and create a serious rippling effect, radical sociological paradigm shift or revolutionary technological change.

I've only chosen a few items to focus on, and they are in areas where: the trending is swelling in amplitude; there are limits in accessibility to depletable resources (a finite quantity parameter); there are artificially subsidized or sustained institutions, industries or practices;
there are untenable compromises which foster instability; there are urgent changes required for society's and Humanity's survival; or, where there are institutions which are fatalistic by their nature, and have a "loot and pillage all that we can RIGHT NOW" mentality while the New Rome (or Babylon) burns, or while the Titanic slips into the freezing depths of an unforgiving dispassionate ocean.

I'll limit my global forecasts for the 50-year time frame to a simple outline form without going into the reasoning behind them in great detail:

1) The world's supply of potable water will be scarce, and Israeli desalinization technology will be used, subject to license, by many nations. There will be mass starvation and famine in Africa, parts of the Middle East, island republics and the Amazon;

2) Climate change, unpredictable and increasingly volatile, will create great damage to world infrastructure, significant alterations to continental positions, the decimation of some island civilizations and will make travel increasingly difficult;

3) There will be increased clashes between deprived and infuriated citizens (or servants or subjects) and the governments which have bankrupted them and helped to enslave them;

4) Asia will lose its economic advantage, and that advantage will move to parts of industrialized Europe, with some benefit to the United States.

5) The Caucasian and poorly educated minority of the U.S. citizenry will become increasingly armed and hostile toward the government, and violent (but media-suppressed)skirmishes will ensue; the demography of the U.S. will shift in favor of Latinos and Asians, and virtually all employment with the exception of the entrepreneurial sector, will be by governments or their agencies;

6) There will be bloody war in the Middle East and parts of Africa between Shiite Muslims and Sunni Muslims;

7) Fossil fuels will decrease in use and utility as their availability is compromised by surface transport issues;

8) The United States will be militarily involved in multiple wars throughout the world;

9) Complete invisibility cloaking will be in use by covert and acknowledged government agencies domestically and internationally.

10) Plasma, laser and other wave-based or radiation-based weapons will be in ordinary use.

11) Mexico will become a rogue state, run by a coalition of corrupt government officials and the drug lords. Other countries will likely follow suit;

12) There will have been a shift toward atomic energy;

13) There will have been a shift from internet to satellite communications;

14) Entire limbs and organs will be grown utilizing stem cells combined with electromagnetic technology and genetic engineering, and for the few who can afford it, the Human lifespan will have been increased to in excess of 130 years. Females will outlive males. The average lifespan due to environmental and socio-economic factors will decrease significantly from where it is today;

15) Those persons who can get work will be telecommuting from their secured residences, and most recreation will not take place outside secured zones in enclosed areas;

16) A great deal of recreational time will be spent in virtual reality, as an escape into fantasy from the harsh realities of future life;

17) Society will not have attained Kurzweil's point of Singularity, but substantially all menial, physical or clerical jobs will be undertaken by robots. Machines will build machines, but none will exhibit genuine Artificial Intelligence;

18) There will be movements amongst various governments to eliminate paper currency to facilitate better tracking of money, materiel and personnel, as well as to simplify the tax collection process. There will be riots in otherwise civilized countries over this;

19) Most device and access security will be by a combination of biometrics instead of encryption;

20) Humanity will be de-socialized to the extent that we will be living in a sort of high-technology Medieval revival, with corporate-government cartels being the lairds of their respective territories, and individuals will serve them, putting country and citizenship affiliations second;

21) Most of the world's wealth will be controlled by less than 1% of the total population -- the other 99% will be struggling for survival in a polluted, unsafe, violent world -- a world overcome by the madness that comes of hyper-vigilance and constant fear;

22) Most educated couples will choose not to have children, while the uneducated will continue to create families which they cannot responsibly support;

23) Pollution in Asia and in certain parts of Latin America will make the air quality so poor that people will not be able to spend any time outdoors, except with air filtration gear;

24) Most of the world's peoples will be living in abject poverty, and will literally be fighting for their their lives;

25) The tremendous resurgence which we are witnessing today amongst the Doomsday Preppers, the End-Times Groups and the militant anti-government groups is ultimately a foreshadowing of items 1 through 24, above. As someone once told me, "Just 'cause you's paranoid don't mean that they ain't out to get you." In these extreme cases, these groups are partially prophetic and partially a disparate self-fulfilling prophesy. There will be incidents involving drones killing innocents, planned assassinations, chemical and biological tests gone wrong and some tragedies involving 'dirty nukes'. Rhetorically-justified lawlessness will be the privilege of those who can either choose to be or pay to be exempt from the law.

