2009 State of the Future

January 13, 2010

Jerome Glenn, Executive Director

The Millennium Project

www.millennium-project.org

Change over the last 25 years

will appear slow,

compared to the next 25 years.

Just 25 years ago, there were no • Personal computers with instant information

access via Internet around the world• User-generated content and international

computer collaboration• Cell phones and digital cameras• Few had heard of global warming• AIDS• And most believed WWIII with the USSR was

inevitable

What’s possible in next 25 years? • Lines of genetic code written like software code – hydrogen from photosynthesis;

microbes to eat plaque in the brain• Connecting everything than can be connected: Smart Socks• “TransInstutions” using synergetic analysis instead of completive analysis• “Open source” economies• Cities managed as urban systems ecologies - nonotechnology factories at coal

power plants• Solar Power Satellites – Japan’s national objective• Electric cars majority (17 year fleet turnover) with Bolivia lead Lithium Cartel like

OPEC• Dramatically increasing individual intelligence and global collective intelligence

gives “Just-in-Time” knowledge• Global brain(s) emerging from Internet …evolving into Conscious-Technology

Conscious-Technology(Post-Information Age)

When the distinction between these two trends becomes blurred, we will have

reached the Post-Information Age

BUILT ENVIRONMENT BECOMING INTELLIGENT

HUMANS BECOMING CYBORGS

1985

2000

2015

2030

25 Years from Now: What will be emerging? And from what?

UN

Organizations

NGOs

Universities

GovernmentsCorporations

Millennium Project

… May become a TransInstitution

33 Millennium Project Nodes...

…are groups of experts and institutions that connect global and local views around the world:

Nodes identify participants, translate questionnaires and reports, and conduct interviews, special research, workshops, symposiums, and advanced training.

Print – 88 Pages

•Executive Summary•Global Challenges•State of the Future Index•Next Economic Elements•Futures Methodology•Environmental Security

CD – 6,700 Pages

All the research details of the past 13 years

Both Futures Research Methods and Content

Sample of some items fromthe 2009 State of the Future:

• There are more Internet users in China than people in the USA• March 2009 an asteroid missed the Earth by 77,000 kilometers,

which is 80% closer to the earth than the moon. None knew it was coming.

• China could pass US Economy by 2030, assuming it does not break up (water, income gaps, energy, separatist Muslim region).

• World pop – 6.78 billion (June 2009) and growing at 1.14% per year (1.16% last year); hi, mid, low projections for 2050 - 10.5, 9.2, 8.0 billion, and than falls without longevity breakthroughs;

• Industrial countries fertility rates UP from 1.35 projected in 2006 to 1.64

• 7% annual growth in developing countries over past 5 years, to drop to 3% for 2009 – still 2-3 billion people living on $2 or less per day.

Some more items from the2009 State of the Future:

• World recession lowers State of the Future Index for 10 years

• Press freedoms are continuing to decline• Half the world continues to be vulnerable to instability and

violence• World recession• Rising prices of food and energy and fertilizer• Scarcity of water and food• Falling water tables, drying rivers• Desertification• Climate change• Failing states• Political, economic, and environmental migrations

• Some potential elements of the next economic system

Some Elements of the Emerging Global Economic System to improve the human

condition by 2030• With increasing global interdependence and the speed of

change, even greater economic disasters may be possible than the one the world is experiencing today.

• Capitalism, socialism, and communism are early industrial age systems.

• What are some future elements of the next global economy from which the next system might emerge?

