Summary for This Page

Many people believe they can look forward, extrapolate currrent trends into the future, and make useful remarks about what we might expect. Sometimes, they're even right! On this page, I intend to enter sections of material from different outside experts. I hope to give you a good summary or a useful set of links so that you can find out what a particular expert thinks is coming.

Time passes, changes happen. When either the material of a particular expert has been proven incorrect by actual events, or time has eclipsed that material, or a better projection comes along, I will drop the old material and put in new material.

At the bottom of the page, I have included books (and perhaps other items) that I have cited in the body of this page or simply think you would find interesting and useful. You can use these links just to look at a particular book or to buy it if you wish. Some excellent books are available that I will profile for you or recommend.

I hope you enjoy the material presented here, but always do keep in mind that these are projections of the future. They may never happen. They may partly happen and partly not. The primary advantage in knowing them isn't to get a leg up on a specific matter. Rather, it's to give yourself an opportunity to stretch your mind to consider new possibilities, as well as to provide you with a broader understanding of how the present could unfold into our near future.

Demographics and the Fate of Nations

Option 1: Professor Rosling's Gapminder Site

The Gapminder site has beautiful animated graphics covering all sorts of data about the world, including populations, incomes, health, and much more. The team running the site is looking to expand their datasets even more over the next several years.

The site's datasets have considerable historical information to show what has actually happened over the past few decades at least. Some datasets stretch back to the year 1800. Their animations can thus show how trends have developed so far, and when the data has been projected, you can see how trends could develop over the next few decades.

The graphics are extremely well-designed, often strikingly beautiful. A visual arts data feast. It's great fun to play with their program, and you will learn an amazing amount about your world.

Option 2: Play with Pyramids at the US Census's International Database

I recommend that you go to the U.S. Census Bureau's International Database Page for population data.

Once there, I recommend that you (1) pick a country, (2) use your keyboard to select all the years available, from 1950 to 2050, and (3) click the "Submit" button. The site will process your request. When the new page appears, you will see four tabs at the top of the data displayed. Click on the "Population Pyramids" tab. This will show you a sequential series of pyramids. Look just under the set of four tabs and find the "Animation Controls". Click once on the single, right-pointing arrow. This will cause all the pyramids to collpase into just the top one. If you now click repeatedly (and quickly) on that right-pointing arrow, the pyramid graphic will cycle forward to 2050 one year at a time, showing you how the population of that country will change over time. When you are done with that country, scroll your screen down slightly and select another country from the pop-up, and hit the "Submit" button again to repeat the process with the new country.

I recommend checking Italy, Russia and the Ukraine to see countries that are going to shrink substantially. Think what that means for the ability of that country to function and pay its bills or project power in the world. Also check out the USA, China, India, and any other country you are interested in. It's fun!

Ray Kurzweil Reports on The Singularity

You can check out Ray Kurzweil's Wikipedia entry to see what he has worked on and get a list of his books. He is an extremely creative man and a prolific inventor. He is widely known for his work on what he calls The Singularity, when change rates for pretty much all human activities go pretty much vertical around the year 2050. I have read two of his health books, which were quite interesting and also useful.

You can go to Amazon's Ray Kurzweil Page or you can go to the Cites Section at the bottom of this page for links to some of his books.

It turns out that there was a man in the 1800s who projected the rates of change and came up with about the same year as Kurzweil, insofar as the timing of when the rates of change would go vertical. Unfortunately, I can't find the webpage that refers to this man's work. If you know of an online article about him, please leave a comment with the URL in it.

I find it fascinating that the curves of change have been so stable for hundreds of years. It makes it a bit easier to accept that both this man in the 1800s and Kurzweil could be correct to a large extent. If so, we are all in for a wild ride over the next 50 years!

Walter Russell Mead looks into the 2010s from 2010

Walter Russell Mead recently published some wonderful articles on accelerating change on his blog.

I realize these are long, and that you probably won't have the time to read them all. If you can only read one, then read this one:

White Water Warning: Wild Decade Ahead

Here are Mead's ten follow-on articles on the ten most likely areas of major change through the 2010s:
The Top Global Trends For the 2010s, #1 and #2
Global Trends of the 2010s #3: Panopolis
Global Trends of the 2010s #4: Small ‘d’ democratization
Global Trends of the 2010s #5: Disaggregation and The Death of the West?
Global Trends of the 2010s #6: Hot Religion and the March of Abraham
Global Trends of the 2010s #7: The Age of Apocalypse
Global Trends for the 2010s #8: Uneven Development and the African Time Bomb
Global Trends For The 2010s #9: The European World Order Breaks Up
Global Trends for the 2010s #10: Hope and Change

I will add here two more of his articles that are definitely related in terms of their approach to the subject matter. They are stand-alone articles, not part of the above series, but very interesting in the light of the above. Here are their links:

Radically American
Time To Change Course on Health Care Reform

I would note that Mead's article above on the European World Order places the US in a unique place. As Stratfor.com has pointed out, having shorelines on both the Atlantic and the Pacific puts the US in a unique geopolitical position in the physical world. Mead's #9 also places the US in a middle position, this time in the world of culture, law, and governance. The European Order will not go away, and the US is uniquely placed to act as the mediator and middle man in what will more likely be seen as a rebalancing between West and East, rather than a full-scale replacement.

Strauss and Howe — Generations and The Fourth Turning

Strauss and Howe published two books that I found fascinating to read and helpful in understanding events since the books were published. They did very high-quality work, and I recommend both books highly. Despite the fact that the books were published some years ago, they are still useful and will remain useful for decades. Check them out in the Cites Section below.

Conclusion

I hope this helps you learn how to surf the wave of change more easily in the years and decades ahead. Mead is right in saying it is a time of turbulence yet ultimately positive. The more we can stay out of the clutches of apocalyptic thought, resentment, and other negatives, the more fun – and amazing – the next few decades will be.