How do we imagine the world in 2030 to be?

I tend to suspect that the current picture in Europe may turn out to be surprisingly bright. This due to the fact that European industries have turned to ravage the rest of the world.

It's true, but it's also true that Europe was the first to raise the sustainability problem and to do something to minimize it. European citizens are increasingly sensitized towards these problems and I notice a general acceptance to change some behaviors and policies.
However, it's everything still very much superficial.

"Action must be taken now against the impact of climate change on the world's population, writes Kofi Annan, chairman of The Elders and former United Nations secretary-general."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kofi-annan-a-united-call-for-action-on-climate-change/2014/01/22/3694fa0c-82c1-11e3-9dd4-e7278db80d86_story.html?hpid=z3

chairman of The Elders

Who the hell are those self called "The Elders"? represented by such a nullity as Kofi Annan, nothing good is to be expected.
I really find funny those that when in a position that they can do something they do nothing, turn into accomplices and, later, pretends to give lessons.
Like cork they maintain buoyancy no matter how the wind blows.

Don't let such "Elders" keep on fooling you. Annans, Mandelas and the such are the other face of the same coin.

It seems time to repost the reminder from the original thread. It had a lot about Muslims, Vivaldi is still running on beer, and this thread has taken an environmental turn. All fine, but it should be about the world starting 15 years 11 months and 3 days from now.

Keep in mind that this thread is supposed to be about the world in 2030, not the world in 2013 or 1913 or 1813. If you want to banter, try to figure out where USA or Glasgow will be in 2030.

As it happens the US National Intelligence Council has done just that (completely ignoring Glasgow's role in the scheme of things incidentally), in their report Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds. From the preface:

Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds is the fifth installment in the National Intelligence Council's series aimed at providing a framework for thinking about the future. As with previous editions, we hope that this report will stimulate strategic thinking by identifying critical trends and potential discontinuities. We distinguish between megatrends, those factors that will likely occur under any scenario, and game-changers, critical variables whose trajectories are far less certain. Finally, as our appreciation of the diversity and complexity of various factors has grown, we have increased our attention to scenarios or alternative worlds we might face.

We are at a critical juncture in human history, which could lead to widely contrasting futures. It is our contention that the future is not set in stone, but is malleable, the result of an interplay among megatrends, game-changers and, above all, human agency. Our effort is to encourage decisionmakers--whether in government or outside--to think and plan for the long term so that negative futures do not occur and positive ones have a better chance of unfolding.

In other words megatrends are major changes that will continue unless interrupted, gamechangers are interrupts, and potential worlds are some outcomes.

MEGATRENDS

Individual Empowerment: Individual empowerment will accelerate owing to poverty reduction, growth of the global middle class, greater educational attainment, widespread use of new communications and manufacturing technologies, and health-care advances.

Diffusion of Power: There will not be any hegemonic power. Power will shift to networks and coalitions in a multipolar world.

Demographic Patterns: The demographic arc of instability will narrow. Economic growth might decline in "aging" countries. Sixty percent of the world's population will live in urbanized areas; migration will increase.

Food, Water, Energy Nexus: Demand for these resources will grow substantially owing to an increase in the global population. Tackling problems pertaining to one commodity will be linked to supply and demand for the others.


GAME-CHANGERS

Crisis-Prone Global Economy: Will global volatility and imbalances among players with different economic interests result in collapse? Or will greater multipolarity lead to increased resiliency in the global economic order?

Governance Gap: Will governments and institutions be able to adapt fast enough to harness change instead of being overwhelmed by it?

Potential for Increased Conflict: Will rapid changes and shifts in power lead to more intrastate and interstate conflicts?

Wider Scope of Regional Instability: Will regional instability, especially in the Middle East and South Asia, spill over and create global insecurity?

Impact of New Technologies: Will technological breakthroughs be developed in time to boost economic productivity and solve the problems caused by a growing world population, rapid urbanization, and climate change?

Role of the United States: Will the US be able to work with new partners to reinvent the international system?


POTENTIAL WORLDS

Stalled Engines: In the most plausible worst-case scenario, the risks of interstate conflict increase. The US draws inward and globalization stalls.

