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We explore the trends, social movements and technological breakthroughs set to shape the agenda during the next 12 months

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This Christmas break, for anybody steeped in the assumptions that have underpinned non-mainstream political thinking, needs to be a moment of realisation. Brexit will happen. Globalisation will fall apart. Freedom of movement as an unconditional right in the EU will end. The concept of the west as upholder, and occasional enforcer, of human rights across the world is, at the very least, on hold.

It is not pessimism that makes me write this, but optimism. Optimism that, if we adapt our thinking to the new reality fast enough, we can go on fighting for social justice and human rights, on behalf of that generation staring glumly at their touchscreens over the Christmas table. But that is a big if. This holiday season, I guarantee that you will hear older relatives repeatedly say the words "will never". "Britain will never leave the EU." " Donald Trump will never take office." "Fascism will never return to Germany and Austria." Since denial is the first stage of grief, it is forgivable for people to struggle through from Brexit to Boxing Day saying these things - but not beyond. When world-changing events happen, the denial reflex is strong because most rational people configure their principles around existing facts.

For example, the European institutions that guarantee freedom of movement came to embody the principle, held by many, that borders should be as open as possible. No matter that freedom of movement within Europe was conditional on a three-metre-high razor fence between Morocco and the Spanish enclave at Melilla. The "freedom" bit seemed to embody a general principle.

In future, we will have to separate our principles from institutions that once embodied them.

Likewise for that more vaguely defined principle: Europeanism. It took me until the age of 40 to visit the US. By then, I had travelled by foot, air, rail and road across Europe. I was convinced this was an inexhaustible cultural playground, a place from which all my values emanated, while much of the US was simply "flyover country". A young generation that spends stag weekends in Riga, childhood holidays in Disney World Florida and gap years in Thailand is going to be less Europeanist than mine. But their globalism was built on the assumption that Paris or Berlin were short-hop weekend destinations to be reached with a waft of one's passport towards a friendly border guard. This mindset, too, will have to change. To avoid Brexit plunging us into the GDP catastrophe predicted by the Treasury, we have to pursue two outcomes: first, to minimise our break with the EU single market; and, if that fails, to maximise it unsentimentally.

For those gripped with the denial instinct, the objective of minimising the break comes easy - but not the means. The means through which we can achieve "soft Brexit" are tough, self-centred negotiations that put the British national interest first. If we fail - because Europe is a mess, ruled by an elite in denial of its own failures - it would be logical to pursue a total reconfiguration of our trade, industrial base and attitude to globalisation. Even those, like me, fighting for the softest possible Brexit must contemplate what the social justice agenda might look like after a "hard" one.

As for the global power system, Trump's cabinet choices show he intends to shatter it. For the first time in a generation, the section of the Israeli right prone to the most violent rhetoric about the Palestinians will go unrestrained by Washington. For the first time in a generation, human rights campaigners in Russia will have to look at the state department and the CIA as a kind of informal conduit back to Vladimir Putin and the FSB security agency, not their allies.

Underlying all these changes is the fact that the global system is becoming a negative-sum game. For more than three generations, it was a positive-sum game. It is the difference between the Great British Bake Off and pass the parcel. In GBBO, even though only one person wins, there is always more cake at the end than at the start. In pass the parcel, everybody except the winner loses, and what is in the parcel is always a disappointment. Globalisation was a positive-sum game, even if, for the former industrial populations of the west, it was barely positive. It lasted so long that people began to assume pass-the-parcel economics had become impossible. We are about to find out that is a fallacy. You can still fight for social justice, wealth redistribution and human rights in a negative-sum world - but you can't do it by clinging to "principles" you assumed were general but are not.

Since free movement as an absolute right will be gone, once we leave the EU, I would reconfigure migration policy to deliver maximum social justice for two sets of people: those who already live here, including three million EU nationals; and refugees, whose right to claim asylum here should be absolute.

In a globalised world, "competitiveness" meant a race to the bottom: low wages and a shrunken welfare state. In a negative-sum world, it means a fight to locate well-paid, high-skill jobs in the UK and not elsewhere. The weapons should be active industrial policy, tax breaks, high welfare spending and free university education, paid for by the state.

