This time, it swung with a vengeance and society reverted to the Dark Ages where the rich ate the poor, zombie racists rose from their graves and Nazi warplanes frolicked through the skies playing the Luftwaffe March. Worst of all, in the far reaches of the Arctic, the warming waters gradually melted an ancient block of ice which contained the Golem, a long-dead mud creature of little intellect but great desire. The Golem rose up and walked the Earth, petulant and hungry, destroying villages, ravishing maidens and feeding his followers the flesh of the resisters. But just when all seemed lost, when the cannibals merrily stirred their pots and the no-necks pulled the wings off doves and the mindless din threatened to blot out the Sun, it happened again. The pendulum creakily swung back. ‘Twas ever thus.
Back To The Future
So what happens now, where will the Earth be in ten years? Nobody knows, of course, although Elon Musk may have a cheat sheet. What others philosophize over, Musk creates with his little Tinkertoy kit. And now NASA, reinvigorated by Musk’s ardor, is planning a crewed mission to the moon in 2024, and this time the boys want to stick around. The idea behind this new Artemis mission is to lay the foundation for a permanent human presence on and around the moon, which will then serve as a jumping-off point for the agency’s journey to Mars. Before we know it, Tom Corbett, Space Cadet may be back in all his radiant splendor. It’s only logical that Corbett would have risen in the ranks in the last 70 years, so it’s altogether possible we might even hear calls (sorry) from Ground Control to Major Tom.
Sending living beings to Mars has been Elon Musk’s goal from day one and this is the decade he targeted to touch down on the Red Planet. As SpaceX came to dominate the new space industry, however, Musk’s ambitions rose in tandem to include a full-fledged Mars colony, ambitious to say the least. But then, in 2019, he showed off the rocket that might make it happen. Musk is notorious for underestimating the amount of time it takes to accomplish his goals but he always seems to follow through sooner or later. He is pushing the boundaries of space further and faster than could be imagined just ten years ago. In four years, humans may be living in a little town on the moon. The only question seems to be, who gets there next---CVS or Walgreens?
Going Nuclear, Petitely
You don’t know this, but by 2030 the Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant in Burke County, Georgia will have been running for a few years. The tiny two-unit nuclear installation near Waynesboro is likely to be the decade’s only new large-scale nuclear plant to come online, but that doesn’t mean the U.S. is abandoning nuclear fission. Just the opposite. Expect to see these mini-reactors popping up all over the place.
Just a fraction of the size of the typical current reactor, these advanced versions can be mass-produced and easily shipped anywhere in the country, no matter how remote. The first small reactors, developed by a company called NuScale Power, should start splitting atoms at the Idaho National Laboratories in 2026. The Department of Energy is working to get even smaller critters known as microreactors churning out electrons at a federal facility by 2027.
Yeah, we know—you don’t trust nuclear energy. Chernobyl was an abomination and Three Mile Island scary enough. The long debate about nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain didn’t help matters. But you can’t have your cake and eat it, too. The world needs to halve carbon emissions by 2030 and the new generation of nuclear reactors may be the key to making it happen. The United Nations and many energy experts claim fission energy is the only way to hit our climate goals. The Flying Pie advocates the installation of a teeny test station at Mar-a-Lago, an otherwise useless backwater in South Florida. If anything untoward happens there, well…c’est la vie. We have to make some sacrifices to move science forward. Bill Nye, the Science Guy, might have said that.
Life In 2030
You are just waking up in the Spring of 2030. Your internet opens solar-powered e-windows and plays soft music while your smart lighting displays a montage of beachfront sunrises from your recent vacation. Your shower uses little water or soap. It recycles grey water and puts excess heat back into your home’s integrated operating system. While you dress, your Artificial Intelligence assistant shares your schedule for the day and plays Jimmy Buffet songs (alternatives available).
You start your day with caffeine, but it comes from your loT refrigerator which is capable of providing a coffeehouse experience in your home. A hot breakfast tailored to your specific nutritional needs (based on chemical analysis from your trips to the smart toilet) is waiting for you in the kitchen.
When it’s time to leave, an on-demand transport system has three cars waiting for you, your spouse and your kids. En route to your destination, you call your R&D team, which is wrapping up a day’s work in Shanghai. Your life-sized image is projected into the China Intervention Center and your colleagues see you as if you were sitting in the room.
You review the day’s cloud-based data from your Shenzen manufacturing hub, your pilot project in San Diego and your QA team in Melbourne. The massive datasets were collected in real time from every piece of equipment and have been beautifully summarized by your company’s AI. All these facilities are closely maintained and operated via a sophisticated predicted analytics program platform.
Pleased with the team’s progress, you end the call in your Manhattan office, settle back in your comfy lounger, hoist a cold one and order your television to find the NFL game. Alas, however, some things never change. The Jets have lost again.
Whoomp! There It Is.
Here are some honestogod technology tipping points expected to occur by 2025. Regrettably, the Vegas casinos have yet to post odds.
1. 10% of the U.S. population will be wearing clothes connected to the internet.
2. The first robotic pharmacist in the country will check in to work. His or her first customer will ask “Whattaya got for hives?”
3. Production of the first 3D-printed car will begin. You’ll have to wear special glasses to see it. And no, the ones you got for Avatar will not work.
4. 5% of all consumer products will be printed in 3D, including the dildoes.
5. 90% of the population will have regular access to the internet, but grandpa still won’t like it.
6. The first transplant of a 3D liver will occur, leading to a hefty surge in brewery stocks.
7. There will be at least one city with population over 50,000 that has no traffic lights. Local insurance rates will soar.
8. Some corporation will place an AI machine on its corporate board of directors. Its name will not be Hal.
9. Mike Tyson will stage his third comeback and be knocked out by Malala Yousafzai.
The World In 2030; The Vision Of Mauro Guillen
“Once upon a time, the world was neatly divided into prosperous and backward economies. Babies were plentiful, workers outnumbered retirees, and people aspiring towards the middle class yearned to own homes and cars. We grew up learning to play the game, and we expected the rules to be the same as we took our first job, started a family, saw our children grow up, and went into retirement with our finances secure. That world—and those rules—are over. By 2030, a new reality will take hold and before you know it:
There will be more grandparents than grandchildren.
The middle class in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa will outnumber the U.S. and Europe combined.
The global economy will be driven by the non-Western consumer for the first time in modern history.
There will be more global wealth owned by women than men.
There will be more robots than human workers.
There will be more computers than human brains.
There will be more currencies than countries.
All these trends, currently underway, will converge in the year 2030 and change everything you know about culture, the economy, and the world.”
According to Guillen, "We need to think laterally, adaptively, and creatively to prepare for this new world. This requires a peripheral and integrative vision that focuses on the dynamic interplay among a range of technological, political, social and demographic forces. How to prepare for such a monumental shift? You will need to think of your journey as a marathon. You will be a marathon runner and invest in yourself every day for the next 10 years. You will have a long-term perspective and compound yourself, your knowledge, your skills, your perspectives, your networks and your assets during the 2020s. Think of it this way: you will create your own personal renaissance in the next decade. Your best artwork, essays, courses, assets, investments, games, systems and the like. You will create them daily in this intriguing decade that begins right now."
Then again, if you’re in your seventies you might just want to play shuffleboard.
That’s all, folks….
