Dateline: January 3 2034
It’s been a decade since the tumultuous events of 2024, when a slew of elections in major economies helped reset the world order. With more than 7-billion people connected on smartphones, populist strongmen and political power brokers found themselves in a new age of transparency, forcing them to be accountable, whether they liked it or not. Ideological dogma surrendered to realpolitik, everywhere.
At the same time, emerging technologies such as intelligent assistants, artificial intelligence (AI) creatives, and robotic helpers became mainstream in the workplace — and at home. Breakthroughs in nanoprinting and bioengineering accelerated the transformation of the energy, transport and food sectors, while engineering, construction and manufacturing experienced a tech-driven renaissance in the years that followed.
All of which played out in a series of boom-bust-boom cycles in the financial markets, giving fiscal and monetary policymakers more headaches than their predecessors had experienced in more than 100 years. When everyone has a supercomputer in their pocket, and intelligent agents to aid their decisions, chaos reigns. Which is fantastic for some investors, and disaster for others, often favouring the bold and nimble over the cautious and careful.
As if that wasn’t enough, the space economy took off in a big way, with a return to the moon, asteroid mining, and missions to Mars already under way. The space economy not only extends global commerce beyond the planet’s atmosphere, but also creates massive new opportunities for innovative businesses on the ground. It takes more than rockets and spaceships to service off-planet communities, and the future horizons are infinite.
And now, as we settle into the “Thriving Thirties” there is an all-too-predictable backlash against the techcesses of the “Roaring Twenties”; people want to reclaim their humanity, act like people and not like machines, and find purpose in culture and society. It’s the end of the world as we knew it — and the start of a new world, again.
- First published on Mindbullets January 4 2024
2024: The year that changed everything
It’s the end of the world as we knew it. Happy new year!
Dateline: January 2 2025
“May you live in interesting times!” is an old Chinese curse. It’s certainly been an interesting year, and now nothing will ever be the same again!
We’ve seen the departure of both Putin and Trump, in the same year, and though their replacements are still populists, they are “youngsters” with a different political perspective. Perhaps liberalism is going to make a spectacular comeback in two of the most influential states on the global stage.
The opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics last summer was marred by Green protesters attempting to disrupt the Eiffel Tower light show, claiming that the event was 100% powered by “dirty nuclear energy” and condemning France for exploiting their EU neighbours by exporting “toxic power.”
Climate change is still an ever-present concern, but since the “new pause” in the warming trend, the focus has moved from temperature targets to adaptation and mitigation. Carbon emissions are still rising globally, despite the solar power boom, and hopes of achieving net zero by 2030 are fading fast. Water scarcity is the new alarm call, and water-from-air technology the new investment craze.
Starlink has reached full capacity with more than 10,000 internet satellites, and broadband connectivity has never been so affordable or ubiquitous. Literally billions of people have joined the online digital community in the past five years. It’s a new global consciousness, as well as the biggest market.
But perhaps the most memorable singular event of 2024 was the launch of the first Starship to Mars. Though there are no humans on board, Starship is carrying presettlement robots, 3D printers, and fuel factories, to prepare the ground for future human missions. Also on board is a new version of the social robot Sophia, loaded with sensors and programmed to simulate the experience of live Mars travel. May she land safely, and send back selfies.
Like 1969 and 1989, history will remember 2024 as the “year that changed everything”.
- First published on Mindbullets January 2 2020
• Despite appearances to the contrary, Futureworld cannot and does not predict the future. The Mindbullets scenarios are fictitious and designed purely to explore possible futures, and challenge and stimulate strategic thinking.
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