http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...f-defence-vision-future-2045-security-threats Large multinational corporations could develop their own highly capable security forces. Criminals and terrorists will have access to increasingly cheap unmanned drones and space satellites. Sophisticated environmental warfare will spread plant and human diseases by insects.These are among an array of dire warnings spelt out in a study by a Ministry of Defence thinktank exploring potential threats to security that might emerge by the middle of the century. The study, Global Strategic Trends – Out to 2045, contains fresh warnings about the effects of climate change, the growth of sprawling urban centres, and pressure on natural resources, notably water. It paints a picture of a world in which the authority of states diminishes in the face of powerful private multinational companies, and national loyalties are weakened by increasing migration. Rear Admiral John Kingwell, director of the MoD's Concepts and Doctrine Centre, which carried out the study, said it did not seek to predict the future and did not reflect official government policy. However, he said it described plausible outcomes on the basis of rigorous analysis of existing trends. "The pace and breadth of technological advancements will change our perception of our role in the workplace, reveal new opportunities for health advances, and facilitate the deepening of global communications," he said. "But as access to technology increases, we will face new risks to our security both at home and abroad. In the west in particular, a rise of individualism and … a growing sense of disconnection from long-established governing structures will challenge traditional systems." The study says that by 2045: • The world population could reach 10.4 billion, compared with about 7.2 billion at present. • More than 70% of the population is likely to live in urban areas. • 3.9 billion people are likely to suffer water shortages. • Driverless transport is likely to be widespread. • Unmanned systems are increasingly likely to replace people in the workplace, leading to mass unemployment and social unrest. • Robots are likely to change the face of warfare, but "military decision-making is likely to remain the remit of humans for ethical reasons, at least in western countries". • Individuals may define themselves less by their nationality, with growing migration and stronger links to virtual communities. • Chinese defence expenditure it likely to rival that of the US, but Russia's will not match that of China, the US or India. The study says the influence of non-state actors such as multinational corporations is likely to increase at the expense of nation states, and private companies may develop "highly capable security forces". Cheaper and more sophisticated drones will mean criminal and terrorist groups are likely to find it easier to "gain, hold and use unmanned capabilities". Internal terrorist threats are likely to continue in the Middle East and north Africa, while the expansion of alternative currencies may make it easier for criminals and terrorist groups to transfer funds between national jurisdictions, the study says. However, it says the pressure of globalisation will make it more difficult for individual countries to act unilaterally. That could reduce conflicts between states. Future weapons are likely to include long-range lasers capable of producing a beam of electromagnetic energy or atomic radiation that can destroy equipment and infrastructure or cause non-lethal damage to human targets, the report says. "As the cost of sequencing an individual's DNA continues to fall, targeting an individual using their DNA may be possible by 2045," the study adds. "We could also see sophisticated environmental warfare capable of spreading plant and human disease by insects or insect-machine hybrids. Crops and cattle could be destroyed, as well as people being incapacitated or killed." By 2020, more than 500 small satellites, sometimes called cubesats, will join the 1,000 already operating in orbit around the planet, according to the report. They will be increasingly vulnerable to attack – and collision. By 2045 or earlier, it says, "criminal organisations could secure payload space on rockets operated by private companies – this would allow them to launch their own surveillance satellites, potentially threatening individual and corporate privacy".
i think.... - pollution and global warming are going to get far worse, air quality will be far worse. sea levels will rise. our government and other governments will become even more totalitarian, fascist. more people will start rebelling and protesting, rioting. more people will return to the wilderness.