Fusion: In the most plausible best-case outcome, China and the US collaborate on a range of issues, leading to broader global cooperation.

Gini-Out-of-the-Bottle: Inequalities explode as some countries become big winners and others fail. Inequalities within countries increase social tensions. Without completely disengaging, the US is no longer the "global policeman."

Nonstate World: Driven by new technologies, nonstate actors take the lead in confronting global challenges.

The demographic arc of instability will narrow.

That refers to this, the current arc of countries racked with young people below 25. Young people are violent and dangerous, they cause most violent crime, they are quick to riot, they are easily led into armies. In short they cause instability and suffering to the world around them.

This youth infection will be mostly contained to Africa and Afghanistan by 2030.

The respectable council doesn't impress me much. The only megatrend I agree with is the Food, Water, and Energy Nexus. Indeed, there's a nexus, and whichever business-oriented mind manages to monetise on this will win. Everybody else will be subject to the piss beer scenario I mentioned here first.

Individual Empowerment: Where did they detect this? A megatrend no less??!! Depends on their definition, I suppose. If loosening employment laws, enabling mass layoffs, is the definition of individual empowerment, then I have to agree.

Diffusion of Power: Multipolar world? If anything, the world has been clearly unipolar since the end of the Cold War. Without any gamechanger, this is how it will remain in 2030 too.

Etc. The text of some ordinary net commentators is more insightful than the report of this panel of experts.

Individual Empowerment: Where did they detect this? A megatrend no less??!! Depends on their definition, I suppose. If loosening employment laws, enabling mass layoffs, is the definition of individual empowerment, then I have to agree.

It is expounded in the paragraph, as well as the report itself:

poverty reduction, growth of the global middle class, greater educational attainment, widespread use of new communications and manufacturing technologies, and health-care advances

All of these are real, and easy to document. The growth of a global middle class is indeed a megatrend (though I dislike that word, well blame Naisbitt).

It is expounded in the paragraph, as well as the report itself:

poverty reduction, growth of the global middle class, greater educational attainment, widespread use of new communications and manufacturing technologies, and health-care advances

All of these are real, and easy to document. The growth of a global middle class is indeed a megatrend (though I dislike that word, well blame Naisbitt).

Yes, the unemployed in the West appear to be more wealthy and better educated. I still strongly disagree they are individually more empowered as a result. The forced use of new communications is not empowering anyone either. The wide population of video game addicts is not indicative of empowerment...

As the world goes on, everything makes less sense. This is crucially due to increasing  use of Orwellian language, which is an undeniable megatrend.

The world employment (according to ILO) has been basically flat since 2004. 60% of people above 15 years old are employed (40% are unemployed, retired, in school, self-employed, or not looking for work). The US had an increasing employment rate up to 2007 (62%), fell through the crisis and has slowly grown since to 58% in 2012. EU hasn't shown any such recovery and is basically back at 2004 levels (51.5%).

It is much better to be wealthy or educated and unemployed than being poor, uneducated, and unemployed. Basically today's unemployed are better off than yesterday's employed, to the dismay of some economists who think the unemployed don't suffer enough and thus aren't forced into the work marked.

We still have a demographic bulge worldwide of better educated, but still basically uneducated/unskilled, workers entering the work market. A lot new jobs  have to be created, and a lot new jobs have been created.

Automation will take over as the bulge dissipates (there will be more potential employees in Africa and Afghanistan, less everywhere else), but if I should venture a guess it would be that the employment rate will stay essentially flat in the next 16 years as well, that the world employment rate in 2030 will still remain at around 60%.

I repeat, I strongly disagree with the use of the word empowerment there. There's no justification to use this word in this connection. It's clearly Orwellian.

As to employment, I disagree with that too. People can work within their own farms, officially unemployed, but having the happiest of lives. No statistics can reflect this, never did, never will. In fact, the projection that rural lifestyle will recede, indicates that nature-driven people - which to me means everyone worth to be called human - will become unhappier.

Brainwashing and doublespeak remain forever condemnable, even when people willingly delude themselves and each other.

Farmers cannot be called "nature-driven people", they are cultivating the land, causing less 'nature' rather than more. You could make the case that hunter-gatherers are nature-driven people, but they have been a tiny minority for millennia.

