OUR WORLD: 10 More Controversies Of The Future
MORRIS M. NOVEMBER 14, 2013
We’ve talked before about how our human penchant for argument is probably gonna screw up the future as much as it has the present. But the full extent of the screaming debates we’re likely to have in the next 50 years is so unimaginably ginormous it deserves another look. Think gun control or gay marriage are controversial topics? Buddy, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
10: The Death Of Privacy
You’ve heard of Google Glass. It’s a wearable computer that looks (surprise!) an awful lot like a pair of glasses. With the wink of an eye it’s capable of taking pictures or video or doing a trillion other absurdly clever things. And it could be about to make society a whole lot nastier.The problem comes from facial recognition technology. Studies have shown that this tech can already pick people out from a crowd and pull up almost anything on them—from Facebook pictures to social security numbers to Linkedin profiles and more. It has huge potential for abuse, but more than that, it could conceivably mean the death of privacy. Imagine a world where everyone who passed you in the street instantly knew everything about you, from the deeply personal to the painfully embarrassing to your address and phone number. Members of the public, work colleagues, potential dates, police officers—all would be privy to stuff you probably wouldn’t want strangers to know. Sound like a nightmare? Well, the moment someone combines facial recognition software with something like Google Glass, it will probably become reality. Google themselves are currently against the idea, but the potential is there and one day . . . who knows? And when that happens, you can prepare yourself for the mother of all ethical debates.
9: The Fate Of Climate Refugees
Even if you think manmade climate change is a load of liberal nonsense, it’s impossible to deny that the planet is getting warmer. Right now, we’re on course for a catastrophic temperature rise which will almost certainly flood entire countries and displace millions of people. So the question is: Where are all these people going to go?This isn’t just an academic issue. Somewhere like Bangladesh faces the very real possibility of largely vanishing in the next 50 years, displacing somewhere around 30 million people. That’s the population of Texas and Oregon combined, suddenly cast adrift with no home to return to. It’s unlikely the beleaguered Bangladeshi government would be able to support them, so where would they go? India? Nice thought, but India is already building a razor-wire fence specifically to keep displaced Bangladeshis out. China? Get real. So where? The answer is: We don’t know. And that’s just in one corner of Asia. Research suggests anywhere from 150 million to one billion could become climate refugees globally. With such a stupendous number of people suddenly made homeless, things could start to get very ugly indeed.
8: Who Owns Outer Space?
7: Old vs. Young
6: Virtual Abuse
5: A Deadly Journey
4: The Global Resources Battle
It almost doesn’t bear thinking about: a world in which water, food, and energy are in short supply and governments have to play dirty to keep their populations sated. I say “almost” because soon we won’t have a choice. According to experts, this nightmare scenario is only a few short years away.Now this is gonna be big—really big. The UK’s former chief scientific adviser recently noted that governments are already participating in land grabs to secure mining rights, a taster of what’s to come. When the battle to secure water and food supplies really kicks off, we’ll have one heck of an ethical dilemma. On the one hand, it might be impossible to remain a major global player without becoming increasingly heartless. Ideas like caring for our poor, upholding democracy, and respecting sovereign nations may have to go out the window if we want to stay at the top of the economic game—a process politicians euphemistically call “being more like China.” On the other, if we decide to retain our compassion, we may very well be regulated to backroom status; the doddering former superpower that can’t accept it now has no place on the world’s stage. If you thought the economic crisis polarized public opinion, wait till this hits. It’ll be a battle for the future and the souls of our respective nations—with the livelihoods of all our countrymen at stake.
3: The Future Of Sex
2: The Future Of Food
The Meat Crisis refers to the way our global love of a good, juicy steak may yet doom the entire planet. From advanced Western nations to their developing counterparts, meat consumption is on the rise; from an average 20kg per person in 1990, to a predicted 50kg by 2030. Since roughly a third of the usable land on our planet is already put aside for raising livestock, that’s a heck of a lot of meat. Unless we want to exacerbate our entire resources battle, we’re gonna have to start looking for alternatives—and that’s where the controversy comes in.A lot of us live in cultures which really, really don’t like the state tampering with our food choices. When NYC attempted to restrict the sale of large sodas last year, the backlash threatened to engulf the entire visible universe. The idea of GM foods and fluoride in water still sends people into a lather of anger. So what do you think will happen when governments start pushing artificial meat on us? Prediction: People will respond in the exact same way they do whenever anyone tries to push anything on them—with plenty of outrage.
1: Mass Poverty
Living in rich nations with burgeoning middle classes, most of us reading this have gotten used to a certain level of comfort. But, in Europe and America, all of that stability is finally starting to fade. In a recent study, the International Red Cross declared that “whilst other continents successfully reduce poverty, Europe adds to it,” before noting that the future for the EU was likely one of mass-exodus and grinding poverty. Across the pond, around half of all Americans now live in or within a couple of paychecks of poverty, and this downward trend shows no sign of reversing. As life slowly gets better for people in the developing world, it’s getting slowly worse for us in the (formerly) rich West—and it seems that’s something we’re gonna have to get used to. It’s now inarguable that most of today’s middle-class children will be worse off than their parents, while those at the bottom will have it worse than ever. In a few short decades all those dreams of prosperity and social climbing will be exactly that: dreams. And that’s going to create a bleak future for a lot of people. Will we see a mass exodus of the young and talented, like Portugal? Or will there be just be anger, wide and diffuse, at the perceived unfairness of life? Right now we don’t know. But the scaling down of expectations and life chances for our middle class is probably going to go down as one of the bleakest and most controversial periods in Western history.
Morris is a freelance writer and newly-qualified teacher, still naively hoping to make a difference in his students' lives. You can send your helpful and less-than-helpful comments to his email, or visit some of the other websites that inexplicably hire him.
http://listverse.com/2013/11/14/10-more-controversies-of-the-future/
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