The World in 2200: Part Two

In my last installment of this brief series, I attempted to identify some driving trends that could exert significant influence over our next two centuries. (Full disclosure: I somewhat arbitrarily picked that amount of time.) In this post, I will attempt to outline some representative events you could expect to observe if I am correct. These specific events are highly unlikely to happen, of course, but the point of the exercise is not to make a prediction, but to model what the rough shape of our future might be.

1) The great Indo-Chinese war:

Every prognosticator likes to line up two combatants for a big battle over the future. If you forced me to pick my two adversaries, this is where I would look, though I wouldn't expect it all that soon. As I mentioned in my last, China doesn't quite fit into either the rich/old/materialist or the poor/young/spiritual camp. I believe, in the words of Mark Steyn, that China will get old before it gets rich. Its government trades authoritarian control for a rising standard of living, and as they catch up with the West on the one hand, while trying to support a more geriatric population on the other, their economy will slow. This will put pressure on the government and make it more belligerent. India, meanwhile, has the potential to be more vital due to its growing population and open political system. It will also likely be allied to some degree with the US, making it feel secure. As it grows powerful and affluent, it may become economically dominant in areas China once controlled. The competing spheres of influence may force war, although it will probably bear little resemblance to the battles of the 20th century, as robotics and digital warfare will play a major roll. In general, any young, growing nation that can organize its economy to allow growth will clash with the entrenched interests of the old, rich nations trying to hold on to their inherited advantages.

2) Extreme political affiliation:

We might feel like we're already there, but I assure you that politics could get a lot uglier. As the Internet allows each individual to choose the information that most conforms to their view of the world, it becomes ever easier to avoid reading or hearing anything that contradicts your opinion. Eventually, this will lead to such a radical divergence of opinion that some groups will find it impossible to live with another. A trend that will start as families moving to more agreeable towns will accelerate so that colonies (whether under the oceans or off the planet) will be founded for like-minded people, and powerful nations will be under strain to break up as those with wildly divergent viewpoints cluster together and reject the compromises of diverse democracies.

3) The new energy

In my last post, I speculate that we will hit the limits of 'convenience-focused innovation', or products and services that are targeted at individual welfare and happiness. To expand on the thought, I think we will hit a natural limit of how much further we can innovate without a fundamental transformation in the power that drives all our stuff, and how we transmit and store it. First, the major advances of the future will probably require exponentially more energy than the incremental advances of our current technology base (which I would define as being based on the microchip and the internal combustion engine.) When we develop a power source (I still think fusion makes the most sense, but we've been working on that for a long time with no great results) that can generate much more energy (and, secondarily, better battery technology that can store that energy better and deploy it in a wide range of stuff), new vistas of innovation will open. But until that happens, we will start to see diminishing returns as more and more expensive innovations deliver more and more marginal improvements in our quality of life.

4) We will negotiate with terrorists

Terrorism stinks as a strategy against an enemy in about the same circumstances as you: you are losing your most dedicated soldiers and inflamming your opponent with your cruelty. And it doesn't make much sense against a ruthless enemy, because the amoral response to terrorism is to wipe out the people that are supporting and supplying the terrorism. But it is great as a strategy against a much richer and more powerful enemy with a lot to lose, if your goal is to get marginal concessions. In a way, the model isn't Islamic terrorism, it is the Irish terrorism of the 1970's and 1980's. Your goal can't be to destroy your enemy, but get them to give you something you value much more than them. And then have a 'terrorist' wing distinct from a 'political' wing. Ideally, you ensure there is no obvious connection between the two, so the enemy can negotiate with the political wing without giving the impression that they are responding to the terrorism. As the western nations grow old, they will be ripe targets for this type of approach, as they will be living off the accumulated wealth of the past and thus prefer a slightly dishonorable peace to seeing their (relatively few) children sent off to fight. The only problem is that their enemies will keep nibbling, with each outbreak of terrorism getting slightly bigger concessions. The balancing act is to go far enough that the terrorism threatens to disrupt the enemy's happy life, but not so far that the people get outraged enough to fight back. Expect to see the strategies of terrorism refined over this century.

So, what might it be like to live in this world? I'll cover that in my final 2200 post later this week.

The World in 2200: Part One

I had a thought, on my long and lovely vacation to Ireland, staring at ruins of churches and castles that had been dotting the countryside for hundreds of years, that it might be fun to do a little speculating about our somewhat distant future.