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I also believe that there will be the promising beginnings of colonization of other planets or their moons by the next wave of Human pioneers, and they will be Humankind's greatest hope for the future. These colonists will have wonderful, powerful technologies to aid them in their re-creation of a society, but (and this is conjecture -- not forecast), hopefully these few will have sociologically, psychologically and spiritually advanced to the point that they do not want to invest in a zero-sum game.

Instead, I hope that these few will be collaborative, and see the very notion of civilization as a goal to be striven for above all else except for the right to be different from others, but yet fully accepting of them.

Thank you, as always for reading me, and for sharing my articles with your colleagues and connections over the interconnectedness of social media.

Douglas E. Castle

Sponsored By:
CFI - CrowdFunding Incubator LLC
Global Edge Technologies Group LLC
ICS - International Connection Services

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Tuesday, October 18, 2011

The Unnecessary Decline Of Civilization

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Civilization is essentially a business arrangement of convenience entered into by all parties so that each may be better benefited by the expertise, the experience and the contributions (in terms of cooperative and collaborative efforts harmoniously in synergy). A civilization is also very much like a multi-cellular organism, where each cell (i.e., participant) must be reasonably independent and self-managing, but also cooperative in terms of society's "business plan."

If the plan is unclear, if the roles of the participants are uncertain, if there are no policies (i.e., laws and parameters of conduct), or if those policies are capriciously applied without regard to balance, fairness, justice and predictability, and if incentives are not offered for doing things of benefit for society as a whole, the body of civilization disintegrates, as does any overripe, under-managed 'business' that has forgotten or chooses to ignore the reasons for which it was formed.

Every Human Being is a participant in civilization in multiple aspects and capacities.

A bloated system which ignores the notion of contribution and meritocracy, and instead embraces plutocracy, privilege and waste, will lose the faith, initiative and cooperation of its stakeholders (the participants), its employees (the participants) and its clients (the participants).

As the focus of our participants moves away from such once-thought-noble objectives as teaching and helping others; innovating and creating "new" things; gaining and maintaining a reputation for trustworthiness; self-growth; supported entrepreneurship; free and open dialogue and exchanges of ideas; a true opportunity to serve, and direct political elections based upon individual merits of candidates (and not based upon the sizes of their budgets); a streamlined government which does not itself act as an ever-growing parasite subsisting off of the contributions of the participants (hosts) and offering less and less service in exchange for more and more intrusive control at a higher and higher 'commission rate,' extorted in the form of taxes and money creation...we become increasingly (and perhaps preemptively) selfish.

The situation is exacerbated by feeble leadership, increasing inefficiencies, diminished expectations and a lack of positive reinforcement for genuine achievement. When people work for the government but the government doesn't work for the people, when greed eclipses good, when all assessment becomes subjective, the stage is set for a social decline.

Our decline has already begun, and is accelerating worldwide. As a business in the macroscopic sense, civilization neither turns a profit nor justifies, by the decreasing benefits which it bestows upon its participants, its very existence.

As Futurists, we must anticipate a decline in civilization if the implicit trends referenced above are not reversed -- and momentum, combined with typical Human reactivism, are driving us to the brink of some form of neo-feudalism with large enterprises as the warlords who will command us under the guise of protection.

Be prepared. There will be mush more to discuss on the implications, timing, risk mitigation, and intelligent intervention in order to either exploit this coming era of entropy (a seemingly immoral choice), or to plan to surf the coming tsunami.

It is painful to think that this is a generalized trend...poorer service, increased institutionalized lawlessness, de-personalization, diminished expectations and standards, unproductive expenditure and profligate 'bonus entitlement', is, in a sense the triumph of Humankind's animal Nature over the spark of divinity which I believe resides in most if not all of us.

In subsequent posts, we talk about what we need to do as individuals, as families, and as businesses owners and managers.

Douglas E Castle [http://aboutDouglasCastle.blogspot.com]

http://BusinessAndProjectPlanning.blogspot.com
http://InfoSphereBusinessAlerts.blogspot.com
http://TakingCommand.blogspot.com
http://SendingSignals.blogspot.com

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Deepening Divides: Megatrends To Watch - Part 2

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In mid-September, Deepening Divides: Megatrends To Watch - Part 1 was published. The article, which can be found at http://theglobalfuturist.blogspot.com/2011/09/deepening-divides-megatrends-to-watch.html addressed the nature of these social, economic, political, technological and other movements. They are not merely small waves, aberrations or market adjustments -- they are changes which take place over a rather long period of time, but which keep growing, unchecked, and ultimately lead to dramatic changes affecting all of Human civilization.