Being a nuclear-armed state whose main ally for more than 70 years is suddenly ruled by an erratic kleptocrat who is morally indebted to the Kremlin should prompt the biggest rethink of all. For four years, at least Britain must operate diplomatically on our own. We must cease fostering the illusion that we have the power, on our own, to save the Syrian revolution, restrain Israel in its next assault on Gaza, or force Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to let journalists out of jail. We should go on trying, of course, but with little promise of success.

These sobering facts will confront the left and the climate movement with hard choices, just as they confront the liberal centre. All we can do, as Churchill put it to the US Congress on Boxing Day in 1941, is "draw the sword for freedom and cast away the scabbard".

This article was amended on 26 December 2016 to correct the Egyptian president's name.
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Why I'm optimistic about 2017 | Paul Mason

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This Christmas break, for anybody steeped in the assumptions that have underpinned non-mainstream political thinking, needs to be a moment of realisation. Brexit will happen. Globalisation will fall apart. Freedom of movement as an unconditional right in the EU will end.

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Wall Street Journal article

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A range of data after the recession and the housing bust supported the idea that only a tiny elite of U.S. society, generally seen as the top 1%, had rebounded and was doing well. But a growing body of evidence suggests the economic expansion since the 2007-09 financial crisis has enriched a much larger swath of [...]

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Not Just the 1%: The Upper Middle Class Is Larger and Richer Than Ever

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A growing body of evidence suggests the economic expansion since the 2007-2009 financial crisis has extended to a large swath of the upper middle class, and that a deeper income divide is developing between that top quarter or so of the population and everyone else.

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How has the world changed in the last 20 years?

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How has the world changed in the last 20 years?

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Can we use the past to predict the future? Has our world improved or is the world worse off than 20 years ago?

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UNITED NATIONS, New York - Twenty years ago, the international community gathered in Cairo, Egypt, to explore how the world was changing and how those changes were affecting the most vulnerable. At the 1994 meeting, the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), the world agreed that population issues - including voluntary family planning, maternal and child health, migration, and gender equality - are not just about counting people, but about making sure that every person counts.

At the conference, 179 governments signed on to the ICPD Programme of Action, which recognizes that women, their rights and equality are global development priorities. The governments committed to: providing universal access to voluntary family planning, sexual and reproductive health services and rights; delivering gender equality and equal access to education; addressing the impacts of urbanization and migration; and supporting sustainable development.

Today, the world is very different, transformed by the digital revolution and advances in medicine and human knowledge. But has it changed in the ways we hoped it would?

Below, UNFPA reflects on some of the biggest ways our world is different, and what more must be done.
1. The world now has the largest generation of young people ever.
Adolescents and youth, those between 10 and 24 years old, accounted for 28 per cent of the world population in 2010. The world must invest in the needs and rights of this group, supporting their access to quality health care and education, opportunities for safe paid work, and freedom from abuses such as early marriage and pregnancy. ¹
2. The proportion of people living in extreme poverty has been cut nearly in half - but economic inequality is now growing.
The proportion of people living on less than $1.25 per day has fallen from 47 per cent in 1990 to 22 per cent in 2010. But growing inequality could undermine these gains.

Today, 8 per cent of the world population has 82 per cent of global wealth, and more than a billion people continue to live in extreme poverty, without access to social protections, meaningful work, or public health or education services. The gains made over the past 20 years cannot be sustained if we do not address inequality. 1,2
3. In the last 20 years, the world's population grew by about a quarter, from 5.66 billion to 7.24 billion.
Every one of the world's 7.2 billion people - and every person still to come - deserves to have their human rights and dignity respected and protected. This includes ensuring the equal rights of women and universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights. ³
4. But the population is growing more slowly.
Twenty years ago, the population was growing by 1.52 per cent per year. Today, it is growing by 1.15 per cent per year. On its current trajectory, we can expect the global population to reach 9.55 billion by 2050. 1,3 Population growth has slowed because...
5. Women are having fewer children.
In 1994, the average woman had about three children. Today, the fertility rate is around 2.5 children per woman. Lower fertility means improved outcomes for women, since pregnancy is accompanied by risks that multiply a woman's chance of dying.

