How do you see the future of our world?

I don’t see a future

People have though things were going to shit for ever. I’m old and I thought the same when I was young. 20 years later and the sun still rises.

Live like everyday is your last. But the media loves “the end of the world” shit so ignore it. It makes you watch but it isn’t true.

Read a history book.. The 30’s were much worse.

I compare the current situation to the Tennessee Titans. They made it to the Super Bowl and won. The only place to go now, is down and work themselves back to the top.

My wife and I were discussing this identical situation.

I believe we will never have things in America as we have known it in the past.

Better enjoy what you have and your current lifestyle, for the past may be forever gone.

See @johnpowell
There have been repeated economic “crises” throughout history. It is interesting that people think that right here, right now is all there is.
The US alone has had several economic crises starting with the Panic of 1819, and the US is still here.
Most people in the US born after WW II got to cruise along on a 70 year boom cycle. Now it going the other way.
Civilization, and the attached institutions, are on a constant roller coaster ride. Up and down, shortage and surplus, etc. etc.
And the world will be here tomorrow.

Compare the bad, gray, negative, doomsday stories from the media to your own present day situation and you will see that for most of us (unfortunately not for everybody) the future looks brighter than the ones being forseen in said articles.

Here, let me do the Vulcan Mind Meld on the planet….

(Calms mind, and slowly touches ground)

PAIN!!!! PAIN!!!!

oh, wait a minute. I shouldn’t do that over the septic.

I see a time of peace, an unpolluted world with everything in harmony.

And what about the people?

I don’t see any people.

In the near future I can see the East taking over the economies of the world, becoming stronger & more dominant than the west… the west will be but puppets dancing on the strings of a far superior eastern nations economy, fighting over the crumbs that fall from it’s massive as yet untapped resources…. In the long term the west will be the sweat shops & cheap labour that fuels the east’s growth & ever more dominant position as the world leader & financial lender….. :-/

What I wrote here.

It’ll look pretty good for those of us who’re resourceful.

I think a lot depends on how people react. In some areas during the Great Depression, it could be argued that people did better. Places where people were more self-sufficient did fine, and in most cases did better health-wise because they were all growing their own food, and therefore eating more vegetables. Declining industrial production will instantly equate to better air and water quality. The declining oil production (the likeliest cause of economic collapse) will mean a drastic reduction of military activity worldwide, and hopefully troop withdrawals; it’ll mean logging companies will either cut less or stop cutting altogether. Suburbs will see/are seeing an increase in front yard gardening. Many Third World and developing countries will breath a sigh of relief as multinational corporations stop coercing their citizens into debt slavery, and they can get back to subsistence farming and such. Politically, we could see one large country break up into smaller ones.

The downsides come in if we don’t behave intelligently. Most of the country’s food is grown using oil for fertilizer and pesticides, and without it the plains will revert back to the Dustbowl unless we start promoting polycrops (particularly perennials) now. Or spreading that seeds of nitrogen fixers. There’s plenty of wild food out there, but even fewer people know what it is and how to use it than did during the Great Depression. Increased violence is also a possibility, particularly in cities where resources are scarce per capita, and particularly from cops and military. We could see more direct feudalism by the corporations and organizations who do it covertly now. Our communities are not set up for anything but motorized populations, so in many cases we’ll have difficulty just getting to where we need to go.

It could be anywhere from a primitivist utopia to Mad Max. Hopefully more towards the utopia, but I have little faith in homo civilis.

We should not focus on the future but on the present. If we dwell in the past we won’t progress but if we focus on the future we’ll just waste the present.

Hibernate: I like that!

very interesting thoughts everyone!!! :)

There is continuous human progress despite temporary setbacks and regional poverty. Key drivers are trade, the exchange of ideas, and the spread of specialization. This kind of rational optimism is based on the historic analysis of vast improvements in the human condition with significantly higher life expectancy and widespread literacy, as well as prosperity indicators such as having access to more calories, watts, lumen-hours, gigahertz, terabytes, bushels per acre and miles per gallon. The biggest impediment to progress today may in fact be pessimism. Like expressed in this thread.