The year 2034, your predictions?

[MNDude]

It seems that with recent trends in economics, demographics, and morality in this country, there's great reason for much pessimism for the future. In any case, I'm curious to hear your predictions for 20 years from now. The state of USA? The world stage? Technology? Anything else you think it will be like in that year.

[Mad Dawgg]

"The year 2034, your predictions?"

The MSM will see be reporting "It's Bush's Fault"

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks MNDude, I'll take a shot.

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• By 2034 the oldest baby boomer will be 88, and the youngest 74 (1946-1960). Life expectancy had been rising, but in 20 years we'll have been in a puzzling sideways phase for about that long. By 2040 at least half of the youngest will be deceased, so by 2034 at least half of the baby boom itself will be deceased.

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• The population of the US is rising more quickly than most (all?) industrialized countries, nearly one half of that increase is due to immigration, and nearly one half of that is illegal immigration. By 2034, given a 2 percent annual growth rate (that looks mighty ambitious, but historically recent immigrants have very high birth rates, and we're only talking about one generation from now), the 315 million we currently have will push up to about 450 million (without figuring in deaths in that interval). By the end of the 21st century the US population will be between 1 and 3 billion. Fully half of the AD 2100 population will be Roman Catholic.

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• Most of the growth in US population will be urban, making most of the urban areas of the US an unlivable third world hellholes, like Minneapolis has become in a similar 20 year interval. Places now considered fair game for punchlines -- such as Detroit -- will by contrast have become havens for urban Americans (as opposed to urban immigrants).

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• The population of Mexico will be in decline, and not merely because of the egress to America. Similar population declines will happen in most of Latin America.

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• Media will have been transformed into something even less watchable than now -- besides primetime TV shows and series in languages other than English, those of us still around will look back on 2014's party-line shills as the last golden age of journalism by contrast.

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• Broadband will be on fiber, and available literally everywhere. Vlogs will become more important as sources of information, and members-only private vlogs and blogs even moreso.

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• All landline telephone service will be included in literally any telecom service package. Mobile phones will be everywhere, and as differentiated then as, say, toothpaste or bananas are today. Fiber capacity will reach rural areas more quickly than mostly predicted now, because the bandwidth for future generations of mobile phones -- and if they're still counting and marketing it, we'll be up to G9 or so -- will have to ride on fiber.

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• The US will be burning at least fifty percent more coal in 2034 than it is today, but the coal won't be burned inside US borders. Coal mining will be pretty much gone in twenty years -- but only inside US borders.

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• the price of crude oil will have risen to $200 a barrel by 2024, but declined to $75 by 2034 (in inflation-adjusted dollars, about $32 today).

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• US oil production will have doubled.

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• US natural gas production will have increased tenfold (that's the 20th root of 10 per year).

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• US agricultural production will have remained stable, beef production will have increased, soybean production will have declined.

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• The ISS now in orbit will have been deorbited (sent into the atmosphere to a fiery destruction, with debris spreading into the landless area of the Pacific) about ten years earlier, having been replaced by, hmm, perhaps nothing, but probably by a mixture of smaller US-only stations and some privately owned stations.

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• The first human flights to Mars will be a recent accomplishment -- by the US. A permanent human presence on the Moon will not yet become a reality, but robotic exploration of the lunar surface will have become so commonplace that anyone with a web browser will be able to take a virtual rover trip on its surface.

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• Vlad Putin will have been assassinated.

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• George Soros, Warren Buffet, and other troublesome old liberal billionaire turds (perhaps including Bill Gates) will have been burning in the fires of Hell for some time by the beginning of 2034.

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• People will still be running around predicting all of the following:
  • collapse of the US dollar
  • China, Russia, Iran, et al will establish a different reserve currency, leading to (you guessed it) the collapse of the US dollar
  • Yellowstone caldera will blow, destroying half/all the US and part/much/most/all of the world
  • that eruption will lead to the collapse of the US dollar, or would have, had it not already collapsed twice.
  • the US deficit, having risen from the current $15 trillion to $45 trillion in 2034 will lead to, well, you get the idea.