Now, I'm not going to try to make any hard and fast predictions about specific events that will happen, but I thought I could do a brief series that would outline where I think we're going and what it might mean for what it means to be a human being in about 2200. I intend to write three parts: in this first one, I'll identify five drivers that I think will be major shapers of the future. In the second, I'll point out some of the types of things that will happen if my drivers end up being as influential as I think they'll be. And in the third, I'll compose a brief sketch of how a citizen of this 2200 world might perceive his civilization.

To get to it, here are five driving forces I think will profoundly shape our world over the next 190-or-so years:

1) Divergent Demographics

Over the next century, we will see a number of nations (specifically in Western Europe and Japan) continue to accumulate wealth while having fewer and fewer children. These nations will become old, rich, and materialistic. At the same time, there will be a number of nations in the traditional third world that will be young, poor, and spiritual. Will the old nations fight to maintain their dominance over economics and culture? Or will they gracefully hand the world over to the nations with youthful energy? The two exceptions to this trend are, on the one hand, the USA, which will stay rich while remaining relatively young and spiritual, and China, which will rapidly age as a result of its one child policy while the vast majority of its population is still poor.

2) The Limits of Convenience

In the past few decades, wealthy nations have increasingly put their capital and top minds to work on creating products and services that make life more convenient and fun for individuals, rather than investing in exploration, infrastructure, or elite culture (which were traditionally the larger areas of investment). For many decades, science and business will continue to find ways to improve the individuals well-being (think genetic engineering), but this drive to make life more comfortable and pleasurable will generate diminishing returns. There will be a backlash as people demand their lives have more meaning, and a renewed desire among our entrepreneurial elite to make "giant leaps for all mankind."

3) Communities of Choice

The Internet has given us a peak of what happens when we can choose exactly where to get our information. In the next two centuries, we'll be increasingly free to choose every aspect of our environment. I predict in the relatively near future the upper and even middle classes will increasingly country-shop for a nation or community that fits them, and opinions and beliefs will polarize as we increasingly only see and hear what we are predisposed to like. Further out, the desire to live life 'just so' will lead to Pilgrim-style space colonization. Mars won't be settled by a country, it will be settled by religious our scientific dissidents who want to remove themselves from the dominant culture of their day.

4) Techno-Warfare

As societies become more networked and more dependent upon computers (and eventually robots) to make day-to-day life work, they will be increasingly vulnerable to interruptions to their networks and computerized infrastructure. Massive attacks on the technological underpinnings of a nation will serve the role of saturation bombing in World War II: an attempt to sap an enemy's will and ability to fight. Only in this case, an increasing squeamishness about taking life (especially in low-birthrate nations) will mean this form of warfare exists somewhat independently of bullets and bombs. Victory truly may not require a shot.

5) Terrorism as Leveler

Of course, the above only applies if you fall into the old, rich and materialistic side of the demographic divide outlined in item one. If you are a younger, poorer and more spiritual nation (or ideological organization, as you might see form based on item three), a loss of life may be more than justifiable. Expect terrorism to evolve from a dramatic act with limited political payoff to a dramatic, focused activity directly linked to achievable political goals. In other words, we can expect a war to be won with terrorism as a primary weapon. The 'old' nations will negotiate with terrorists as a means to preserve their comfortable lives before they fade into history.

All of these trends are visible in nascent form today, but I think we can expect them to accelerate and mix in the coming decades. What that may look like is the subject of Part Two.

The Truth Sort of Sucks

I probably shouldn't blog in the frustrated mood I find myself in, but a thought keeps demanding its way out of my brain, which is somewhere between self-pitying fatalism and a fact. It was brought out by this profile of NY Times columnist Ross Douthat in the liberal magazine Mother Jones. Essentially, the writer notes that Douthat is a thoughtful, intelligent conservative, and then dismisses his beliefs and ideas as totally irrelevant to the way the country is governed.

I'd like to argue this is untrue, but the reality is that our entire system of governance seems to be based on a basic understanding: Liberals (or Progressives, which here might be the more appropriate term) will push as rapidly as possible to expand the reach of the state into the lives of individuals, and conservatives will use their time in office to lower taxes and loosen a few business regulations, juicing the economy so it looks prosperous enough to manage the next progressive encroachment.

