Yunzhong's Predictions

Signed, Yunzhong Hou 19:59, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Salutation: The Advent of the Post-Modern Era
We are in the modern era, but it seems that in the near future this will shift to what futurologists commonly term the "post-modern" era, supposedly a world of dystopia or utopia. I here present a world that is neither: it is a continuation of our current world, though with many notable changes (that are not altogether complete) which help give pointers to the direction in which the world is going.

The Post-Modern Era breaks from the Modern Era in no particular event or Point of Divergence, but rather from a series of changes each of which are important but are not of cataclysmic significance. These changes take place in various contexts and can be categorized under "New World Order" (political), "Newly Under the Sun" (technological), "Crises Encountered and Countered", and "Reign of the Peoples" (social). These are by no means the only way in which the things can be divided, and generally they tie together to form a futuristic vision of the world that is moving together with all its parts in tandem rather than piece by piece.

The Post-Modern Era can be considered the sixth of the eight stages of civilization:


 * 1) Ancient Times (transition to next stage: Fall of Rome)
 * 2) Dark Ages (transition to next stage: Renaissance)
 * 3) Medieval Age (?) (transition to next stage: Industrial Revolution)
 * 4) Industrial Age (transition to next stage: World War 1)
 * 5) Modern Age (transition to next stage: various)
 * 6) Post-Modern Age (transition to next stage: completion of the Scenario: Human Mind Project)
 * 7) Transhuman Age (transition to next stage: Singularity)
 * 8) Post-Singularity

New World Order

 * In the near future, the world's political landscape will alter drastically...

The Rise of China and India

 * See main article: Scenario: Emergence of China


 * See main article: Scenario: Emergence of India

China, People's Republic of; and India are the greatest nations on the Earth in terms of population: at well over a billion, they are each four times the population of the United States and twice that of Europe. They are currently rapidly rising in developmental status, and with time (supposedly in two or three decades) will surpass the United States in output (GNP or GDP).
 * Justification:China has a growth rate considerably higher than that of the United States at present.
 * Justification:Indeed, the United States already owes China a tremendous trade deficit on the order of trillions of USD.

Its economic and diplomatic significance will in time result in more and more nations coming to terms with mainland China as opposed to sole recognition of Taiwan.
 * Justification:Diplomatic recognition helps trade.

Through it all, however, India will remain outside of the five seats of the UN Security Council's permanent members.
 * Justification:Who is permanently on the UN Security Council is based on who won World War 2; that has been set in stone.

In accordance with the strengthening of China is the rise of India, due to surpass China at around the same time as China surpasses the United States, should the current trends in growth rates (both technological and populational) continue steadily.
 * Justification:India has growth rates slightly faster than that of China as of present.

These two will then become recognized as superpowers; indeed, they are already recognized as fierce nuclear powers and economic powerhouses.
 * Justification:China and India are already massively influential through economic impact alone, not to mention their militaries.

The Lambasting of the United States

 * See main article: United States.

In the last several decades, the United States has spent a significant amount of resources to establish a worldwide presence diplomatically, economically, and politically. All this has resulted in significant disapproval from many nations, while the nations receiving aid generally are induced to pay for it diplomatically through alternation of their domestic and foreign policies.
 * Justification: The general belief in the United States among politicians is that World Wars One and Two have demonstrated that the most powerful nation on earth has to make its presence known throughout the world.

However, this foreign policy has also created ample places of conflict of interest as well as places which the United States could very well be ashamed of, such as the Vietnam War, the Iraq War (at least to many), and possibly even the Afghanistan War.
 * Justification: In these wars, victory is uncertain; yet in each case more and more people have grown antagonistic toward the United States war policies each year.

