Five things that Will Define the 21st Century

The 20th century to me could be defined as the century of

- industrialisation

- population explosion

- globalisation

- environmental degradation

- increased communications.

What five things do you think will define the 21st century ?

Education

Energy

Exercise

Environment

Entertainment and Travel

War

Weather

Want

Waste

Witch-hunts

EDIT - I was referring to the 20th century. Thread title conflicts.

Advances in weaponry.

The development of the computer.

Urbanization/atomization of society/the Homogenisation of Human Culture.

The methods and practices of propaganda and marketing.

Postmodern thought.

cactus flower wrote:

The 20th century to me could be defined as the century of

- industrialisation

- population explosion

- globalisation

- environmental degradation

- increased communications.

What five things do you think will define the 21st century ?

AGree with all of those things but think that nuclear proliferation may be the single most defining issue - at least if the present US administration get their way:

http://www.countercurrents.org/auken240108.htm

If anyone still needs convincing the Bush and his cohorts are hell bent on nuclear war, this should convince them.

Noam Chomsky outlines the sort of hell we are being walked into:

08/27/07 "Khaleej Times" -- - In Washington a remarkable and ominous campaign is under way to "contain Iran," which turns out to mean "containing Iranian influence," in a confrontation that Washington Post correspondent Robin Wright calls "Cold War II."

The sequel bears close scrutiny as it unfolds under the direction of former Kremlinologists Condoleezza Rice and Robert M Gates, according to Wright. Stalin had imposed an Iron Curtain to bar Western influence; Bush-Rice-Gates are imposing a Green Curtain to bar Iranian influence.

Washington's concerns are understandable. In Iraq, Iranian support is welcomed by much of the majority Shia population. In Afghanistan, President Karzai describes Iran as "a helper and a solution." In Palestine, Iranian-backed Hamas won a free election, eliciting savage punishment of the Palestinian population by the United States and Israel for voting "the wrong way." In Lebanon, most Lebanese see Iranian-backed Hezbollah "as a legitimate force defending their country from Israel," Wright reports. And the Bush administration, without irony, charges that Iran is "meddling" in Iraq, otherwise presumably free from foreign interference.

The ensuing debate is partly technical. Do the serial numbers on the Improvised Explosive Devices really trace back to Iran? If so, does the leadership of Iran know about the IEDs, or only the Iranian Revolutionary Guards? Settling the debate, the White House plans to brand the Revolutionary Guards as a "specially designated global terrorist" force, an unprecedented action against a national military branch, authorising Washington to undertake a wide range of punitive actions.

The sabre-rattling rhetoric about "containing Iran" has escalated to the point where both political parties and practically the whole US Press corps accept it as legitimate and, in fact, honourable, that "all options are on the table," to quote the leading presidential candidates — possibly even nuclear weapons. "All options on the table" means that Washington is threatening war. The UN Charter outlaws "the threat or use of force." The United States, which has chosen to become an outlaw state, disregards international laws and norms. We're allowed to threaten anybody we want — and to attack anybody we want.

Cold War II also entails an arms race. The United States is proposing a $ 20 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, while increasing annual military aid to Israel by 30 per cent, to $ 30 billion over 10 years. Egypt is down for a $ 14 billion, 10-year deal. The aim is to counter "what everyone in the region believes is a flexing of muscles by a more aggressive Iran," says an unnamed senior US government official. Iran's "aggression" consists in its being welcomed within the region, and allegedly supporting resistance to US forces in neighbouring Iraq. Unquestionably, Iran's government is reprehensible. The prospect that Iran might develop nuclear weapons is deeply troubling. Though Iran has every right to develop nuclear energy, no one — including the majority of Iranians — wants it to have nuclear weapons. That would add to the much more serious dangers presented by its near neighbours Pakistan, India and Israel, all nuclear-armed with the blessing of the United States.

Iran resists US or Israeli domination of the Middle East but scarcely poses a military threat. Any potential threat to Israel might be overcome if the United States would accept the view of the great majority of its own citizens and of Iranians and permit the Middle East to become a nuclear-weapons free zone, including Iran and Israel, and US forces deployed there. One may also remember that UN Security Council Resolution 687, of 1991, to which Washington appeals when convenient, calls for "establishing in the Middle East a zone free from weapons of mass destruction and all missiles for their delivery."

Washington's feverish new Cold War "containment" policy has spread even to Europe. The United States wants to install a "missile defence system" in the Czech Republic and Poland that is being marketed to Europe as a shield against Iranian missiles. Even if Iran had nuclear weapons and long-range missiles, the chances of its using them to attack Europe are perhaps on a par with the chances of Europe's being hit by an asteroid. In any case, if Iran were to indicate the slightest intention of aiming a missile at Europe or Israel, the country would be vaporised.

Of course Vladimir Putin is deeply upset by the shield proposal. We can imagine how the United States would respond if a Russian anti-missile system were erected in Canada. The Russians have every reason to regard an anti-missile system as part of a first-strike weapon against them. As is well known, such a system could never impede a first strike, but it could conceivably impede a retaliatory strike. On all sides, "missile defense" is therefore understood to be a first-strike weapon, eliminating a deterrent to attack.

Even more obviously, the only military function of such a system with regard to Iran, the declared aim, would be to bar an Iranian deterrent to US or Israel aggression. The shield, then, ratchets the threat of war a few notches higher, in the Middle East and elsewhere, with incalculable consequences, and the potential for a terminal nuclear war. The immediate fear is that by accident or design, Washington's war planners or their Israeli surrogate might decide to escalate their Cold War II into a hot one.