The genius of the United States (and really the English political culture that spawned it) was to accept that people could, in a society of laws, learn the rules and basically manage for themselves. But the essential post-Depression shift has said that people can't take care of themselves, and the government needs to be there to prop them up. But when that assumption applies not just to the relatively small number of people who really can't take care of themselves, but to a majority that could but would find it easier not to, the government needs to take on powers inconsistent with a basically free nation.

In a way, I think, the retirement of the Baby Boomers represents America's retirement. As a society, we're going to increasingly be living on the savings, if you will, that we made over hundreds of years of entrepreneurial risk-taking and non-intrusive government. The only problem is that retirees either die or go bankrupt. Countries, except in the most tragic of scenarios, lack the first option.

Thinking Honestly About Healthcare

I am amazed (and more than a little dismayed) that after years of debate about government intervention in the healthcare system, that there is still almost no rational conversation about the need to make tradeoffs to ensure better coverage for more people. Basically, the assumption on the right is that we already pay a lot of money to cover seniors and the poor, and we can't afford to massively expand government to increase benefits further. The liberal response is that it is a moral imperative that everyone have healthcare, and besides it will be more efficient than the system we have now. (For a nice summary of these arguments, read this Ross Douthat post and the responses below.)

But all of these arguments fail to account for the rapid pace of healthcare innovation. Or if they do account for them, it is with the assumption that everyone is entitled to the latest medical breakthroughs as soon as the FDA approves them. And I suppose, if you view 'health' as a right without any context, that makes sense. But that view, barring an amazing breakthrough that radically lowers treatment costs for chronic diseases, leads directly to national bankruptcy. The costs of new therapies, and the prevalence of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer's, and other conditions, will combine to swamp us.

Let's just talk about death for a second. (Sorry for the downer.) There are about 43,000 automotive deaths a year. A recent study (which I will for this argument accept uncritically) projected that there are about 45,000 deaths a year associated with lack of insurance. Now, lets hypothesize that automotive engineering advances, and new cars on the market dramatically reduce accident deaths. Putting people in the riskiest vehicles into these new cars could dramatically cut into that mortality rate. Would that be a moral imperative? Is there a right to these new safer cars? I think most would argue that the cars are a blessing, but would expect them to gradually replace older cars over time, and would accept the inevitable loss of life in the interim as an unavoidably tragedy, part of the cost of slow, uneven human advancement.

A lot of people, I'm sure, would say this is a ridiculous argument. But the cost of health insurance, annually, is priced somewhere between $5000 and $7000 per adult. That's somewhat more than my annual payments on a (very safe!) Honda Element. And don't expect those costs to go anywhere but up in the future. Most of the drugs being developed aren't easy-to-mass-produce chemical compounds, but more exotic and costly treatments like biologics, which are now used to treat everything from cancer to arthritis to psoriasis. The cost of a year on Enbrel therapy, for example, is about $12,000. These drugs aren't just more expensive to develop, they're more expensive to produce, so even the eventual generic versions will be expensive compared to the drugs we're used to.

So here's my point: I'm in favor of expanding healthcare assistance for those who can't afford their own insurance, but it should acknowledge the reality that some of the newest drugs may be too expensive to pay for in these plans. If I were to sketch the rough outline of such a plan, it would cover generic drugs, basic preventative care, and some sort of catastrophic coverage with a high deductible that would protect against life-threatening problems. (Over time, I would apply this model, with some variations, to existing government healthcare programs.) Will some people have sub-optimal outcomes on this plan? Absolutely. But the idea that we can afford to give everyone access to the latest healthcare innovations is a puppydogs-and-ice cream fantasy we can't afford to indulge in.

Dot Connectors Wanted

I read this past week a fascinating exchange by Shane Harris, author of a new book called The Watchers, and Patrick Radden Keefe. Both of them have covered the various controversies over government spying and data collection, and Harris' book takes a deep look at John Poindexter and the Total Information Awareness (TIA) project that created a stir during the Bush administration.

What struck me, as I read the exchange, was their observation that the government has become good at "collecting the dots", without increasing its ability to connect them. TIA was meant to automate this process to some degree, but when they ran tests on its effectiveness it failed. The job of connecting the dots, it seems, cannot be outsourced to computers, at least not yet.

So that begs the question: are we failing to teach human beings to connect the dots? This seems like one of the basic building blocks of both wisdom and creativity, and yet it is a skill in short supply. Part of the problem, I think, is that people are increasingly encouraged to specialize: don't just know advertising, be a strategic planner. Don't just do advertising, do healthcare advertising. Don't just know healthcare, know oncology. (Just to cite a personal example.) While that intense specialization might help a person find the conventional answers within their space faster and better, it does not help them incorporate new knowledge from other areas that might revolutionize their area of focus.

