The twentieth century was the century of the dominance of the West, but it will surely be century where it began its decline. Early twentieth century the level of social development of the West was 2.4 times higher than the East, in 2000 the proportion was only 1.6 times. If trends continue into the future, would move to East West in 2103 at the latest. In urban planning and city size, the East and is on par with the West. Analysts go on the date betting that China will overtake the U.S. and it seems that walked engaged in a war over who has the earliest date that happen. My bet is that before 2030 and no later than 2050. There are more questions about when East would overtake the West in military capabilities, technology information and energy capture. Morris does not set a date, but believes that since 2050, things will accelerate both the West can hardly maintain its leadership in these areas for much longer.
But perhaps the question of when to advance east to west is idle. Maybe globalization has blurred that distinction. Maybe we read the history of the last hundred years the history of how the West has expanded to the East and made it its periphery. East now enjoy the benefits of all the regions and prepares to return the favor. There is no East or West, but a unified world.
What will the world in 2103? If social development 900 points separate the Altamira caves of the atomic bomb, it is unthinkable that we can expect from a world that, extrapolating from historical data, would have exceeded 5,000 points for social development, more than double the current. Cities would have 140 million inhabitants, human brains could be linked to very powerful computers and access to all your data, we would have robots fighters of all sizes ... The futurist Ray Kurzweil has called the period ahead "Singularity": " ... a future period during which the pace of technological change is so rapid, its impact so deep (...) that the technology seem to be expanding at a rate of infinity." If current trends continue, Kurzweil predicts computers with the same data storage capacity of the human brain (apparently we are able to store 10 billion memories, but before congratuléis I remind you that half of those memories are painful and the other half is irrelevant), we will be able to produce maps of the human brain neuron to neuron (formidable, but really we would have a map so detailed Berlusconi's brain?). For the 2045 could have created a kind of human intelligence interconnected world and artificial intelligence, where the latter we would always win at chess. Humanity would evolve into something new, we would have broken the laws of biology.
Morris is not naive. No one who has fallen human beings are moved by greed, laziness and fear (yes, I know that sex is left out. One failure was to have) can blindly trust rosy forecasts. Twice in the first century and XIV, humanity found a roof, a roof as the kind of society that existed then could not break. To break we had to find the energy from coal, the steam engine and the industrial revolution. What if now we were to meet such a roof? What if we had come upon an ecological bottleneck that was inaccessible in our present state of social and technological development?
There is enough evidence to think that perhaps we are in a situation such. The industrial revolution that helped to break the ceiling had to development has led to current climate warming is expected to produce more hurricanes, more droughts, more irregular rainfall, a rise in sea level, etc. The worst thing is that everything is interconnected climate. We do not know at what point the changes may be irreversible, at what point can start a chain reaction that leads to catastrophic changes in climate.
Even if not catastrophic climate changes, we have some old back ailments. The first is hunger. With a growing population and land yields more uncertain because of climate change, we can meet soon with a serious food crisis. In 2008 when food prices rose disproportionately and had a mild foretaste of what might look like a food crisis. The U.S. National Intelligence Council estimates that by 2025 around 1,400 million people could suffer water shortages and / or food. The second is the uncontrolled migration. If we are concerned that the boats have stopped coming in recent years to prepare ourselves so that we can come up if a combination of famine, political instability climate change and lead the people in the South to try to emigrate en masse to the north. The Barbarian Invasions of the Roman Empire look like a joke in comparison. The third is the disease. The speed of communications is not only an advantage for travelers, also for epidemics. Furthermore, the degradation of ecosystems brings us into contact with new germs mutate eager to address the degradation of their environment. Once I talked to one who worked for the WHO and made my hair like hooks when I described a scenario, it is not impossible, in which the avian flu virus mutated and learned to spread from human to human. Cases of human to human transmission has been in Indonesia and northern Vietnam, but it seems the virus has not yet developed fully this possibility. Finally, we have the risk of failed states. It was not the same as Attila died in the V century and soon the Huns did not know what to make nuclear-armed Pakistan to break down. Another problem with failed states. If recent events in the Arab world have made oil prices rise, what would not happen if things were over and, for example, Libya and Yemen from becoming failed states (not impossible)?
Morris believes that we're in a race between the Singularity, which could access and green roof that threatens us. It depends on us, our greed, our laziness and our fear, whoever wins. I bet some to who wins?