Farmers are a very big part of the massively human-cultivated Dutch landscape. We took our country from the sea to have more farmland. Forest was turned into heath for the purposes of sheep herding, and into many other kinds of farmland as well. And I'm talking about time immemorial here; we didn't even realize (Dutch) heath was a human creation until fairly recently. A few forests were cut down for building ships, but the big push toward that frighteningly low 2% figure in 1760 was all farmers. Because like I said or implied before, ships have been built using production forests for a very long time. It's the only way to ensure a constant supply.

NB I'm not calling this a bad thing. The fight against the sea has been a rather democratic endeavor for 800 years. That's how deeply entreched the polder model is in Dutch culture, although I have my doubts whether the person who coined the term was properly familiar with the historical underpinnings. Still, the term is quite appropriate. It also aligns with femininity in Hofstede's model, although I strongly dislike the way he uses the terms masculinity and femininity because he effectively defines masculinity as being a bunch of collective asses and femininity as being more or less decent people. If you're wondering, Norway, Sweden, and The Netherlands are "feminine" societies, while most others tend to lean more toward the "masculine" side.

Farmers cannot be called "nature-driven people", they are cultivating the land, causing less 'nature' rather than more. You could make the case that hunter-gatherers are nature-driven people, but they have been a tiny minority for millennia.

Says the guy who prefers cities in any case. Seriously.

Frenzie describes a very intensive farming environment, something that my country is experiencing only in the few most recent decades. Until this decade, we always had massive forests. According to some conjecture, part of the reason why Estonia and Finland were colonised was deforestation in Europe, but by that time the people here were already Viking-style herders and farmers. So, farmers and forest can survive side by side, if human needs are managed moderately.

It's not easy to put these things in English, because it's a foreign language to all of us. Of course farmers mould landscape, but there are degrees to it. Cityscape is not really landscape any more; it's more like moonscape. In comparison, farmscape is still close enough to human-less nature. Even though by "nature" I never meant human-less nature, but allowed for an acceptable degree of human landscape-shaping.

According to some sociologist (I can name him if you want), there can be distinguished these kinds of national temperaments corresponding to life environment:
- Forest people
- Mountain people
- Sea people
- Grassland people

Considering our current topic, we can add city people. Now, Jax, which kind of these people is or is not nature driven? All people mould their environment to some extent, but which kind of people absolutely depend on concretely non-natural environment, if this indeed be a particular distinct temperament?

These temperaments are not necessarily tied to ethnicity, even though the author spoke about them this way. They can be considered individual psychological preferences, so feel free to identify your own.

Now, to talk about farming as non-natural as if this were an argument to favour urbanisation, this is also rather Orwellian...

Environmentalism, and the ideal of the pristine, untouched environment, has largely grown as an urban phenomena. Environmental parties are almost universally more popular in cities than in the countryside (there must be exceptions, I don't know them), which their rural opponents rarely fail to point out.

It is not so surprising, higher density of living means that people are affected more closely by polluting/damaging activities. You wouldn't notice the pollution from a car in the countryside, but it would cause significant harm together with thousands other in a city. Urban citizen are less directly affected by the dilemma between economic activity and environmentalism. Farming is the greatest impact humanity has had on nature. City dwellers also eat, but can be blissfully unaware where the food comes from.

Frenzie describes a very intensive farming environment, something that my country is experiencing only in the few most recent decades.

I find that somewhat surprising. If memory doesn't betray me, for many centuries we were exporting primarily herring and cheese to the neighborhood of Latvia and Estonia in exchange for large quantities of grain. And weren't the vast Eastern European grain fields instrumental in Hitler's autarky plans?

Considering our current topic, we can add city people. Now, Jax, which kind of these people is or is not nature driven? All people mould their environment to some extent, but which kind of people absolutely depend on concretely non-natural environment, if this indeed be a particular distinct temperament?

There are cities and cities. You sound a bit like Guido Gezelle.

Frenzie describes a very intensive farming environment, something that my country is experiencing only in the few most recent decades.

I find that somewhat surprising. If memory doesn't betray me, for many centuries we were exporting primarily herring and cheese to the neighborhood of Latvia and Estonia in exchange for large quantities of grain.