This is not to mention that the War on Terror as a whole, sapping tremendous amounts of resources, is turning into a quagmire with little hope for absolute success and no tangible way of knowing if the terrorists are all dead or just biding their time. This is also the case in Iraq, which seems to be headed toward disaster; and Afghanistan, where already the Taliban is making a comeback.
 * Justification: Terrorists do not represent a state; instead, their tenet is to keep low; therefore, we cannot measure our degree of success except through the tally of malignant events occurring daily. Yet even this tally is unreliable, because should terrorists withhold activity for a few days, this statistic will become unreliably low.
 * Justification: Historians will see that the War in Iraq and the War in Vietnam share many points in common, chiefly: the resentment of the people; a weak pro-American government; a strong resistance movement that lurks in the shadows; continual escalation of war; not knowing when the end might be; administrators simply hoping for the best without a change in policy.

On a different front, the giving of aid to dozens of countries will turn around to injure the United States' reputation, calling it 'unreliable' source of aid.
 * Justification: This is an analogy to pampering a child. Soon the child (in this case, the receptor nations) will view the aid as merely granted; our withdrawing of such aid will result in defamation by those nations, who now think that we are depriving them of something that is their birthright.
 * Justification: This trend has already been seen in various nations in Africa where we have once given aid and now refuse to do so; as well as Vietnam, which once obtained but no longer obtains aid from China.

All these aspects combine to form a crippling attack on United States foreign policy, which is both nonproductive and economically destructive at home. Soon, there must be a drastic shift in policy.

The Internalization of United States Policy

 * See main article: United States.

The result of all this lambasting is that the United States administration will be forced to turn its sights inward, where most of its citizens are more interested in. Issues such as the "broken borders", homeland security, outsourcing, welfare, and wages must all be addressed.
 * Justification: Historically, whenever the United States administration has run into stiff resistance abroad, it turns its attention toward domestic policies in order to pull attention away from the fiasco. This is being demonstrated even now.

Once this shift has occurred, any attempts to involve the United States in foreign matters will result in divisions among the populace; the citizens will say no to any further shifts of attention and will refuse to inaugurate war with another country.
 * Justification: Americans have, since World War Two, been afraid to lose more than a few hundred casualties in any foreign policy move, much less war, unless there can be a good reason to fight a war. They will not be so eager to resume the War in Iraq given its current direction.

This shift will mean the end of an era of United States domination over the globe, to be replaced by the other rising powers: the European Union, the Muslim League, China, and India, as well as any Spanish-oriented South American or non-Saharan African political blocs that might rise at around the same time.
 * Justification: There will always be another party (or parties) willing to exert political influence worldwide once another power ebbs. For example, after World War Two the United States replaced Great Britain as the leader of the world.
 * Justification: The European Union, Muslim League, China, and India all have the potential to exceed the United States technologically and economically; for years the European Union has been valued as higher than the United States economy by many statisticians.

The Disintegration of the Multinational States

 * See main article: United Nations.

In the next few decades, there will be more national splits as disillusioned minority ethic groups clamor for independence from their parent countries.
 * Justification: This pattern has already been seen in many disparate situations. The decolonization efforts after World War Two, and the splintering of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics all demonstrate this trend; it is likely to continue.
 * Justification: Various ethnic groups in Asiatic Russia are already clamoring for independence, as are the Basques and Kurds, to name a few.

With this disintegration, some of the current world powers will decline, and the number of members in the United Nations will rise once again. Hence, we will see a shift in power toward the allies of those smaller states.
 * Justification: Each sovereign nation can send its delegate to the United Nations and has one vote. This is as much as the United States or Russia or France can get (though the permanent members of the Security Council have veto power).
 * Justification: As the number of minor nations continues to rise, other nations will begin to court them, in the hopes of obtaining their support in the form of United Nations votes on various issues. This in turn will give more power to these minor states.

The Rise of the United Nations

 * See main article: United States.


 * See main article: United Nations.

Not only the United States, but also other prominent nations, will begin to lose leverage. This is because the United Nations will fill with more participants (in other words, newly created states) all clamoring for a "fair share" of the voting and decision-making power.
 * Justification: Each nation wants as much diplomatic/political leverage as it can get, and therefore will clamor to receive as much power as it can get under the rules set forth in the United Nations constitution.
 * Justification: As the United States withdraws from foreign politics, so will it begin to lose leverage among the nations of the world (of course, the Central Intelligence Agency will still be of much impact in smaller states).