But fertility rates remain high in some of the poorest places in the world. In 18 countries, fertility rates stand at five children or more per woman. 1,3

6. Adolescent childbearing has fallen by 50 per cent or more in many countries.

Adolescent fertility rates have fallen. Still, 20,000 girls under age 18 give birth in developing countries every day. And every year, there are 70,000 adolescent deaths from complications of pregnancy and childbirth. 3,4

7. Contraceptive use has increased in the last two decades - but there remains a huge unmet need.

Most women say they want between two and four children. Safe, modern contraceptives and family planning services help women achieve these goals by preventing unwanted pregnancies.

But between 2008 and 2012, the proportion of married women in the developing world using modern contraceptives only changed from 56 per cent to 57 per cent. There are about 222 million women without access to modern contraception. 5,6,7
8. Maternal deaths have fallen by almost half.
Deaths related to complications in pregnancy and childbirth have dropped by 47 per cent since 1994. Back then, more than half a million maternal deaths occurred each year.

But more must be done. Today, 800 maternal deaths occur every day, and the leading causes - post-partum haemorrhage, sepsis, obstructed labour, complications from unsafe abortion, and hypertensive disorders - are all preventable. 1,3
9. Child deaths fell by nearly half.
Deaths among children under age five fell from 90 per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 48 per 1,000 live births in 2012. A major factor contributing to this decline is increased education for women and girls. When women and girls are educated, they are empowered to make better choices for themselves and their families. Girls' education is linked to lower rates of child marriage, lower rates of adolescent pregnancy, and increased access to maternal and child health care, all of which improves child survival. 1,7,8
10. The number of births occurring under the care of a skilled attendant - a doctor, midwife or nurse - has grown.
The proportion of deliveries attended by skilled health personnel rose in developing countries, from 56 per cent in 1990 to 67 per cent in 2011. Skilled birth attendance is one of the most critical ways to ensure safe delivery for both mother and child. That, along with increased access to antenatal care, emergency obstetric care and family planning services, accounts for much of the decline in maternal deaths. 1,6,7
11. Around the world, life expectancy has increased by 5.2 years.
Life expectancy grew from 64.8 years in 1990-1995 to 70 years in 2010-2015. The greatest increases were in the least developed countries, where life expectancy rose by 8.9 years.

Still, too many women continue to die early - often from causes related to pregnancy or extreme poverty - a result of their lower status throughout the world. 1,3
12. Fewer abortions are taking place.
Globally, abortion rates have declined, from 35 per 1,000 women in 1995 to 29 per 1,000 women in 2008. This brought the total number of abortions down, despite increased population size.

But improving access to sexual and reproductive health services, including voluntary family planning, would bring these numbers down even further. Addressing unmet family planning needs would avert 54 million unintended pregnancies and result in 26 million fewer abortions. 1,5,9
13. The number of people contracting HIV/AIDS has dropped sharply.
New HIV infections fell 33 per cent between 2001 and 2012. Despite this progress, more can still be done to prevent the spread of this illness, especially among youth. In 2009, 41 per cent of new HIV infections were among young people aged 15 to 24. Age-appropriate comprehensive sexuality education helps youth protect themselves against sexually transmitted infections, including HIV. 1,9,10
14. But there has been a significant increase in major curable sexually transmitted infections.
Incidence of the four major curable sexually transmitted infections - syphilis, gonorrhoea, chlamydia and trichomoniasis - has spiked among people aged 15 to 49, from 333 million cases in 1995 in 499 million cases in 2008. This development underscores the importance of equipping young people with the sexual and reproductive health knowledge and services required to keep themselves healthy. 1,9
15. More people are dying of non-communicable diseases.
Deaths from non-communicable diseases, such as heart disease, cancers, diabetes and chronic respiratory diseases, rose by 30 per cent between 1990 and 2010. Most of these diseases are strongly associated with four harmful behaviours that often begin in adolescence: smoking, alcohol abuse, inactivity and poor nutrition.