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• The European Union will have a permanent division of influence between Germany-France-UK and Poland-Ukraine-southern tier. Russia's ethnic groups will again dump Moscow's occupation and imperial control and turn toward the markets of the outside world.

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• The civil wars in the Arab portions of the Middle East will have resulted in an economic boom in Israel (which will also be economically aligned with Poland, Ukraine, Greece, etc) and partitioning, such as the new nation of Kurdistan.

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• Iran will be split into autonomous areas along ethnic lines, most of which cross political boundaries into other states such as Pakistan. Iran and India will be allied, the mullahcracy on its way to irrelevancy (the 'revolutionary' generation will be 55 years in the past by then).

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• Turkey will have become a regional joke, and will have had to turn over territory to help establish its only friendly neighbor in Asia, Kurdistan; its other close tie will be with Greece.

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• A Central Asian economic bloc comprising all or most of the 'stan countries will be enjoying the proceeds of petroleum, mineral, and coal sales, mostly to China.

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• China will have engaged in several short wars (Vietnam, North Korea, Nepal) and lost each time, and be engaged in a long internal struggle with jihadists and other separatists, as well as struggling with continual strikes and other unrest.

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• Taiwan will be enjoying both an economic boom and continued independence from their would-be overlords in Beijing. During the 20 year interval the Chinese population will have, at best, leveled off, but will probably be in serious decline by then. Immigration into China from Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, and even India will take the form of millions (and eventually tens of millions) of guest workers.

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• Africa will mostly continue to suck.
  • Zimbabwe will have become a racially homogeneous battleground, and Mugabe may have become that "county's" answer to the late Francisco Franco, kept purportedly alive with lots of machines that go beep.

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  • Nigeria will have annihilated its internal rebellions, increased its oil production, and occupied various neighboring countries, mostly to the north, under the guise of helping restore order for the local gov'ts.

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  • Algeria and Libya will finally have pissed off everyone else on the continent and have ceased to exist.

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  • Egypt's current population of circa 80 million will have begun to learn and adopt Israeli methods of dealing with aridity (trickle irrigation, active irrigation, desalination, hydroponics) in order to populate the Sinai; this gov't policy will be in response to the Iranian-sponsored terrorism and lawlessness, and result in the reduction of the nomadic populations there.

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  • Sudan will finally have lost its grip on South Sudan, and the latter will become a big oil producer. Iranian influence in Sudan and in The Horn will have been wiped out by 2034. Sudan will consist of a relatively peaceful urban portion, an occasionally chaotic agricultural region, and various separatist enclaves.

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  • Morocco will round up the Polisario terrorists and their answer to the Palestinians 'nationality', and annex the area they formerly controlled anyway. The 'refugees' will be resettled in the former territory of Algeria, part of which will be administered under Moroccan military occupation. Morocco will also have developed warm relations and economic ties with Israel.

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  • The long-predicted and discused project to link the Mediterranean with the Qattara Depression will be nearly completed by 2034, and the inflow through multiple canals will begin no later than 2040.

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  • South Africa ('Civ disintegrates into laughter)...

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  • Ethiopia will have occupied and annexed Somalia, with the help of various of Somalia's neighbors, and the entire population of the "country" resettled in a landlocked area where they can be watched and basically live their lives without harming themselves and others.

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  • The east coast of Africa south of Ethiopia will have begun to take the steps for confederation into a single state.

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• Greenlanders will look neither right nor left, and open for bid to all interested parties to develop even more fields, including exploratory drilling through the icecap.

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• Iceland will, well, who cares?

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• Norway will be taken over by Islamofascists. Sweden will intervene on behalf of Scandinavian Norse, and this will become a turning point in Europe's relationship with the Islamic occupation forces.

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• Canada will continue to increase both its energy production and its energy exports to the US. As in the US, job creation and population shifts of Canadians (as opposed to the recent immigrants) are largely in the energy sector.

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• Japanese will emigrate, leading to an acceleration of the demographic decline among Japanese.

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• India will experience a leveling-off of population similar to China's, but will have by that time dealt with the 150 million or so muzzies in their midst. By AD 2100, the population of the US will exceed the combined populations of India and China.