Estonia and Latvia have always been fish exporters, not importers. Well, we import salmon, so call us fish traders. But grain trade should be negligible, at least from here in your direction.

And weren't the vast Eastern European grain fields instrumental in Hitler's autarky plans?

That be Ukraine. Ukraine's connection with the Baltic Sea is historically limited and tangential.

You know, you can make a stark contrast between Netherlands and Belgium. Please understand that ethnic, cultural, linguistic, historical, geological, environmental, etc. differences in the expanse between the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea are even bigger.

Cityscape is not really landscape any more; it's more like moonscape.

Cities don't serve the initial reasons that caused their appearance, that has finished with the industrial revolution.

I think that, with cities turning into concentration camps where all modern techniques of manipulation are exercised, resistance will be formed and organized at the countryside. However I see an important role for clandestine cells inside cities, the "Needle in a haystack" strategy being always effective.
Well well... this seems as some lousy revolutionary manual...

We are living increasingly difficult times and with a new problem, no one has an external referential to know what is happening, to know what to do.
When a pro-comunist revolution was done in my country I remember that, in the middle of all the confusion, people went at night to their house's balconies to syntonize the International BBC and try to know what's was really happening and what to do to fight, how to resist.
Today, BBC will be the voice of the enemy...

I see a very dark scenario until 2030 and probably for longer. Just see how police forces from all the world are being equipped and trained. They are preparing to fight a specific enemy - the populations.

Okay, I quickly checked. Dutch exports to the Baltic Sea consisted of textiles, beer, herring, cheese, butter, and later* salt, wine, and colonial imports. On the way back the primary cargo was grain. Some of the most important ports were Riga, Dantzig (Gdańsk), and Königsberg, but that's not even the tip of the iceberg. I can't find where the grain originally came from, but I can tell you that the East Sea trade was the backbone of Dutch wealth. The Black Sea is, from a Dutch perspective, fairly irrelevant. Doubtless around there they think much the same about The Netherlands. Anyway, are you saying that the Ukraine would be part of e.g. Riga's** hinterland or that it's more likely the grain came from Poland?

* That'd roughly be from the 16th century onward.
** I realize that's Latvia.

And weren't the vast Eastern European grain fields instrumental in Hitler's autarky plans?

That be Ukraine. Ukraine's connection with the Baltic Sea is historically limited and tangential.

Then what was up with the land around Leningrad (or whatever it was called at the time)? Oil? Total domination without an obvious strategic target?

Anyway, are you saying that the Ukraine would be part of e.g. Riga's** hinterland or that it's more likely the grain came from Poland?

* That'd roughly be from the 16th century onward.
** I realize that's Latvia.

If you talk about 16th century and prior, then we (Estonia and Latvia) were a colony/province of Germany/Sweden. Consequently, expect us to be exploited in every nasty way. However, from 16th to 18th century we had a near-constant period of wars, so at times during this era we'd either be exploited to starvation or nothing would be exported because there's nothing to export and it was not safe.

From 18th century onwards, we (Estonia and Latvia) were a province of Russia. Consequently, as long as Russia lacked a safe port/passage in the Black Sea, South Russian/Ukrainian grain would very likely be exported through Estonian and Latvian ports, including Riga. In this sense the whole Russian empire was our hinterland. The Baltic provinces, particularly Finland, represented a kind of civilised West in miniature within the borders of Russian empire.

A little more spice from the soon-to-perish parent of this thread, starting with a little Islamic concern.

found an unopened can beer in a wall not too long back. It's several years older than me making it rival your vintage beer. "Country Club Malt Liquor". If you wanna compare how can v bottle holds up after decades it can be arranged.

I can hardly believe Country Club Malt Liquor ever came in cans... (I drink it from 40s, ya know? It's a sub-mediocre brew, by anyone's standards. Sorta like calling Thunderbird an American Classic... (Which -BTW- I always drank un-chilled, which would be "warm" or room temperature; in other words, off the shelf. because then I didn't have to wait for the "best" result.
Those of you who have never been cold, poor or less than pure may not relate...)

But the question was, What will the world of 2030 be like? (I intend to be there...)