Adolescents must be given the tools to protect themselves from these and other harms. Lifelong health education should begin with young people, in concert with comprehensive sexuality education. 1,9

16. More children are attending school than ever - and the largest gains have been among girls.

Primary school enrolment rates have jumped from somewhere over three quarters in 1990 to about 90 per cent in 2010. This is an especially huge victory for girls, who have gained parity in primary school enrolment in a majority of countries. Girls with access to education are better able to avoid adolescent pregnancy and better able to access health care and livelihood opportunities. They and their future families are healthier and more likely to exit poverty.

But gender inequalities in education persist, with girls lagging behind boys in secondary school enrolment. 1,11,12,13,14
17. The world is increasingly urban.
The global urban population rose by 1.6 billion between 1994 and 2014. More than half the world's people now live in towns or cities.

But too much of this growth is taking place in slums. Over 650 million people lived in slums in 1990. In 2010, that number was 820 million. Impoverished urban women and girls are especially vulnerable: they are less likely to have access to reproductive health services, education and security. 1,3,14
18. More people are migrating than ever before.
There are more international migrants than ever. In 1990, 154 million people travelled from their home countries in search of new opportunities. In 2013, this number was 232 million.

Migration offers important opportunities and helps drive development. But it can also leave migrants - especially women and girls - exposed to abuses, such as trafficking, exploitation and discrimination. 1,3,14
19. The world is getting older.
Older people - those over age 60 - are the world's fastest-growing age group. The number of older persons increased from 490 million in 1990 to 765 million in 2010.

The world must do more to accommodate the needs of this group, including through social protections and systems that ensure their safety and meaningful participation in society. 1,3
20. Record numbers of people are displaced within their countries by conflict or violence, taking a disproportionate toll on women and girls.
Gender-based violence is often exacerbated by conflict and displacement; protections are stripped away and sexual violence is used as a tactic of warfare. Twenty years ago, the world saw record numbers of people displaced within their countries' borders by armed conflict. But today's numbers are even higher: by 2012, 28.8 million people were internally displaced due to conflict, violence or human rights violations. Additionally, an estimated 15.4 million people were forced to flee their countries as refugees. 1,14
Much more work to be done
And there are many more ways in which the world has not changed enough.

Female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) and child marriage remain prevalent in much of the world, even in countries where these practices have been outlawed. Each year, 3 million girls, the majority under age 15, are at risk of undergoing FGM/C. And if current trends continue, by 2020, an additional 142 million girls will be married before age 18.

Gender-based violence continues to be a global epidemic. An estimated one in three women report experiencing physical or sexual abuse, most commonly by an intimate partner. And in a recent survey of 10,000 men in Asia and the Pacific, one in four reported committing rape.

Discrimination against women continues in every community in the world, and belief in gender equality is not yet universal. Women are still denied equal access to opportunities and the ability to define the direction of their lives.

This week, the United Nations Commission on Population and Development will hold its 47th session to address many of these issues, reviewing the progress made and the significant work that remains to be done. As the last 20 years have made clear, human rights - including women's and girls' rights - must be placed at the heart of global development.

- Rebecca Zerzan

1. Framework of actions for the follow-up to the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development beyond 2014, Report of the Secretary-General, distributed 12 February 2014, A/69/62
2. ICPD Factsheet on Sustainability , February 2014
3. World Demographic Trends, Report of the Secretary-General, 21 January 2014, E/CN.9/2014/3
4. UNFPA, State of the World Population: Mother in Childhood, Facing the Challenge of Adolescent Pregnancy , 2013
5. Singh S and Darroch JE, Adding It Up: Costs and Benefits of Contraceptive Services-Estimates for 2012 , New York: Guttmacher Institute and United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), 2012
6. ICPD Global Review Report Press Release
7. ICPD Beyond 2014 - Framework of Actions, Briefing on the findings of the ICPD Beyond 2014 Review, PowerPoint presentation
8. A Promise Renewed , UNICEF, September 2013
9. ICPD Factsheet on Health , February 2014
10. Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic , UNAIDS, 2013
11. ICPD Factsheet on Dignity and Human Rights , February 2014
12. State of the World's Children Report , UNICEF, 1994
13. State of the World's Children Report , UNICEF, 2014
14. ICPD Factsheet on Place and Mobility , February 2014

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How Has the World Changed in the Last 20 Years?

