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Thinking about the future is a challenging proposition at a time as rich in possibilities as the present. So many massive shifts seem to be occurring simultaneously that the path ahead for all of us might split off in any number of directions that few people were even aware of back at the turn of this new century.

Example One: suppose America goes into such a steep economic decline that a massive deflation occurs, as happened not long ago in Argentina? The social compact just barely holds America's population together. Frustrated expectations often lead to social and political upheaval, in the America's case a full-fledged revolution would most probably come from the Right and have a fanatical fundamentalist flavor. Red States and Blue States might secede from the Union and homogenize their local politics by kicking out dissenters. Suppose America broke up into mutually hostile and competitive economic and political units?

Some writers on economics have pointed out that large regions of the U.S. could in fact function as independent States, the way European nations have done for so long before beginning together into the European Union. Certainly recent years have seen other nations break apart under political and economic stresses, notably the former Jugoslavia.

Example Two: Suppose Global Warming speeds up. The inland U.S. becomes an extension of the Chihuahuan Desert of northern Mexico, while the coasts and low-lying areas are drowned by rising ocean levels. Drastic die-offs of fish due to changes in the temperature and salinity of the seas further cuts world food supplies. With food and fresh water in tightening supply, what do Americans do? Invade Canada, the new breadbasket of the Western Hemisphere? Set sail for Greenland, Siberia, and northern Europe as Africans now struggle to cross the Mediterranean sea into prosperous Europe?

With floods of refugees all over the world surging northward, away from the heat, how many wars would break out? How many of us would be left when the smoke cleared, crowded onto shrunken land masses?

Example Four: Suppose someone in India invents a cheap, easily manufactured, shipped, and marketed system that replaces oil? If the rising economies of Asia generate a tidal wave of innovation and growth, we might see a reversal of the historic brain-drain problem: Americans and Europeans trooping off east in search of jobs that pay a living wage, leaving no one here at home but hamburger-flippers and drug-dealing gangsters.

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