There are many nonmilitary measures to "contain" Iran, including a de-escalation of rhetoric and hysteria all around, and agreeing to negotiations in earnest for the first time — if indeed all options are on the table.

Copyright © 2007 Khaleej Times

Would you maybe like to start an Iran thread, Aragon? I could split this for you, if you like.

Communications technology
Secularism (in some quarters)
Ubiquitous computing
Environmental change (maybe)
More wars (safe bet)

Just guessing. Haven't a bogs notion really.

Resource wars - especially over water.

The end of fossil fuel use - and the resulting shifts.

Increased dichotomisation between secularism and faithism - unless something else comes along to fight over.

An enormous reduction in population - in the great famine style.

Ehhh, something cheery... the end of prefixes such as post-modernism and post-postmodernism. Properly defined stages. I hope for them anyway.

905 wrote:

... the end of prefixes such as post-modernism and post-postmodernism. ..

Ahh yes, the post-prefix era...

cactus flower wrote:

Would you maybe like to start an Iran thread, Aragon? I could split this for you, if you like.

Only if others want to talk about the subject but I only posted that stuff to illustrate what looks like an imminent threat of nuclear war - a possibility that would put all our other worries for the century into comparative shade - if not downright oblivion. I suppose a 'How likely is nuclear war thread?' might be worthwhile?

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

905 wrote:

... the end of prefixes such as post-modernism and post-postmodernism. ..

Ahh yes, the post-prefix era...

hee hee

I expect that one of the defining features of the 21st century will be terrorism.

It has been so far, and it hasn't gone away, you know?

soubresauts wrote:

I expect that one of the defining features of the 21st century will be terrorism.

It has been so far, and it hasn't gone away, you know?

Well, the nineties belonged to drugs and the eighties to AIDS and the Cold War. An article in the Irish Times today reckons that the Yanks are getting tired of terrorism as a bogeyman.

21st Century:

1. Starvation.

2. The Death of Freedom as people give up more and more rights for food and security.

3. Nuclear Holocaust?

4. The death of local community and family support networks across the globe.

5. An increase in dispersed and uncontrollable sects, political movements, interest groups and nut-jobs.

There is a major risk of science going wrong and people's health or environment being massively altered by the unexpected consequences of experimants or technology. Keep rolling that dice

Lads, this is all terrible depressing. Why is this the century when we really are all going to die?

905 wrote:

Lads, this is all terrible depressing.

In a way, you're putting your finger on it... The assumption that women shouldn't have a say is a significant part of our problems. Therein lies some of the solution.

Quote :

Why is this the century when we really are all going to die?

"Be realistic; plan for a miracle." -- Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, aka Osho

Seriously, we are all going to die this century. Is there anyone here who really thinks they might get to 2100 in one piece?

Shift of power and productivity to the east

Population and resource crisis - tendency towards world government

New technologies and new social constructs

Risk of racism and war

Explosion of new knowledge and ideas

Emm, 'lads' is a rhetorical device. I don't want to start muttering about the PC brigade or anything but come on!

The 'we are all going to die' line is a bit old and forgive me if I don't give it the attention it deserves. But stating it as a fact is a little... premature. I personally believe that my corpse will probably survive the century largely intact. I've not noticed any general sense in society that this really is the end and I wouldn't put this down to blindness on their part. Perhaps we should have a poll on it?

Didn't mean to ruin your buzz 905. Other possible outcomes:
- World Peace as people rally round common challenge of climate change.
- Education continues to expand exponentially leading to great progress in eliminating bonded labour and oppression of women.
- Technological breakthroughs solve food crisis and reduce the burden on the poor.
- Medical breakthroughs to eliminate dementia and further increase life expectancy by 30 years globally.
- Evidence to come to light that Bambi's mother survived.

Auditor #9 wrote:

Education

Energy

Exercise

Environment

Entertainment and Travel

U.S. will trail emerging markets in media growth, study says
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/18/technology/media.php

Quote :

Most of the growth in the global entertainment and media industries will occur outside the United States over the next five years, with emerging markets in the lead, according to a study released Wednesday by the consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Pricewaterhouse said the $1.6 trillion in revenue generated last year on advertising, subscriptions and other user fees, in businesses ranging from newspapers to video games, would grow to $2.2 trillion in 2012.
The United States will also be overtaken next year by Europe, the Middle East and Africa as the largest regional media market, with $649 billion in spending, compared with $647 billion for the United States.
The forecasters' bullishness about emerging markets is explained by faster growth in economic output there, along with the widespread adoption of new technologies like advanced cellphones in some Asian markets.

Stokes said growth in the BRIC countries - Brazil, Russia, India and China - would also be fueled by consumers' spending less on necessities and more on entertainment and media as incomes grew.

In India, for instance, only 1.9 percent of consumer spending last year went toward entertainment and media products and services, compared with 6.2 percent in the United States.

There is one very simple thing that would change the world. If every leading politician was hooked up to a lie detector and forced to answer one question from each of the people on this site. They must fear someone suggesting this.

Environmental disaster

Overpopulation

Energy Crises

The Death of Democracy

War

Lestat wrote:

Environmental disaster

Overpopulation

Energy Crises

The Death of Democracy

War

You're not predicting much good stuff there Lestat.