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UNITED NATIONS, New York - Twenty years ago, the international community gathered in Cairo, Egypt, to explore how the world was changing and how those changes were affecting the most vulnerable.

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What about longevity?

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There's no crystal ball that can predict how long we'll live, but there are numbers out there that can serve as a guide.

"Life expectancy is the average number of years that a group of persons in a population is expected to live," says Elizabeth Arias, PhD, leader of the statistical analysis research team in the mortality statistics branch of the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). Estimates of life expectancy derive from national averages, and the Social Security's online calculator is one source of that data. The NCHS, a division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), is another; its researchers use population counts and death certificates to create life-expectancy tables. "Its basic information is a death rate that comes from the actual number of deaths that occur in a particular year," explains Dr. Arias.

Death rates and life expectancy vary from person to person, based on where you live, your age, gender, ethnicity, income, and other traits. But assuming that death rates remain constant, statisticians can calculate how long a person in a particular population may live. In addition to the Social Security calculator, a newer free online calculator created by Lyle Ungar, PhD, a computer science professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School in Philadelphia, can generate customized life expectancy figures. Not only are these estimates individualized, but better yet, you can see the effect that certain risk factors will have on your predicted age at death.

In Dr. Ungar's calculator, users are asked to enter information on more than three dozen of their health habits - such as whether they smoke or wear a seat belt, and how many hours they sleep each night - and the calculator will provide an anticipated average age at death measured in tenths of a year. Keep in mind, too, that life expectancy is increasing as treatments for, and preventions of, major diseases improve. "If you're 95 now, things won't change that much before you die," Ungar explains. "If you're 25, odds are that you're going to live a lot longer than a person in your parents' or grandparents' generation."

And while you can't change your birthday, you can adopt behaviors that are linked to longer life - and increase your life expectancy. "You can use that [risk information] for your own decision making," says Scott Braithwaite, MD, professor of population health and medicine at New York University School of Medicine in New York City. For instance, smoking and shorter life expectancy have a strong correlation, so if you smoke, quitting could make a difference.

Based on what we know today, here are 10 essential facts about life expectancy and longevity:
1. U.S. life expectancy greatly increased over the last 100 years.
Today, for most people living in the United States, the typical lifespan is much longer than it was a few generations ago. "If you go back to 1900, average life expectancy was 49 years," says Arias. "Now, it's almost 79 years. That's a big increase in 100 years."

2. Life spans will continue to increase, but at a slower pace.

After seeing major increases in the first half of the 20th century, life expectancy growth has slowed today to about 10 additional weeks each year, according to Arias.

3. Improved sanitation and more effective antibiotics have boosted U.S. life expectancy.

In the last century, better sanitation measures and the introduction of antibiotics controlled the spread of infectious diseases like pneumonia. And in the last few decades, life expectancy has increased largely because of attention paid to the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases - which is critical, because heart disease is the number one cause of death in the United States. "We have approximately half as many heart attacks and strokes compared to 30 years ago," says Dr. Braithwaite. "It's one of the big successes of public health."
4. The Japanese live the longest and healthiest lives, on average.
Not only do they live longer, Japanese people are in better health than residents of other countries, according to recent research cited by the National Institutes of Health. In 2013, Japan had the highest healthy life expectancy - about 73 years. Andorra, Canada, Cyprus, France, and Iceland were among the other countries with high healthy life expectancies. Globally, healthy life expectancy at birth averages 62 years, according to the World Health Organization.
5. Those with the shortest life expectancies reside in Southern Africa.
At 42 years, Lesotho, a country in South Africa, had the lowest healthy life expectancy of any country, the NIH research found. Other countries where healthy lifespans were shortest include Afghanistan, Chad, Central African Republic, Guinea-Bissau, and Mozambique.
6. Education and income play major roles in life expectancy.
Better-educated and better-paid people live longer, on average, than those with less education and lower incomes in the United States. And this gap is widening: A 2015 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report said men born in 1930 could expect to reach about age 82 if their income put them in the top 20 percent of earners and they survived to age 50. And high earners born in 1960 are projected to live to 89 - a sizable seven-year gain in three decades. Meanwhile, the average life expectancy for men with the lowest earnings actually declined, from 77 years for those born in 1930, to 76 years for those born in 1960.

