What is the direction the world will take? We cannot predict the future at any detailed level but if we manage to consider all the most relevant aspects we can envision a number of most likely categories of possible futures.
Today US fell to the rising global trend of populism and it became more important than ever to try to figure out what this will mean. Thus a lengthy post of pondering and asking questions for those interested in participating. This will for the most part be just a semi-random collection of thoughts which is just a tiny view into some of the factors affecting the past and the future. Much of this is at a very general level and I'm very aware that these are mostly ponderings of relevant mechanisms of how the world works.
First what lead us here and what is the current situation. A few relevant themes: technological progress, historical rise of liberal views in politics, globalization, opening of borders, free trade, lately protectionism / populism / nationalism which seem to go hand in hand. Technological progress has changed the world and societies increasing the gap between those staying at the edge and many people who long for status quo and thus abhor the unknown of progress.
Initially technology enabled globalization mostly brought opportunity and wealth and worked as an international equalizer. This went hand-in-hand with decrease in conservative politics, opened up trade and borders and created a positive feedback loop where liberal attitudes increasingly became the norm. Technology and globalization lead to centralization though - especially of wealth. Smaller number of large multinationals reaping a larger share of the market and the same at individual level. Rise of gig economy, decline of middle class jobs, meteoric rise of top income bracket wealth are all related to technology effectively working as a non-linear multiplier for the assets of the most skilled, networked & influential. We've started seeing technological unemployment which will undoubtedly be an increasing trend.
Combine this with liberal immigration policies which started getting a little out of hand in many places due to the previously mentioned positive feedback loop increasingly emphasizing liberal ideology disconnected from the constraints of reality (there is a rate at which immigrants can actually assimilate to the society but too many clearly leads to creation of sub-societies with rules closer to origin nations than the host society).
When you consider immigration, technological unemployment, world changing faster that people get used to it, financial turmoil, global media reporting on sensationalist news pieces for click profit and thus exaggerating the threats, opportunists playing on fear generated by terrorism and all the previously listed (multiplied by technology and media), special groups & social media working as yet another echo chamber for people looking for reinforcement of their fears, you can see why populism being a rising trend makes sense.
Populist rhetoric, nationalism, protectionism - modern tribalism. People have a craving to understand the world but since the real world is pretty complex, most settle for fantasies that take many forms from political ideologies to religion. Anything that provides a simple narrative for how the world works and feels good. Us versus them. Bad versus good. Isn't it very nice when the world is that simple? People clearly like binary choices, false dichotomies abound.
There are plenty of opportunistic populists ready to play on these tendencies, and play they have (and will). Brexit, Russia, Turkey, US, Hungary, etc. And (so far) to lesser extent pretty much every European nation with the rise of nationalist parties, rise of us versus them, rise of protectionism. All very understandable as a response to the sense of loss of control to the centralization of power and wealth with globalization and everything mentioned above.
So what will the future hold? I'll try to pick a number of essential elements to concentrate on: military policy & alliances, political tensions, big political trends, financial policy, dollar reserve currency status, automation, international trade, protectionism, class divide, basic income or similar.
US is in central position due to its superpower & world police status, military influence and dollar reserve currency status as well as being a large net importer. Dollar's role as global reserve currency is already diminishing and potential protectionism will affect foreign policy and likely trade balance. With all three government branches now in GOP control (even with the large divide within the party) it's likely that at the very least the initiatives where GOP and Trump overlap will go forth. This will mean even more increasingly ballooning budget and lower taxes to rich people. FED will be printing money, dollar will likely decrease as reserve currency decreasing demand. Deflation / inflation prediction is very tricky since there are forces pushing in both directions (technological deflation, reserve currency + budget -> money printing inflation, etc). If inflation wins over then the wealth divide will increase even more and stagflation is a real threat.
If NATO role decreases due to decreasing US global presence then it will leave power vacuums e.g. in Europe. This will have potentially serious implications for Baltic countries - Russian leadership will be very aware of the situation. Hard to say what the effect will be on Turkey given that it's a NATO country and US has nukes situated there. Middle eastern influence is a question mark but the few allies that US has there are probably not very happy at the moment. I cannot really guess at long term scenarios since I don't know the political landscape in sufficient detail there.
Globally technological unemployment will be an increasing trend and class divide will widen in western countries. Populist trend will likely keep going the current direction for some time being fueled by the class divide. Automation has the potential to reduce the number of mid to low level jobs radically in the next 5 to 10 years. There will most likely be movements towards some kind of basic income scheme but this will be very challenging internationally. Considering people's need for being meaningful this will also cause unrest and further fuel the populist sentiment.
As the number of countries getting more protective and nationalist will increase, coordinated immigration is likely to take a hit forcing border nations to carry a larger share (and as a result any further mass migration being more uncontrolled). EU is already bursting at the seams with Brexit (which will likely not be the last event of its kind). I can see euro breaking up (it was clear before its creation that common currency without common monetary policy will lead to serious issues but primary influencers wanted to leverage this to affect change towards federation) and EU shedding some members but hopefully surviving.
Cutting edge nations developing missile shields etc. has the potential to cancel MAD doctrine. Military development has also partially moved to the cyberspace and changed the nature of modern warfare (increasingly so in the future when attacks and defense will be AI aided). Combined with robot & drone development this will (and already has) reduce the threshold for offensive action. The big players are also learning how to tackle global communications and effectively employ social media etc. as a propaganda tool. Large scale conflicts very hard to predict at this point.
Class divide speading too wide may cause a breaking point to be hit and shit hitting the fan in a western nation. In our interconnected world this will likely not stay national. More financial and political turmoil will follow. Some nations will ramp up the protectionism to their disadvantage, probably trying to artificially maintain jobs that should've been replaced by automation. Some will likely go full into automation. This divide will likely also correlate with attitudes towards intellectualism and education. Populism often seems to go hand in hand with glorification of ignorance and denial of reality (highly related to people's need for understanding). Obviously this would lead to further international tensions. With all this and development in how offensive action can be waged, it's very hard to say where the thresholds for larger conflict will be.
Thoughs?
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