• 35 such elements/attractors were identified and rated as to how important they were to the he human condition

• Both numeric ratings and descriptions of how they could have positive and negative impacts

Top 10 Most Beneficial Element Elements over next 20 years Import Resp Agree

1 Ethics: a key element in economic exchanges 8.36 168 0.86

2 GDP definitions that include all forms of national wealth 7.96 164 0.78

3 Small tax on use of commons directed to global public goods 7.75 172 0.83

4 Collective intelligence: global commons for the knowledge economy

7.74 155 0.88

5 Education in the evolving economic system and its elements 7.64 154 0.83

6 Simultaneous knowing – time lags changed or eliminated in information dissemination with much greater transparency.

7.61 168 0.79

7Value of natural resources used in production included in pricing 7.56 162 0.76

8Women’s political-economic roles essentially on par with men 7.25 182 0.68

9 Increased disclosure of "tax havens" , secret accounts 7.10 153 0.68

10 Wealth, re-defined as experience and not the accumulation of money or physical things

6.83 161 0.62

Most Controversial – bimodal distribution:

• Global mechanisms for automatic financial stabilization; e.g., international convention for an automated system (expert software) to make financial policy changes as economic conditions change, conducted initially in larger economic countries

• Single global currency• Artificial life—as computers were a key element in the

information economy, so too artificial life might be a key to the next economy

• Internationalization of labor unions• Labels on financial instruments, something like nutrition labels

on food.

Some other interesting elements

• Simultaneous knowing – time lags changed or eliminated in information dissemination with much greater transparency.

• Non-ownership, as distinct from private ownership or collective/state ownership. A current example is open source software.

• Alternatives to continuously creating artificial demand and growth

• Self-employment via the Internet—Individuals seek markets for their abilities rather than jobs

How can sustainable development be achieved for all while addressing global climate change?

1

How can everyone have sufficient clean water without conflict?

2

How can population growth and resources be brought into balance?

3

How can genuine democracy emerge from authoritarian regimes?

4

How can policymaking be made more sensitive to global long-term perspectives?

5

How can the global convergence of information and communications technologies work for everyone?

6

How can ethical market economies be encouraged to help reduce the gap between rich and poor?

7

How can the threat of new and reemerging diseases and immune microorganisms be reduced?

8

How can the capacity to decide be improved as the nature of work and institutions change?

9

How can shared values and new security strategies reduce ethnic conflicts, terrorism, and the use of weapons of mass destruction?

10

How can the changing status of women improve the human condition?

11

How can transnational organized crime networks be stopped from becoming more powerful and sophisticated global enterprises?

12

How can growing energy demands be met safely and efficiently?

13

How can scientific and technological breakthroughs be accelerated to improve the human condition?

14

How can ethical considerations become more routinely incorporated into global decisions?

15

How can sustainable development be achieved for all while addressing global climate change?

How can everyone have sufficient clean water without conflict?

How can population growth and resources be brought into balance?

How can genuine democracy emerge from authoritarian regimes?

How can policymaking be made more sensitive to global long-term perspectives?

How can the global convergence of information and communications technologies work for everyone?How can ethical market

economies be encouraged to help reduce the gap between rich and poor?

How can the threat of new and reemerging diseases and immune microorganisms be reduced?

How can the capacity to decide be improved as the nature of work and institutions change?

How can shared values and new security strategies reduce ethnic conflicts, terrorism, and the use of weapons of mass destruction?

How can the changing status of women improve the human condition?

How can growing energy demands be met safely and efficiently?

How can scientific and technological breakthroughs be accelerated to improve the human condition?

How can ethical considerations become more routinely incorporated into global decisions?

How can transnational organized crime networks be stopped from becoming more powerful and sophisticated global enterprises?

15 Global Challenges–the Agenda today

Collective Intelligence• It is an emergent property• from synergies among

• data/info/knowledge• software/hardware• experts

• that continually learns from feedback• to produce (nearly) just in time knowledge

for better decisions• than these elements acting alone.

The collective intelligence to support the Situation Room will have four elements :

•Climate Science•Energy•Mitigation•Adaptation

For further information

Jerome C. GlennThe Millennium Project4421 Garrison Street, NW,

Washington, D.C. 20016 USA+1-202-686-5179 phone/fax

JGLENN@IGC.ORG

WEB 1.0 www.StateoftheFuture.org WEB 2.0 www.mpcollab.org

SecondLife http://slurl.com/secondlife/Pearl%20Beach/148/69/701