Predictions for the 21st Century

Econo-Girl is relisting her predictions at the end of this post for reference.

In my family's little German village of Bad Kissingen in 1899, a group of people became convinced that the world would end in 1900. So they gave away their possessions and walked to the top of the mountain, waiting for the inevitable. And waited. And waited.

You can guess the ending.

In a sense, those doomsayers were right, though. The world was ending, but just the world as they knew it.

We are in a similar situation now. We can't see what will happen next. We think the world will end. It won't. It just will be inexplicably and unpredictably different. I don't think its horrible that the Western world is forced to turn to alternative fuels quickly. There is no other way they would do it. Venezuela and Brazil will be in ascendancy and the U.S. will have to change how we deal with them. Not horrible, just different. Russia will be like a nasty old man whose time on the stage is ending. There will be a brief blip from oil and space technology, but it won't last. Every nation in the Middle East will be forced to confront the internal struggles it masks by fighting one another. It may or may not be violent.

Taken in another light, these are not horrible things. Just things to adapt to.

PREDICTIONS:

Centrufigal forces within Islam are now unstoppable, and every nation is going to be affected.

Europe and the U.S. will find fuel efficiency and alternative fuels to be fascinating very soon, and worthy of their attention and resources like never before. It will be amazing how quickly alternative fuels become cost-effective.

Russia will see its interests rise again. The immediate demand for oil will have them strutting around again like the old days. Maybe then Putin will smile. Europe will not be as calm the next time Putin throws a tantrum.

Venezuela will become even more insufferable. Brazil will join them.

The trade embargo against Cuba will be lifted.

Israel will have to confront its own problems and grapple with a potential civil war. The religious right will not be a winner in that one.

The political force that is modern Islam is a powerful one. Now let's watch them use that power to kill each other.