I referred to them categorically as Juggernauts. We tend to notice them, but since their effects don't seem imminent, or aren't sufficiently disturbing, we de-prioritize them -- we procrastinate until they are fully upon us. Then it becomes the traditional dance of pointing fingers, placing blame, and miserable crisis management.

The "deepening divides" are enabled, encouraged (I've personified them) and exacerbated because no one chooses to address them. When they become sufficiently intrusive, we tend to wonder, "When did this happen?" Like a tiny crack in the ice on a lake, they grow deeper and further, with unfathomably profound implications for the world and our species. I liken this to walking through the woods and hearing a slight buzzing; as I walk further, it becomes louder. Soon, I find myself stepping into a nest of bees, and I am fully ambushed by an unshakeable cloud of angry bees, stinging me until I fall over in anaphylactic shock, with my body swollen to the size of sea lion.

I brought myself right into the calamity by ignoring small but persistent signs... a gradual increase in the volume of buzzing. I was not vigilant and I failed to react quickly and pre-emptively. The greatest megatrends do not require the studies of a brilliant mind to recognize -- Futurists and journalists don't usually find them exciting or "sexy" enough to warrant serious coverage.

Some of the changes covered in the first Part of the Article are reviewed briefly below:

1) The United Nations will become increasingly irrelevant.

2) The average Human attention span will decrease very significantly.

3) Human immunological responses, resiliency and recovery abilities will wane, ushering in a decline in the general level of public health.

4) Logistics, fulfillment and transport issues will become increasingly inefficient and technologically unsuitable, e.g., outmoded, to keep pace with the increasing demands for shipments of goods intranationally and worldwide.

5) An increasing percentage of the world's population will become poor.

To the above list, I would like to add the following to our Global Futurist vision. And bear in mind that any single one of these "sleeper changes" has the power, in and of itself to radically change the way each and every one of us lives:

6) Militaries, prisons, police agencies and other less media-covered and sensationalized functions of national governments will become privatized, and a handful of giant private contractors, without binding legal or ethical sovereign allegiance will essentially control the greatest concentration of each country's weaponry, as well as the power to terminate and incarcerate individuals almost at will. As Napoleon once said, "God is always on the side of the heaviest artillery." Individuals will essentially be controlled, if not enslaved by these huge monopolies;

7) The average age of individuals will increase, and the percentage of the population being considered as elderly (as of this moment, those individuals over 70 years of age) will increase. The quality of life for these people will decline, a greater number of them will be institutionalized, and many will be kept alive due to the continued profit motive driving healthcare providers to bilk third-party payers for all sorts of life-prolonging procedures, and for purposes of scientific experimentation. The elderly will be increasingly perceived by the young to middle-aged segments of the population as being a 'drain on the economic system'. This is a mindset that leads to frightening consequences if we permit our respective imaginations to wander down their darkest corridors.

8) There will be a dramatic increase in the direct private and dynastic ownership of companies and assets, and a flight from publicly-traded securities or paper debt and currencies. Volatility and growing distrust of the capital markets is beginning to lead the flow of wealth into direct participation in managed business. The Chinese are masterful at this. The Americans are not.

Investments will be increasingly assessed (i.e., valued) based upon their ability to generate recurring income for their owners, and less for the likelihood of a market killing. The gambling portion of the public will continue to play high stakes in the stock market, while the sobered and saddened one-time speculators will rebuild and store wealth in the form of direct ownership of income-producing assets. This could fuel a longer-term (more than eight years from now) rise in the value of multifamily dwellings, farmland, operating mines, smaller businesses involved in low-tech services and product manufacturing and distribution.

Imagine: "Hey, buddy! I've got a hot tip on a company that's going private."

9) Many of the "free to user" computer, internet, communications, publishing and social media services which have become dependent upon these free services will be shocked to find that the seemingly benign geek-born monopolists (Google, Twitter, Facebook, and others), are going to start billing consumers and businesses for services in the same way as any traditional utilities companies. This will force many entrepreneurs and start-ups into bankruptcy, and will cause their larger counterparts to increase prices significantly, as they simultaneously petition the various governments involved to intervene and regulate these rapacious business giants.