The explosion of knowledge made possible by the Internet rewarded specialization, as there is just more to know in every field. Yet in many areas, the dot connectors have been left out, and each isolated topic has tapped a lot of the value it can get out of specialization and narrow focus. The dots have been collected, and the future will belong to those people who can take the critical step of connecting them.

The End of 'Europe'

Last summer, my wife and I took a wonderful trip to Greece. The weather was delightful, I saw some amazing archeological sites, we ate some terrific meals...the usual events of a happy vacation. But in the midst of our good time, we had to twice dodge riots occurring mere feet from our hotel in Athens. We didn't think much of it at the time, beyond registering mild amazement that the rioters seemed to feel it was the government's job to provide them with jobs.

But reading now of Greece's increasingly acute financial problems makes me think that the riots, and the attitude that drives them, are central to an understanding of Greece. As the blogger Spengler and his correspondent point out, the country is infused with corruption and graft of epic proportions. Everyone is trying to get on the public payroll, and many of them don't expect to do much work for the privilege. The country finances an unsustainable amount of spending to keep all these connected operators happy.

And how were they able to keep borrowing to this point? Because they're part of the Eurozone, and lenders have assumed that the Frances and Germanies will keep the peripheral nations from going under. And maybe they still will, but their voters seem unenthusiastic about sending their money to help out countries that have already received a huge economic boost by being included in the European economy.

Not long ago, Greece was a poor country. Its inclusion in the European experiment has given its people a taste of a good life they never really earned. Greece has no great industries, and its public sector is far too large, its social benefits far too generous for what it produces. As great as its cultural and natural gifts are, tourism isn't enough to keep it afloat.

When the productive nations of Europe realize that this scenario isn't limited to Greece, and that a pan-European economic system is a drag on their futures, they're going to demand out, or else kick out the parasitic nations at the periphery of the continent. And that, over a longer time horizon, is likely to render large patches of Europe less charming, prosperous and peaceful than they are today. We will miss visiting those places almost as much as their citizens miss the brief burst of prosperity bought on credit.

Space and the Modern American

As a neophyte science fiction writer, I find myself daydreaming about the different ways we will reach the planets and then the stars with some regularity. For most Americans, from our President on down, space exploration seems like an afterthought, of much less technological interest than the latest iWhatever, of much less cultural significance than Jersey Shore. Thus the announcement that we're essentially warehousing human exploration of space.

The political response to this from some quarters of the conservative movement is that Obama is taking a step away from American Greatness. However, he isn't doing anything more than reflecting our apathy about space exploration in his budgeting decisions. As this article by Craig Nelson notes, George W. Bush's announcement of a mission to Mars was just a bit of political fluff, and almost no one is willing to extend themselves to push for publicly-funded space flight the way JFK did in the early sixties.

So, while the Russians now have a seeming monopoly in sending people into space, we have to ask ourselves what the future holds. Are we destined to stay turned inwards, extending our lifespans and cushioning ourselves in conveniences and amusements while the rest of the galaxy remains a mystery? Obama has cited the possibility of private enterprise taking up some of the slack for NASA. But until the corporate world finds ways to make money in space, that's not going to happen.

Ultimately, I think the lack of interest in reaching space is cultural. First, we have become an incredibly risk-averse species. Most of our political debates now are about how to ensure there is ever-less risk of bad things happening to people. That attitude does not mesh well with the notion of sending many of our best and brightest into situations where they well may die (and die with TV cameras on them, which makes it that much more politically difficult). Secondly, we have lost the idea of the frontier, that great things can happen if you're willing to leave your stagnant past behind and take a leap into the unknown. It has, I'd argue, been replaced by the notion of moving as a lifestyle upgrade. You don't relocate to the place where life will be harder but you can build something for future generations, you relocate to the place with better weather or more Thai restaurants. Having moved to Brooklyn for just that reason (well, not literally the Thai food), I am not condemning anyone for making that choice, but I wonder what our future holds if no one is willing or able to choose the frontier.

Only Be Different

I find politics an interesting place to study communications because all the polling and elections provides rich feedback as to what works and what doesn't. And right now, we are clearly searching for novelty. Look at the low poll numbers for each party, look at the unpredictable voting results (Obama won Indiana and North Carolina in 2008, Republicans won major races in New Jersey and Massachusetts in 2009).