combustion based energy and transportation will catch up with us. climate change affects that we're doing too little too late about, will cause a great deal of suffering and pain. and mostly not in dramatic ways that would be at least entertaining. but by famine and disease, which are just miserable. maybe people will have wars as a kind of dramatic diversion, but famine and disease are the real miserable price for the incentive of our greed for dragging our feet on converting proven cleaner technologies that we already do have. technologies will continue to evolve, even in an environment of everyone sick and dying. and like yoda said in so few words, the future isn't a the and it isn't cast in concrete. but we do live in a statistical universe and statistical effects are very very real. hierarchy motivated by green and ego are certainly at the root of the problem. and they aren't inhierent to our creative nature. romantacizing them and claiming that they were, is something that began with ancient greece and rome. that, and not democracy, is the legacy of them. much of the world remained functional more democratic and free before their influence reached it. so yes, we will see wonders of technology continue to emerge, but there are rather good odds of being too miserable to enjoy them. unless and until a really large majority of the population will have been reduced by these rather unpleasant, and, while no longer completely avoidable, still reducable by alternatives, means. now AFTER the big crunch, when and yes, even if, because statistical but not inevitable, if/when, we are once again few, and haven't unreasoningly rejected those things which actually are useful and sustainable, you know, whenever all that happens, the world that comes AFTER it will have. that is the world that interests me. or we could build that world as a way of avoiding the worst of it too. but we still need to reduce our birthrate, as well as cleaning up how we do infrastructure. solar powered narrow gauge railways. and yes, starships too. or we go one shaping the landscape to suit cars and greed, and well, at my age, even if everything were going purrfectly and going to continue to do so, 30 years would make me 96. but most you reading and thinking about this, or your kids, will be in the thick of it.
What technological gadgets and inventions will be common in the next thirty years? For comparison, think back over the last thirty years to the mid-1980s and ask yourself what we thought the world would be like in the mid-2010s. An obvious example is shown in Back To The Future 2, which says that in 2015 we'd have hoverboards and self-lacing footwear, but makes no mention of the internet. I think this Hololens (or something similar, obviously) might be the start of something that will in thirty years be as ordinary to us as mobile phone technology currently is today. http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/21/7868251/microsoft-hololens-hologram-hands-on-experience.
the technology will do just fine. the species won't. 1814 to 2014, will be looked back on, as two centuries people wish they had lived during. the next 30 years? yes these immediately next decades may well be pivotal, to the entire panorama of human existence. the environment is going to kick humanity's ass. how hard, how soon, i don't know. we've already entered a new age of ignorance and superstition, with powerful politico-economic forces seeking to establish a kind of neo-feudalism. technology is fun, but it isn't a panacea that can or will, make these other factors go away. technology evolves, but it is cultural factors that drive both its applications, and motivate the directions of its development. given the environmental collapse of the species, survivors might even rebel against it. we're doing a lot of dumb things for money now. we might do even dumber ones, like coal fired automobiles, that would accelerate environmental collapse for humanity even further. or we could get smarter and stop doing so. but the window to prevent the near, and very painful, collapse of the species, is rapidly closing. and while people are in favor of cleaner sources of electrical energy, few are seeking its practical decentralization, nor significant changes in transportation policy, away from the automobile, and without doing that, we remain on the garden path to our own self destruction. even if nothing major happens, even if we keep going on exactly as we are, well we can't. our expanding population is on course for a head on collision with the carrying capacity of the planet. one i cannot believe the next 30 years will pass without experiencing its result. the dire warnings in that defense report? most already exist. even before the ink was dry on it. some have already been there for more then a couple of decades already. yes, we can project all sorts of wonderful fun things about technology, if nothing happens to disrupt them, but i really think we're whistling in the dark, to expect nothing will.
I think we should wait until we're standing in water up to our knees with our hair on fire to think about doing anything about it. I mean--what's the rush? BUY MORE. BUY MORE NOW.
pretty much, that doing things in more sustainable ways. the right more sustainable ways. would actually be more fun for more of us. the fun of our current level of stupidity, is starting to get more then a little threadbare. not to be confused with a little thread bear. i agree the loss or near loss, of the human species, would be no great loss to the rest of the universe at all. just something altogether somewhat unpleasant, if you should happen to be one of them.
the next 30 years, will determine whether or not there will still be human people living on this planet a hundred years from now. (yo jesus, who was jus' the 23rd adam anyway, done been back three times since then. didn't have anything to do with any of it. kicked the roman empire's ass while he was dead, but that's another matter too. more people noticed and were more affected by the invention of agriculture, and later that of the atomic bomb. no. its us that its up to. we loose the trees that make the air, we all suffocate, god or no god.)