I, too, don't know. What I fear the most is that it will reflect the social-democrat trajectory: GB, Europe and the USA failing to defend themselves, because their "intellectuals" can't find values worth preserving; Arabs and other Mohamad "followers" failing to sufficiently invoke our ire, but making (procreating) many more of themselves.
Assimilation is not a term that "they" accept. Islam is an all-encompassing "faith."  And its adherents can only accept it ascendence.
Would that Western Civilization were the same!

It is a "Clash of Civilizations"... The Individual vs. the Collective. Nothing new, eh?

But the question was, What will the world of 2030 be like? (I intend to be there...)

I, too, don't know. What I fear the most is that it will reflect the social-democrat trajectory: GB, Europe and the USA failing to defend themselves, because their "intellectuals" can't find values worth preserving; Arabs and other Mohamad "followers" failing to sufficiently invoke our ire, but making (procreating) many more of themselves.
Assimilation is not a term that "they" accept. Islam is an all-encompassing "faith."  And its adherents can only accept it ascendence.
Would that Western Civilization were the same!

It is a "Clash of Civilizations"... The Individual vs. the Collective. Nothing new, eh?

Well, it's only 16 years and 7 months to go.

You seem to attach superhuman capabilities to the 20% (1.5 billion) of the world population that are Muslims (besides viewed from Beijing where I am Islam is a part of Western Civilization). What the number of Muslim will be would be a matter of assumptions, mine is that there will be a significantly lower number of believing Muslims in 2030 than now. Purely based on population there will be a slightly larger proportion of Muslims in 2030. Compare that to the number of people in the world.

4 billions Asians (1/3 China, 1/3 India, 1/3 the rest)
1 billion Americans (1/3 USA, 1/6 Brazil, 1/2 the rest)
1 billion Africans (1/6 Nigerians, 1/6 North Africans)
1 billion Europeans (1/2 EU)
These are the 7 billion people today.

In 2030 this will have increased to 8 billion. Europe's population will have fallen by a little, the Americas' population growth increased by less than that. Half that extra billion comes from Africa, the other half Asia.

There will be two Asian bypasses before 2030. China will have the largest economy in the world, bypassing USA. India will have the largest population in the world, bypassing China.

Assimilation is not a term that "they" accept. Islam is an all-encompassing "faith."  And its adherents can only accept it ascendence.

Oh, so that's why the Moroccan-Belgian youth took to the streets to protest fundamentalist Islam, and to show the rest of the population that they do not in fact share that homophobic misogyny.

You might find the following interesting.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/05/01/180293705/pew-study-many-muslims-believe-in-mixing-mosque-and-state

I never said Islam isn't scary, but in this country there's clearly a sizable contingent of (grand)children of Muslim immigrants who embrace our society's pluralism and who protest e.g. the special brand of pathetic losers featured in Femme de la rue.

What I fear the most is that it will reflect the social-democrat trajectory: GB, Europe and the USA failing to defend themselves, because their "intellectuals" can't find values worth preserving; Arabs and other Mohamad "followers" failing to sufficiently invoke our ire, but making (procreating) many more of themselves.

Pew has made an estimate, Muslim populations by country: how big will each Muslim population be by 2030?

Like for the rest of the world the population growth in Muslim areas is not due to procreating (more children), but from more adults. A few countries like Afghanistan has a total fertility way above replacement level, but Muslim countries in general are at or approaching replacement level.

Note that Pew here counts people from Muslim areas, having Muslim parents, not whether they actually are Muslims, followers of Islam, or even believe in one or more gods.

Jax, it seems we've had an ongoing problem trying to figure out what the future would look like. As a case in point, go back to stuff from the 1950s where people were trying to guess what life would be like in 2000. What a howl!!! Almost every guess wrong. By now, according to those 1950s documents, we should be living like the Jetsons on steroids. I don't know about where you live, but around here we're still running short of flying cars that fold up into a briefcase so you can put your car next to your desk.

I imagine that if current trends continue, some countries that exist today won't be on the map in 2030, and some countries will be on the map for the first time by then. Power may shift from one country to another-- right now, the USA is the lone superpower but only a fool would maintain that this will be the case then, we may have company in the superpower arena or we may have been replaced entirely--- your guess is as good as mine on that one. We might do a little more with solar power and wind power, but don't expect fossil fuel and nuclear power to go away any time soon. After those guesses-- well, good luck.