Which is why I find the current strategies of both parties so pathetic. The one thing they seem completely unable to deliver is novelty. Now I don't mean novelty for its own sake, I mean looking at the issues and proposing a completely new, bold solution instead of rehashing previous positions (like the Republican's latest plan.)

Imagine, for example, if someone came out and said, "I propose a two year hiring freeze on all federal government jobs outside the military." They'd have your attention, right? Or, to take on another issue, "I propose every American under 65 have 'catastrophic health insurance' for any illness or injury with average treatment costs over $100,000." OK, one more: "I propose that the government stop issuing marriage licenses and provide domestic partner licensing to any two people who want it."

Now, I chose those as examples because they represent three points I believe in, but they may not fly as national policy. But any politician who said them would instantly get more attention than a Republican who talked generically about tax cuts or a Democrat pushing for a healthcare 'public option'. Because those ideas are old, stale, and predictable.

In marketing, we constantly ask if an idea is 'differentiating', but we use the word incorrectly, to mean "can my competitor say this, or have they said something similar?" But the real definition of differentiation should be "would this create a powerful sense in my audience's mind that my brand represents something unique and valuable?" If we're going to expend the time and money to say something, we should ask ourselves if it will strike anyone as truly different.

The Thirst for Authenticity

I am increasingly struck by how disconnected the professional communications class is from the actual substance of what they are covering. Take, for example, this article by Troy Patterson on the State of the Union. I don't mean to pick on Mr. Patterson, who is explicitly covering the coverage of the speech. But it does point out just how quickly we jump from talking about the substance of an event, and move instead to how it looks, how we should perceive it.

To continue the point, look at this post about Obama's Q&A with the Republican Party in the House. Why do we skip to pointing out what great television it was? I have read numerous points about this session, all of which have skipped to how the public will perceive it, or what political benefits might accrue from it.

Can I ask you to pause for a moment and ask when was the last time you read a piece on politics that actually focused on what was happening, the substance of the thing as opposed to how us, the public, was going to react to it? I haven't read a single thing that says if Obama's Q&A might actually lead to new breakthroughs on any of the issues our country faces. I almost question whether any of the participants, Obama or the Republicans, actually are looking for opportunities to do something, or if they're all just trying to look a certain way for the cameras, the media, and the public.

But I'd argue (ah, the point, at last!) that most of the 'public' actually sees through all of this, but doesn't know quite what to do about it. Obama won, I'd contend, because he convinced enough people that he wasn't all about the surface appearances long enough that he got elected, and the whipsaw swing back to Republicans in recent elections indicates that he's dramatically failed to actually DO things, to say exactly, clearly, simply what he wants to do and then focus on that thing until it is done and can be judged on its merits.

Americans, if I can be so bold as to generalize, want to know what the rules of the state are so they can live their lives as they want within those rules. But they also want a decent amount of social protections so there aren't millions falling through the cracks of a cold system. Within that tension there's a lot of room for politicians to operate. But they need to say what their issues are and work tirelessly to achieve them. Scott Brown got elected because he said we should have a tax cut, should treat terrorists as enemies instead of common criminals, and government should be accountable to the people (so don't pass a wildly unpopular health plan against their will). Now he has to govern with a laser-like focus on those points if he wants to reward the trust Massachusetts voters have put in him. If he gets sucked in by those people who want him to be a symbol, and spends all his time preening in front of a camera, his time on the national stage will be short.

One of the larger points I'll be making again and again on this blog is that the decades of mass marketing culture have left us immune to most of the techniques of the speechwriters, campaign managers and PR flaks, at least most of the time. We want authenticity, even if it's a little weird, a little harder.

Oh, and by way of a shout-out, if you're looking for a blogger who authentically struggles with the issues facing our country (from a conservative perspective), look no further than Reihan Salam at the National Review. I intent to steal ideas and themes from him regularly.

Who pays for it?

As the healthcare debate winds down in DC, we find we still haven't
answered the big questions that make it so hard to come up with a
political solution: are we responsible for our own health? Is there a
right to care? How much of are wealth should we invest in extending
life? Are some people more worthy of the best care than others?

Until we at least admit that these are the questions, our answers will
continue to be incomplete at best.

--
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Welcome to Sketches of Tomorrow

In the coming months, I hope to use this blog as a space to explore some of the major influences on the future of our society. Stay tuned.