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• Antarctica will experience a series of unusually cold years, leading to a big buildup of ice along its coasts.

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[bmwcyle]

The Freerepublic will have a new look.

[SunkenCiv]

Said the Godfather of the Global Warming Delusion.

[SunkenCiv]

Yeah, and how long did that last? :’) Nappy was actually a much better civil leader than he was a military one, if one goes by the results. His victories were early and kicked the British behinds until after he led 500,000 or so to the slaughter in that brutal Russian winter. What a jackass, eh? He loved the trappings of ancient glory, but apparently didn’t learn from the experience of the Persians, described in Herodotus, when they tried cornering the Scythians in what would eventually be the Russian empire.

The French monarchy was *the* power on the European continent for centuries. The Spanish had their huge empire, and during their union with the Hapsburgs the Spanish monarch controlled more of the world’s surface than anyone who has ever lived.

And yet, the Spanish never took on the French or at least not for long, or effectively.

Ivan the Terrible built his military machine by sending people to study French methods.

And much more recently, it was the French who figured out what needed to be done and how men needed to be trained in order to beat the Germans in WWone, but lacked the manpower to do it — so they were the key to the US’ Expeditionary Force’s record-time recruiting and deployment, and made a definite though under-credited contribution to the ultimate victory.

[jwalsh07]

I predict St Peter and I will have had our conversation.

[SunkenCiv]

You forgot to mention the 31 plane crashes that happened just before the 2029 season began.

[tet68]

In 2034, things will be very quiet, just the sound of
the wind blowing through broken windows...

[SunkenCiv]

Wow, you are a dreamer. ;’)

[tet68]

Actually the Germans were the ones who figured it out
but by then they too were in no shape to continue.

[SunkenCiv]

?

[tet68]

Sure, by the time of the Ludendorf Offensive the
germans had started to use small unit tactics developed
on the Russian front, flowing
around points of resistance, using cover etc. Their
failure to take advantage of mobile armor was made up
for the next time around.

[MaxMax]

I don’t want to be here. Unless God has other plans.

[SunkenCiv]

So, the Germans trained US troops for WWI?

[tet68]

I said no such thing.
The Germans developed the use of shock assault troops
using small unit tactics. Used earlier in the conflict
it might have made a difference in the out come.
The Kaiserschlact made a huge hole in the allied line
but they were in no position to continue the assault
and afterwards were always on the defensive until
the final collapse.
The French learned the lesson as well but they too
were in no condition to take it to victory.

[Billthedrill]

Well, let's see, I'll be 82 and just fitting into my second body, a vat-grown 18-year-old, all paid for by the 80% income tax we'll be levying on the gen-X'ers' income by then, who will be unable to retire because, well, somebody's gotta work. BAMA (the Boston-Atlanta Metropolitan Axis) will have fused and been walled off from the healthy part of the country, and be a Mad Max sort of playground that we'll visit from time to time on Murder Tours. We will have strip-mined the Moon by then and properly so. Algore will have become the richest man in the world through selling carbon credits to the UN and will die a messy death through explosion a la Mr. Creosote. Just one more wafer-thin mint, Al.

And the Mariners still won't have won a world series.

[bmwcyle]

Thank you

[SunkenCiv]

This is what I posted, that you replied to, and stated it was the Germans. So, yes, you did say such a thing.

...it was the French who figured out what needed to be done and how men needed to be trained in order to beat the Germans in WWone, but lacked the manpower to do it — so they were the key to the US’ Expeditionary Force’s record-time recruiting and deployment, and made a definite though under-credited contribution to the ultimate victory.

[SunkenCiv]

:’) We need a post-a-topic facility here that, when given an URL, pulls in the headline, author, and text (and sets up keywords, all from the Meta tags and whatnot) for excerpting, and automatically rejects unusable sources. It would also “camp out” on the URL so others trying to post it would be rejected, reducing duplication.

[tet68]

Ok, I think we are at cross purposes here.
I thought you were speaking of the way to break
the deadlock of defensive trench warfare.
Certainly the French and British taught the
doughboys a lot, lessons paid for in blood
for the first three years of the war.