2030 is not exactly far into science fiction-land, but 17 years from now. 17 years ago was 1996, a different place certainly, but still quite recognizable as similar to the world we now live in. This is the list of new countries in this period:

 
• East Timor (previously occupied by Indonesia)
   
• Serbia-Montenegro split into Serbia, Montenegro, and Kosova
   
• Sudan split into Sudan and South Sudan
  

In 2030 Scotland may be independent, with Edinburgh the new capital. Spain may similarly split, while the two Koreas might reunite.

The two countries in the world with a huge population, India and China, will become more significant as they become relatively richer, as they most likely (but not certainly) will. Assuming this China will get a higher GDP than the US in the period, and India at some point later. It is unlikely that the average American will remain more than 4 times as rich as the average Chinese or Indian for a very long time span. India and China are unlikely to split. Though stranger things have happened 17 years is a short span for it to happen in.

An interesting group to watch in this period is The Next Eleven

The Next Eleven (known also by the numeronym N-11) are the eleven countries - Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Turkey, South Korea, and Vietnam - identified by Goldman Sachs investment bank and economist Jim O'Neill in a research paper as having a high potential of becoming, along with the BRICs/BRICS, the world's largest economies in the 21st century.

[...]

In short there will be very little currently-unheard-of technology in action in 2030. The time from new discovery to commonplace usable products can be measured in decades. The vast majorty of products and services in 2030 already exist, but in a conceptual/prototype version. There will of course be new exciting discoveries in the intervening years, but they will not amount to much by then.

We have (almost) all the pieces for 2030, we just don't know how they will play.

I disagree for two reasons. Future is not the result of a building process and life can change radically without anything new.
Your words only apply to technology (at the wider sense, not just computers) but "how the world will be" it's much more than just technology.

That post was primarily intended in the context of technology, that while the technology dominant then will be different from now, but not unheard of, and which technology will win is hard to predict.

But now that you mention it, many non-technology pieces will be known as well, again without knowing how they will play out. E.g. the EU will most likely be around in 2030, but in which form? There will probably be more members, but will some countries have left as well? Possible to guess, impossible to know. Albania will probably be a member, Turkey possibly, Ukraine unlikely, Iraq will not be a member.

E.g. the EU will most likely be around in 2030, but in which form?

That's easy...Islamic.

There will be more of us.

This post is more appropriate in this thread. The world population is growing, slowly, unevenly.

My reason for this timeous reminder is that around the 1950's the population was circa 48 million in Gt Britain. Now it is over 60 million and projected in the next decade or so to continually rise. This is an ISLAND  and NOT VERY BIG.

[IMGLEFT=https://files.myopera.com/jax/files/world%20population%201950-2030.png]http://A population increase from 50 million in 1950 to 62 million in 2010 is very low, among the lowest in the world. I made a chart of populations of select countries in 1950, 2010, and 2030 (projected).

Had Britain grown by world average, it would have 137 million inhabitants in 2010, and 166 million in 2030. Even if it had merely grown by US speed, Britain would have had 102 millions in 2010 and 121 million in 2030. With such a demographical shortfall no wonder the UK has fallen so far behind the US. I used Wikipedia for the numbers, which in turn used the US Census Bureau.

Projections are of course dependent on conditions that may change. The projection for Norway for instance was that the country would almost reach 5 millions by 2030. In fact it reached that milestone earlier this year. Lately the population growth in Norway has exceeded the world average, basically because more people have immigrated and fewer people have emigrated than expected.  This net influx is largely from EU countries.

This will be more pronounced with even more open countries than Norway. For "an ISLAND  and NOT VERY BIG" spare a thought for Singapore, which is projected to have a population of 7 million in 2030, up from 1 million in 1950. If Britain had the population density of Singapore 22 billion people would be living there.

Population growth has been a fundamental force in human development. Without it we'd still be hunter gathers living under trees. As population grows fears will turn into solutions and human existence will evolve. That's how it's always been on this island we call Earth.

Hhhm, a kind of wild assumption. With so many countries breaking up into smaller places over the years seems people like small.