Meanwhile, the United Nations will gain more power in its own right, instead of being powerful only through the United States, resulting from the withdrawal of the United States from active global activity.
 * Justification: Up to now, the United Nations has been living solely through the military power of the United States, and therefore the citizens of the United States have come to see the United Nations benignly (due to their influence in the United Nations).
 * Justification: This benign view will make United States citizens want to see the United States continue in its support and participation in the United Nations, even after the United States is no longer in firm control of that entity.
 * Justification: With the rise of other world powers (as listed before) that will continue their firm support of the United Nations, this body will become independent of the military provided by the United States.

Therefore, the United States will be diplomatically on a lower level than the United Nations, and yet the United States administration cannot complain about this reversal of roles.
 * Justification: The citizens of the United States all believe in the ideals of liberty, voting, etc. So does the constitution of the United Nations. Therefore, it is only common sense that to the average United States citizen, support of the two go hand-in-hand.
 * Justification: The citizens of the United States will not turn against the United Nations unless there is a direct conflict of interests on the whole people, and the United Nations will not adopt policies that will bring about such conflict of interests because the policy makers in the United Nations are not that stupid, having the intelligence to get to their positions.

The Communist-Democratic Cycle

 * See main article: Communist Democratic Cycle.

Communism has thrived for nearly a century. And, to view things pragmatically, it may never be eradicated, based solely on its utopian promise. Who can resist the temptation of a society in which everyone is equal, in which the workers own everything, in which people cooperate to the fullest degree, in which there is no worry of famine, poverty, nor war?
 * Justification: Communism as per Karl Marx is a worldwide revolution in which the lower class (proletariat) overthrows the upper class (bourgeois) and creates an utopian society.

The democratic nations of the world and the communist nations of the world have tried to overthrow each other during the course of the third world. Neither side has succeeded. Neither side can succeed. The promises of both are just too great, and neither is more able to attract followers than the other. People will always want to experiment with both. Thus, we should simply let them experiment both:
 * 1) Through the United Nations, pass policies so that the nations in which a majority of the population advocate communism to become communist as an experiment lasting around a decade. During this decade, no anti-communist nation is to overthrow this new state.
 * 2) No democratic nation is to give diplomatic recognition, political support, nor economic aid to this nation.
 * 3) This "embargo" will cause the existing communist countries to come closer together, and the older communist states will help the new one. The new communist state will not allow the older communist states to draw resources from itself.
 * 4) However, since the majority of the nations in the world are communist-paranoid, the majority of the nations in the world will observe the "embargo" as mentioned earlier and refuse aid to the newly communist state.
 * 5) Despite the draining support that the communist nations provide, the new state will remain extremely weak, and sink further and further into poverty.
 * 6) At the end of a decade of communist rule, the people will look around them, see that the democratic states are faring much better, and will overthrow the communist rule with help from secret agencies such as the Central Intelligence Agency.
 * 7) The state will return to democracy, its citizens having learned for their lifetimes that communism doesn't work (see main article: Tragedy of the Commons) and therefore ardently in favor of democracy, thereby preventing the return of communism to that state for the next century.
 * 8) As the state turns to democracy, all aid that the other communist states had provided to it will now be "on the democratic side" (note that the reverse can't happen, as mentioned earlier), in effect weakening the communist bloc.
 * Justification: Supposedly, communism is superficially good (it has good aspirations of utopia) but is actually fundamentally flawed (see main article: Tragedy of the Commons). Therefore, only by letting a state become communist and thus collapse economically can its citizens be shown that communism is inferior.
 * Justification: The main argument behind this is that if the democratic nations are not in favor of supporting this strategy, then maybe democracy isn't that good after all (not that it isn't--clearly, it's a character attack / taunt) and that "we should all simply create the utopia that Marx made a century ago". This will cause the democratic nations to support this policy.

This strategy will be presented some time in the near future by the futurologist and sage Yunzhong Hou.