At the beginning of the year, French diplomat and ICANN board member Jean-Jacques Subrenat invited me to expound upon the trends listed in his post, 2008: What Can We Expect.
In his post, Jean-Jacques speculates what events and trends are likely to take front stage and center in 2008…trends with aftershocks that will shake the world beyond the year.
Among other things, Jean-Jacques’ well-thought list covers the United Nations’ proclamation of 2008 as the International Year of Languages to promote unity in diversity and global understanding.
He also covers the significance of the 2008 U.S. presidential election, tries to make sense of the looming recession, points out global zones of tension, and pays homage to expanding forms of communication which are affecting cultures in even the remotest corners of the world.
Here’s my list…
New York Times Square Ball
On the night of December 31, for the first time ever, a bunch of people stood in New York City’s Times Square and watched a lighted ball drop from a pole.
Call me crazy, but I’m convinced the ball drop thing’s going to catch on big time, for years to come.
What’s that? Oh, that was New York, 1908. Sorry. My bad. Let’s fast forward to 2008…
The Empire Shifts East
People tend to look at empires through polarized geo-stationary lenses. But, while most people think the Fall of Rome put an end to the Roman Empire, some realize the Empire survived; it just shifted west and eventually set up shop in the New World.
Last year, many recognized the beginning of another Empire shift when Halliburton moved headquarters to Dubai.
Ahhhh…Remember when New York was the Empire State? Those were the days, no? Alas, those days are gone.
While the United States is funding many a war-profiteer’s bon-voyage, while Freedom Tower still struggles (after 7 years!) to crawl out of its own basement, while we refuse to chunk a chimp from the Oval Office…Dubai, Shanghai, and Singapore have grown some truly impressive skylines that are pure twilight eye candy.
In 2008, I think more people will realize, for worse AND better, that the Empire is setting sail for a new home.
Blended Families
The death of the traditional, nuclear, one-race family used to be feared. Now it’s beginning to be embraced. Several trends are contributing to the phenomenon: Cross culture marriage. Cross culture adoption. Cross culture remarriage after having children. Cross culture same-sex remarriage with cross culture adopted step children. And, maybe most of all, less fear of change.
Of course, some will no doubt associate the breakdown of the nuclear family with the decline of morality in America. In contrast, I’ve noticed that the rate of lynchings has dramatically declined since the mid twentieth century heyday of the nuclear family. So, I say blend away!
Food Inflation
The USA grows an unimagineable amount of corn, and we eat even more. Think high fructose corn syrup…yes, it’s made from corn. And it’s in your soda, chips, ketchup, hamburger bun, special sauce, and what do you think the cow who provided your all-beef patty ate? LOTSA CORN!
All that corn takes a lot of fertilizer to grow. The fertilizer is made out of oil. It’s spread by tractors with engines that require oil. The trucks that transport the corn from Iowa to the rest of the country use oil. The price of oil has gone up. And smarty-pants George W. Bush is now promoting the switch to use more ethanol — which is made from corn which requires so much oil to produce.
More oil to grow more corn with more of the corn going into your gas tank instead of your love handles. Connect the dots. Your Big Mac Attack is going to cost more in 2008.
Welcome Surprises
In addition to the above trends, there are a few other trends that I’m hoping will reach critical mass and begin to snowball in 2008. How about a drastic decline in the popularity of Corporate broadcast “news”? I put “news” in quotes because so much of it is broadcast brainwashing picked and chosen with far too much priority placed on promoting or censoring ideas instead of imparting information objectively.
And, to end with a really vague prediction, I’ll hazard that advances in ambient intelligence, nanotechnology, and wireless networks will continue to blend together in unpredictable and spectacular ways that will change the daily routines of millions of people.
[tags]trends, 2008, empire, blended families, food inflation[/tags]
Interesting ideas!
Not sure that the rise of interracial blended families is what was feared.
I think it was the loss of male role models in the home that had social scientists concerned, as that is one of the greatest precursors to the rise in violent crime.
I hope to God that it is a slackening of racism being passed down through the generations that has caused a drop in lynchings. Teaching our children by example and precept that others deserve our hatred is the greatest disservice a parent can do to their child and their fellowmen.
There is still “news” on the t.v.? Huh, who would have imagined.
Joe, I recommend reading a book by Robert Ludlum, The Sigma Protocol.
It is a work of fiction, but does have a lot of true facts of events during and after WWII. It draws from these facts to come to the present day story.
If you should take my recommendation, and read it; I would really love to hear your thoughts about Haliburton, and the people involved with it.
Lynne, your not paying attention. On January 16, CNN broadcasted a real news story for a few minutes, before catching their error.
Blended Families: I think a lot of love in the form of nurturing AND discipline overcomes many problems blamed on non-nuclear families.
Lynne: The power of TV news really hit me last summer on the way home from Six Flags Atlanta, sitting in one of those remodeled MacDonald’s with the TVs on the walls — it was tuned to CNN, and Wolf Blitzer was spinning the need to bomb Iran. And nobody was paying close attention. If they had been playing close attention, they would have detected the insane disregard for logic that the TV pundits were using to justify attacking yet another country. Instead, the TV was blaring the spin over and over, brainwashing all these folks on vacation who weren’t even trying to listen, that Iran was bad and we needed to do something about it. A few weeks later I was at the airport…thousands of disgruntled passengers stuck as flights were rerouted due to bad weather…and in every terminal area, there was Wolf Blitzer, blaring more spin at the public. Now, I notice Fox News and CNN on about everywhere I go…it is really starting to seem Orwellian…harder and harder to get away from the news a corporation has decided you should hear.
Pelmo: I love the Bourne movies, but haven’t read any of the books. I’ll put Ludlum’s Sigma Protocol on my list! Thanks for the tip.