Population growth has been a fundamental force in human development. Without it we'd still be hunter gathers living under trees. As population grows fears will turn into solutions and human existence will evolve. That's how it's always been on this island we call Earth.

Sure, though the solution is either new technology for higher carrying capacity and/or an excess of death before reaching another equilibrium. That it "will turn out fine in the end" , for some value of "fine", may be of little consolation for those caught up in the upheavals, especially when the upheavals involve excess death.

Rapid population growth may not mean trouble, but it tends to stir things up a bit. It often goes together with economic growth, but the growth is likely to be uneven, and some get richer while others grow more populous. If there is a precarious balance of power between different groups in a society, and that balance is shifted, strife may follow. The end result may be good, South Korea is an example of a place with a tumultuous past and a prosperous present, but places with less social cohesion risk being torn apart.

Growth occurs through more births (a greater fertility rate), less death (longer life expectancy), or net migration (more people immigrate than emigrate). More births means more teenagers. People born today will be 17 in 2030, a ripe age for a riot. Longer life expectancy, older people sticking around rather than dying young like they used to, has lead to population growth especially in places in Asia, but also in Europe and the Americas, with Africa coming up. The world is nearing another milestone, when a majority of the population die at the age of 70 or higher.

Older people are less likely to riot or commit crimes, but are also more loath to change. Migration is quite literally mixing this up, as migrants tend to be younger than the native population (the Florida phenomena excepted), and migration mostly goes from poorer countries with lower average age to higher average. Young people, potential trouble makers in their own countries, can become agents for change in their new host countries.

In the 90's North Africa was fingered as a demographic time bomb for today's world, China on the other hand should be fairly calm.  Looking ahead in the same manner, one place that has a strong potential to be trouble-spot in 2030 is Afghanistan. Two countries to watch are Nigeria and Ethiopia, they are large strategic countries with high economic and population growth and significant internal conflicts.


World-wide, if you look at the 60 years from 1950 to 2010 and compare with the projections for 2010-2030, the most dramatic growth spurt is behind us. Moving towards the older part of the age spectrum, as we all do, life expectancy increases because we don't usually die young any more. However the maximum age at death hasn't moved much, we still die in the decades between 70 and 100. The good news, extrapolating from the richest countries, we are increasingly living relatively healthy lives in those decades.

This means, until there is any technology to actually increase life spans statistically significantly, both the growth spurts from more children and the growth spurt from longer life will be behind us. If life spans were to double, so would the population. The world would also become more conservative. If 50 year olds are resistant to change, imagine 150 years olds. Any such technology would be unlikely to appear before 2030, and if it were it still wouldn't have any demographic consequences for many decades to come.

I imagine nothing amicable. In the context of evolution how you or I feel isn't important. Often development comes from the clearing of saturated niches. Old ways can die hard regardless of how useful they are. Despite this we are still evolving. Even in the environments we create we change ourselves. The evidence is scattered through our history. Rise to collapse to a new rise.

Happy people are less likely to riot. But as population grows under a system that does not resources become more valuable and so the means to control them too. Agriculture, husbantry and architecture were most likely results of needing to support/produce for more. Remove one solution and collapse happens. Most likely like with the Mississippian culture who achieved great cities, agriculture and trade but simply fell apart apparently under it's own prosperity. Or more likely when they hit the wall of development work animals relieved.

To bring it back on topic the future does depend on the technology to support an ever growing and consuming population. Without it there will be heartbreak. But who's to say what will be needed to bring that development? By 2015 there will be more nations developing wanting resources with only more to come until we reach or build a new wall.

As for a comment on life expectancy. We really don't know how long the human body can be pushed or how that will affect the person. What is the mindset of someone 150 years old? How does that change a more active 'younger' 80 year old who's at their midlife crisis point? Given most geriatric meds if given to me now would destroy my liver and kidney before I reached age 60 I wonder how close we are to any substantial change in life expectancy.

Well, in 30 years white people will be a minority or close to it at least in the USA. I'm not quite sure what the ramifications of that would be yet, but I do know it's an unprecedented phenomenon.

Depending on where I am at, I already feel like the minority.

