Happy New Year! Now have a miserable Quarter Century

Washington Post has six Opinion pieces about what the next 25 years (under the heading POPULATION 2030) have in store for the United States. They are all predictably dour. I'm going to enter each of these pieces into my complex, detailed, and very expensive translation matrix and pop out a plain English version of what they were really saying.

First up, DC by the Sea by Joel Garreau.
Duuuude, Kevin Costner was a prophet, both Waterworld and the Postman weren't just movies, but prophetic statements on what the future will look like. China and India will surpass us and suffer to keep our mean, poor nation afloat (forgetting that much of China and India are coastal flood plains that would also have big problems if this author's dire predictions regarding rising sea levels were accurate). And naturally it's all Boooosh's fault, money quote

Twenty-five years ago, the federal government's ability to turn disaster into catastrophe -- the loss of New Orleans and the bungling of the war on terrorism -- sent Americans a message: You're on your own.

Second up, The End of Plenty by Bill McKibben.
Duuuude, we are running out of water! (Let's ignore ocean's full of water available for desalinization). Gratiutous China will surpass us comment, check, Gloom DOOM, check, It's all Boooosh's fault, check (unstated assumption, if only we had followed the Kyoto Accords like sane nations the world wouldn't be in this Global Warming mess), money quote

All these fairly grim projections may, in fact, be optimistic. They assume a physical world that operates in the future the way it has in the past. But, as this year's outlandish hurricane season hinted, that may be a sucker's bet.

Third up, Building a Future Without a Blueprint by Dennis Scott Brown
Duuude, suburbs are ugly, let's not build anymore suburbs. No really strong anti-Booooshism (how did this get published then? An implied slam against redstate suburbs love might be stretched into a slam on Boooosh voters.) but it does have a gratiutous the Chinese way is better plus a passing Katrina reference, money quote

What would I like to see? In post-Katrina planning, I'd like to see government playing a stronger role in managing the relationship between our growing numbers and the natural world. I'd also like to see housing types that would suit the evolving needs of Americans. One model to look at might be the lilong of Shanghai.

Fourth up, All Paved Over With No Place to Go by Jane Holtz Kay
Another, suburbs are evil, we'll be engulfed by the oceans, abolish the private car story. This one has a boomerist supremacy angle

Happily, word has it that a counter-car culture of octogenarian hippies from the 1960s -- from pedestrian activists to scientists, harassed mothers and climatologists -- has come up with some alternatives to motorized entrapment.

Only a passing Boooosh is evil comment (very disappointing for a contributor to the Nation) and no reference to how China is superior or will surpass us. But the piece has an extended 'The Green's will take over' fantasy motif

On the grand scale, compact-growth advocates have persuaded born-again hard-toppers in both the White House and the 50 state capitals to disown the oil hegemony, link their communities with rail, not roads, and practice the "smart growth" policies of the late 20th century. Green groups have infiltrated the ranks of the hard-toppers and enlisted builders to create eco-zones to replace the asphalt that destroyed so much of our biodiversity. Endangered species are making a comeback, first-growth forests are happily maturing and the turn-of-the-century's deaths from driving are down 70 percent.

Fifth up, When Experience Will Really Count by Julie Winkonur
IT'S ALL ABOUT ME. I'll be 67 in 2030 (The Horror! The Horror!). But, breathe, it's OK, everyone else will be old, too. I'll still be young and sexy compared to those older boomers (phew!). Her fantasies about the future of entertainment are more disturbing then any rising seas disaster, money quote

The Mature Majority will stay current with the culture, and possibly even dictate that culture in the coming decades. Surely by 2030 advertisers will finally catch on that people over 60 have the bulk of disposable income in America. Unlike today, oldsters will figure prominently in fashion spreads, TV ads and billboards for everything from blue jeans to sports cars. We will appear in lead roles on television, rather than as comical sidekicks, and we will finally be allowed to have passionate sex on the big screen (Imax, if we have our way).

Lastly, Breaking Racial Sound Barriers by Christopher John Farley
He has his own Ox to gore so he ignores the aging of the population, rising sea levels, and coming Chinese hegemony for his own personal war against music companies. To paraphrase Kanye West, 'The music companies hate Non-White people', would summarize this piece. Money quote

Racism will continue to be a problem in American society for the foreseeable future. It will manifest itself in many ways -- including through technology. In the next few years, digital rights management will become more Orwellian. The line between digital rights and civil rights will blur. Entertainment companies already spike their products with codes that prevent them from being used in unauthorized ways. In the near future, corporate interests will insert even more restrictive programs into their wares -- ones that shut down computers, spy on users, erase files, and even automatically siphon off private bank accounts when corporate music interests are infringed. Lower-income groups -- mostly made up of people of color -- will be the least able to resist these attacks on their virtual civil rights. Digital revolutionaries will have more fighting to do.

My take on the next Quarter Century:

I'm much more inclined to be of the Ray Kurzweil school, technological innovation will continue to outpace all the possible disasters that we can forsee for the future. It's going to be a wonderful time to be alive. The current challenges will stretch into 2030, interestingly, no references to Terrorism in these six pieces, I guess to acknowledge it is to suggest that President Bush might be right. Rising seas and resource shortages are overblown and about as accurate as the predictions from the 60s and 70s about food shortages (some people believed their Soylent Green scenarios). The history of the future is one of ridiculous optimism on one hand and gross pessimism on the other. The Washington Post chose to focus on gross pessimism for the most part. My guess is that these negative portents for the future spin from their hatred for the current administration and are about as accurate as all the doom and gloom scenarios being spun 25 years ago at the end of the Carter administration and the beginning of the Reagan administration. (I don't think anyone was predicting that The Soviet Union only had 11 years left back in 1980). China's got a revolution or two to endure before they surpass us on the global stage. Likewise India still has to deal with their domestic poverty before they can use their numbers to accumulate greater wealth. We are far better off now than we were in 1980 with a more diverse economy and a massive array of tools to increase rather than decrease the rate of technological improvements (nanotechnology, ever improving computer technology, genetics) and with it standards of living for everyone not just the rich and super-rich.