Let’s end the year on a cheerful note, by looking much further ahead. Here are some things I’m optimistic about. None of the below should be taken as a prediction – more as targets that we can reach if we want to.
- The earth will heat up a little over the next few decades, but that can be okay. Once we’ve given up on the foolish idea of trying to prevent this from happening, and start to focus on the much more practicable idea of adapting, there will be a great flourishing of human ingenuity. Indeed, within fifteen years or so, I believe it is quite plausible that we come to regard adaptation as a great human project, drawing great minds together from across the world, uniting people of different creeds and cultures in this challenging, fascinating and rewarding endeavour. We shall laud inventors of different skin colours, different religions, from different political systems as they produce brilliant ideas and brilliant tools that many of us come to use.
- Islam will expand vigorously in the UK and across Europe, and the Anglican Church will split irretrievably. But that can be okay. The different pieces of the Anglican Church will work together amicably when they find common cause, and Muslims and Christians will work closely together on social projects and in campaigning for moral regeneration. The social pendulum could well swing within twenty years, and marriage, fidelity, loyalty, and family come back into fashion, albeit in new forms that our parents would have struggled to recognise. New technologies will grant people such freedom over where to live that many might choose to gather together, with society aggregating again after centuries of disaggregation. As liberal Islam displaces Christianity in the public sphere over the next three decades, there will be a huge rise in disciplined religious observance, associated with great moral regeneration and a much more tolerant society. Paradoxically, the rise in Islam could be associated with much greater respect and freedom for Christians.
- Over the next decade, we can see the start of the next phase of commercial exploitation of space. This might begin with very short sojourns, but then move into space cruises based around seeing particular sights from space. That may move on to cruises to observe particular natural phenomena, such as hurricanes or volcanoes. Meantime, human exploration of space will advance once again, with bases on the Moon by the mid-2020s, and a manned landing on Mars within a decade after that. Within 30 years, it could seem normal for middle class people to take at least one space journey every five years – either in the form of a cruise or as a rapid travel option from, say, Britain to Australia.
- Greatly increased involvement of China could bring much greater order to Africa over the next three decades, significantly bearing down upon treatable diseases and the predation of civil war and banditry. Where Americans and Europeans lacked the will to impose order, and paranoia about population expansion held Africa back from proper aggregation, China can learn from our failures. Chinese dominance in Africa could finally bring peace, prosperity, health and order. The flourishing of Africa might, by the latter half of the century, be the major source of cultural innovation in the world. Chinese and African Christianity and philosophy could well demark the global zeitgeist. (This would, however, be much less tolerant than the liberal Islam we might by then be used to in Britain.)
- With the dominance of Chinese and African Christianity, the position of women globally should advance immeasurably, with the average status rising close to that in traditional Mediterranean Europe today. Women’s literacy will rise. With the decline in civil wars, rape as a weapon could decline. The mutilation of girls ought to become increasingly unacceptable. The trading of women in forced marriages, and in sex slavery can be made to decline markedly across Africa (though South America may be another story...). With greater health and freedom, these newly emancipated women would enter mainstream global production workforces, adding enormously to the wealth and creativity of mankind.
Though none of the above is inevitable, all these things are achievable.