Well, in 30 years white people will be a minority or close to it at least in the USA. I'm not quite sure what the ramifications of that would be yet, but I do know it's an unprecedented phenomenon.

By which I assume you mean US white. Whatever that is to be said about race, the US way of classifying it (white/black/native/Asian/other/mixed/Hispanic) makes no sense outside the US. It seem a way to track the relative influence of the ethnic composition of America. A century ago I assume the races would have been Irish, German, Italian, Slavic, English, or some such. By 2030, if they are still doing it, at a minimum "Asian" would be split into South Asian, East Asian, and South East Asian, and African come up as a separate category and/or black going in the direction of Hispanic. As a classification scheme it is a mess.

The scheme being what it is 72,4% of the US population self-classified as white in 2010, according to Wikipedia, down from a maximum of 89.8% in 1930. That number is highly unlikely to go below 50% in the remaining 17 years.

I would assume that a larger part of the immigrants will be from Asian and African countries, and a smaller part from the rest of the Americas.

In the rest of the world white, however defined, has always been a minority.

As for a comment on life expectancy. We really don't know how long the human body can be pushed or how that will affect the person. What is the mindset of someone 150 years old? How does that change a more active 'younger' 80 year old who's at their midlife crisis point? Given most geriatric meds if given to me now would destroy my liver and kidney before I reached age 60 I wonder how close we are to any substantial change in life expectancy.

We just need to figure out how to trick our cells into thinking they're younger than they are. Attack the cause of the disease, not the symptoms.

Then treat the problems that will cause. The Hayflick limit must serve some purpose.

The only "purpose" I can think of is that for the success of our genes, it's not necessary for us to be alive past 50-ish--maybe 70-ish in our modern world. But we might be able to wrest control away from our genes and to put control into our own hands. Hopefully even during our lifetime.

But after 2030. Even if some blue-sky project actually was able to extend life beyond current limits before 2030, it wouldn't have any significant impact on the population until the users got seriously older in the following decades.

The only "purpose" I can think of is that for the success of our genes, it's not necessary for us to be alive past 50-ish--maybe 70-ish in our modern world.

Life expediency varies greatly in nature. Often to fit what benefits the organism the most. So I'm with sang in wondering if it's a guaranteed  good thing to live longer. There's a natural order of turning experience over to new thinking that may be needed for development.

How many developments wouldn't exist if we lived a lot longer? Why would I need to write anything down for posterity? I'll just tell my great great grand kids when they get here. But then why even have kids until age 50 or so. Meaning population really wouldn't grow. Instead we may stagnate. What are we losing when we find the fountain of youth?  

But we might be able to wrest control away from our genes and to put control into our own hands.

Surely nothing can go wrong with that.

But now that you mention it, many non-technology pieces will be known as well, again without knowing how they will play out.

Conflict is as easily fought over ideas as resources as we all know. What does an Islamic dominated world do opposed to a christian one or non-religious one? The pieces are the same but the play can change quickly. How does a 'Cuban missile crisis' play out today when the US is happy to risk drones in a "war on <anything>"?  Or when do we go back to the 'Peace Keeping' label.

Life expediency varies greatly in nature. Often to fit what benefits the organism the most. So I'm with sang in wondering if it's a guaranteed  good thing to live longer. There's a natural order of turning experience over to new thinking that may be needed for development.

I think that's just a myth. Why don't we ask Jaybro how much trouble he's had adapting to the Internet?

How many developments wouldn't exist if we lived a lot longer? Why would I need to write anything down for posterity? I'll just tell my great great grand kids when they get here. But then why even have kids until age 50 or so. Meaning population really wouldn't grow. Instead we may stagnate. What are we losing when we find the fountain of youth?

Insofar as I agree with your objections, I think they are far more applicable to robot servants (think of e.g. E.M. Forsters The Machine Stops, or a spiritual descendant like WALL-E) than to longevity.

Surely nothing can go wrong with that. [IMG=http://static.myopera.com/community/graphics/smiley.gif]

I'm sure we've all seen The Wrath of Kahn. But I'd also note that, besides freaky stuff from space, they have essentially no diseases.

The world in 2030 will be worst than thirty years ago, no matter how many times you post defunct threads jax.