Be vigilant. Anticipate changes, Prepare plans and muster the will to put them into effect. These MegaTrends will not only be game-changing -- they will be revolutionary in every sense of that term.

Douglas E Castle [http://aboutDouglasCastle.blogspot.com]

Sunday, March 28, 2010

The National Networker Weekly Newsletter, Articles and Updates: 03.28.2010 - [Condensed Version]

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Dear Readers:

This posting represents a slight departure from my usual agenda. Having said this, those of you who know a bit about me will understand that sometimes a slight departure from our habits, patterns and repetitive tasks gives us a renewed and improved perspective.

The world is getting smaller, but is feeling terribly crowded and noisy, with so many voices crying out for attention -- some need humanitarian aid, some want to market us their products and services, and some want to express their feelings or promote their ideologies.

As an Internationalist and a Global Futurist, I see both obstacles and opportunities in this crowded but sometimes very lonely room.

With all of this talk about buzz-to-brand, social media, viral marketing and networking, we cannot afford to lose sight of the most important thing: Our sacred Humanity. This world can be whatever we choose it to be if we cooperate and collaborate. In a world where so many peoples are at war, so many are homeless and hungry, so many are suffering unexpected financial calamities, so many are still shaking from a spate of natural disasters...and where everyone is treading cautiously in a state of frightful uncertainty, we must build together.

Together... the only alternative is apart; and remaining apart has never created a civilization or initiated commerce.

Faithfully,

Douglas Castle

p.s. The material which follows has been reprinted, with permission, from The National Networker Weekly Newsletter, Articles and Updates: 03.28.2010 - Condensed Version. I believe that you will find some of the updates and articles of great interest, and I am delighted to have the opportunity to share them with you.
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The National Networker Weekly Newsletter, Articles and Updates: 03.28.2010 - [Condensed Version]

We'll confess... this is probably one of the best issues of the best newsletter for entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises -- The National Networker Newsletter. And yes -- we have had some idle time on our hands, so we've been playing with colors (or colours, if you are Andy Lopata) in the title. You'll want to read every single article, and every single bit of the Update Bulletin. And now, you can easily comment, read the comments of other readers, give us feedback, forward items of interest to colleagues and clients, and share useful information with all of your social media. This is the condensed version -- for the whole Newsletter, just visit http://www.thenationalnetworker.com/ .

You are reading the RSS Feed or Daily Email re-publication of The TNNW Weekly Newsletter. If you would like to join us (it's free) and receive our publications, access our Suite of Services and enjoy the benefits of membership in our GICBC, simply click on http://bit.ly/JoinTNNW .

Here's the tree-burning TNNWC Header...

Note: Read the articles which follow, but don't print this page out! You may ask (rhetorically), "Why not?" There are two good reasons: 1) you'll help to keep our planet green by saving a tree, and 2) you'll burn through a toner cartridge if you keep printing things out which have large, rich, multi-colored or black and white graphics. Use your email or the buttons to comment, to forward or to share the golden nuggets of business wisdom in these writings by our Featured Columnists.

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A NOTE FROM THE CHAIRMAN: Big Banking and the Loss of Relationship Capital

Adam J. Kovitz

Yossi Feigenson

SOUND INVESTING: Belief Systems Do Not Equal Fact

Jason Lampa, MBA

LASTING IMPRESSIONS: Raiders of the “Lost Art”

Sian Lindemann

POWER THOUGHT OF THE WEEK: Power of Compassion, Part 4

Patricia Parham, Ph.D.

KENSEL TRACY: Unique Marketing Niche Networking Clubs Are Growing in Canada

Kensel Tracy

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Pages

Monday, April 22, 2013

5 Top Megatrends: Human Civilization 2013 - 2033 [Updated]

Friday, April 12, 2013

Shocking World Forecasts: 2013 - 2063

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

The Unnecessary Decline Of Civilization

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Deepening Divides: Megatrends To Watch - Part 2

Sunday, March 28, 2010

The National Networker Weekly Newsletter, Articles and Updates: 03.28.2010 - [Condensed Version]

A NOTE FROM THE CHAIRMAN: Big Banking and the Loss of Relationship Capital

Update Bulletin!

Update Bulletin - Exciting New Developments - The National Networker Companies - 3.28.2010

LESSONS FROM THE HOTEL INDUSTRY: The Evolution of Best Practices in Hospitality and Tourism, Part 1

JETNETTING: The First Impression Factor XXII: The Gift of Asking!

WHAT BOOMERS WANT: Bridging the Generation Gap by Optimizing the Differences