7. Genes are a factor when it comes to reaching an advanced age.

Twenty to 30 percent of variation in overall adult life expectancy can be attributed to your genes, a study in Human Genetics reports. But genetics matter little until you reach age 60, and after that, become more significant, the authors found.
RELATED: 100 Years of Healthy Habits: Secrets of Chinese Centenarians
8. You might not reach your projected life expectancy.

While the average is likely to be accurate for a large group of people, an individual could easily live much more or less than the average. "It's not helpful for knowing how long you will live precisely," Braithwaite says. "But it's helpful as a guideline." An online calculator can, for instance, show the possible effect of quitting smoking or losing weight on your life expectancy, encouraging you to adopt healthier behaviors.
9. Race and ethnicity affect death rates and life expectancy.
Along with family health history, your racial or ethnic background is a factor that affects your lifespan. According to a CDC report, in 2013 black Americans had the highest death rates, with 861 deaths per 100,000 people. Whites had 731, American Indian or Alaska Natives had 592, and Asian or Pacific Islanders had 405 - the fewest.
10. Gender matters: Girls will generally live longer than boys.
According to 2012 life expectancy figures, girls will grow up to live, on average, about five years longer than boys, a National Vital Statistics report found. Life expectancy for U.S. girls born in 2012 is about 81 years; for boys, it's 76 years.

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10 Essential Facts About Life Expectancy

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There's no crystal ball that can predict how long we'll live, but there are numbers out there that can serve as a guide. "Life expectancy is the average number of years that a group of persons in a population is expected to live," says Elizabeth Arias, PhD, leader of the statistical analysis research team in the mortality statistics branch of the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).

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In 2025, in accordance with Moore's Law, we'll see an acceleration in the rate of change as we move closer to a world of true abundance. Here are eight areas where we'll see extraordinary transformation in the next decade:

1. A $1,000 Human Brain

In 2025, $1,000 should buy you a computer able to calculate at 10^16 cycles per second (10,000 trillion cycles per second), the equivalent processing speed of the human brain.

2. A Trillion-Sensor Economy

The Internet of Everything describes the networked connections between devices, people, processes and data. By 2025, the IoE will exceed 100 billion connected devices, each with a dozen or more sensors collecting data. This will lead to a trillion-sensor economy driving a data revolution beyond our imagination. Cisco's recent report estimates the IoE will generate $19 trillion of newly created value.

3. Perfect Knowledge

We're heading towards a world of perfect knowledge. With a trillion sensors gathering data everywhere (autonomous cars, satellite systems, drones, wearables, cameras), you'll be able to know anything you want, anytime, anywhere, and query that data for answers and insights.

4. 8 Billion Hyper-Connected People

Facebook (Internet.org), SpaceX, Google (Project Loon), Qualcomm and Virgin (OneWeb) are planning to provide global connectivity to every human on Earth at speeds exceeding one megabit per second.

We will grow from three to eight billion connected humans, adding five billion new consumers into the global economy. They represent tens of trillions of new dollars flowing into the global economy. And they are not coming online like we did 20 years ago with a 9600 modem on AOL. They're coming online with a 1 Mbps connection and access to the world's information on Google, cloud 3D printing, Amazon Web Services, artificial intelligence with Watson, crowdfunding, crowdsourcing, and more.

5. Disruption of Healthcare

Existing healthcare institutions will be crushed as new business models with better and more efficient care emerge. Thousands of startups, as well as today's data giants (Google, Apple, Microsoft, SAP, IBM, etc.) will all enter this lucrative $3.8 trillion healthcare industry with new business models that dematerialize, demonetize and democratize today's bureaucratic and inefficient system.

