Last updated on 2023-04-11
Perhaps the future will unfold in a way that reduces economic inequality, softens environmental collapse, and increases civil rights in most countries. This seems unlikely to me.
Environmental collapse has already begun and is gathering pace. Soil microbiomes, of which we have a limited understanding, are losing biodiversity, which will make them more susceptible to collapse in the future. Insect populations are collapsing at an estimated rate of 2% per year. As insects provide the base of the food chain for birds, fish and others; provide pollination for many crops that humans depend on, and make up about 2/3 of the biodiversity on the planet, you would think this would be headline news, as the consequences are alarming to say the least.
Oil companies have permitting and development plans in place to raise global temperatures more than the 2 degrees target. Two degrees is a catastrophic future with chaotic weather patterns that will no longer conform to historical patterns, and thus are unpredictable and stochastic. We are on track for worse than that. . .
So, it seems more plausible that those with power – whether it is a central state power, multinational corporations, or the emerging class of the super-rich – will find ways to further privilege themselves and cement their grip on power as the environment spirals chaotically into a warmer world with unpredictable extreme weather events occurring more frequently.
In this view of the world, it looks to me as if there are two likely tracks emerging in the world. First, there will be autocratic governments that will increasingly use technology and good old-fashioned violence to keep their people in line. Secondly, there will be states where government power fragments and multinationals and super rich individuals will control.
Both systems will use the same technology to control and wield power. Tracking and surveillance technology will be ubiquitous and either will be compelled (autocratic system) or voluntarily taken up (market-based system) to participate in some aspect of the economy. Both systems will likely be roiled by social unrest due to environmental collapse, food and water allocation issues, and the energy transition to abundant and ubiquitous renewable generation on a community level.
Apparently, our world will be increasingly defined by the massive divide between the rich elite and everyone else, by the nations bearing the brunt of climate catastrophes and immigration of climate refugees and others that are less impacted, and by regions that will become more habitable and regions that become less habitable. Further divisions will be due to the stark difference in political approach taken by the West and the more authoritarian and centrally controlled model of China and its sphere of influence.
I believe both systems will ruthlessly put down its discontented populations, using those who believe that they are upwardly mobile or advantaged by the system to do the dirty work against the people who see clearly who is wielding power unjustly. The stories of resistance will be cautionary tales, and the narrative will be ruthlessly controlled in both systems.
To see the systems clearly, one must read media carefully, mindful of bias and information hygiene. And, in the “market system,” corporatist-controlled systems, one must avoid most participation in the popular markets – think social media, mainstream consumer culture, the western diet, the western medicine view of health and healthcare, and see the “justice system” for what it is (a justification for the entrenched, institutionalized power structures maintaining the status quo).
All of this is not to say that there isn’t hope, or that this is an accurate prediction of the future. It is simply my observations based on the last few years. Peering over the present moment, on the verge of 2023, I see only continuation of current trends. I hope that people will rise against these trends and fight the rising tides of more control, more inequality. . . But I am not hopeful that will happen. It appears tome that most people are too occupied by living hand to mouth to make accurate observations about how they are manipulated, let alone whether they are getting accurate information from media or officials. . .
This has turned into a bit of a ramble. . . I am not optimistic about our ability to navigate our present moment to find a solution that avoids massive suffering and inequality. . .