Biometric sensing (wearables) and AI will make each of us the CEOs of our own health. Large-scale genomic sequencing and machine learning will allow us to understand the root cause of cancer, heart disease and neurodegenerative disease and what to do about it. Robotic surgeons can carry out an autonomous surgical procedure perfectly (every time) for pennies on the dollar. Each of us will be able to regrow a heart, liver, lung or kidney when we need it, instead of waiting for the donor to die.

6. Augmented and Virtual Reality

Billions of dollars invested by Facebook (Oculus), Google (Magic Leap), Microsoft (Hololens), Sony, Qualcomm, HTC and others will lead to a new generation of displays and user interfaces.

The screen as we know it - on your phone, your computer and your TV - will disappear and be replaced by eyewear. Not the geeky Google Glass, but stylish equivalents to what the well-dressed fashionistas are wearing today. The result will be a massive disruption in a number of industries ranging from consumer retail, to real estate, education, travel, entertainment, and the fundamental ways we operate as humans.

7. Early Days of JARVIS

Artificial intelligence research will make strides in the next decade. If you think Siri is useful now, the next decade's generation of Siri will be much more like JARVIS from Iron Man, with expanded capabilities to understand and answer. Companies like IBM Watson, DeepMind and Vicarious continue to hunker down and develop next-generation AI systems. In a decade, it will be normal for you to give your AI access to listen to all of your conversations, read your emails and scan your biometric data because the upside and convenience will be so immense.

8. Blockchain

If you haven't heard of the blockchain, I highly recommend you read up on it. You might have heard of bitcoin, which is the decentralized (global), democratized, highly secure cryptocurrency based on the blockchain. But the real innovation is the blockchain itself, a protocol that allows for secure, direct (without a middleman), digital transfers of value and assets (think money, contracts, stocks, IP). Investors like Marc Andreesen have poured tens of millions into the development and believe this is as important of an opportunity as the creation of the Internet itself.

Bottom Line: We Live in the Most Exciting Time Ever

We are living toward incredible times where the only constant is change, and the rate of change is increasing.

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Dr. Peter Diamandis was named by Fortune Magazine as one of the World's 50 Greatest Leaders.

He is Executive Founder of Singularity University, a Silicon Valley institution that counsels the world's leaders on exponentially growing technologies.

He is the Founder and Executive Chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation which leads the world in designing and operating large-scale incentive co...

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The World in 2025: 8 Predictions for the Next 10 Years

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In 2025, in accordance with Moore's Law, we'll see an acceleration in the rate of change as we move closer to a world of true abundance. Here are eight areas where we'll see extraordinary transformation in the next decade: 1. A $1,000 Human Brain In 2025, $1,000 should buy you a computer able to calculate at 10^16 ...

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In 2015, private-intelligence firm Strategic Forecasting, or Stratfor, published its Decade Forecast, in which it projects the next 10 years of global political and economic developments.

While international analysts often try their hand at predicting the major events of the coming year, Stratfor believes that it's identified the major trends of the next decade.

In many ways, Stratfor thinks that the world 10 years from now will be a more dangerous place, with US power waning and other prominent countries experiencing a period of chaos and decline.
Russia will collapse ...
"There will not be an uprising against Moscow, but Moscow's withering ability to support and control the Russian Federation will leave a vacuum," Stratfor warns. "What will exist in this vacuum will be the individual fragments of the Russian Federation."

Sanctions, declining oil prices, a plunging ruble, rising military expenses, and increasing internal discord will weaken the hold of Russia's central government over the world's largest country. Russia will not officially split into multiple countries, but Moscow's power may loosen to the point that Russia will effectively become a string of semiautonomous regions that might not even get along with one another.

"We expect Moscow's authority to weaken substantially, leading to the formal and informal fragmentation of Russia," the report states, adding, "It is unlikely that the Russian Federation will survive in its current form."
... and the US will have to use its military to secure the country's nukes.
Russia's nuclear-weapons infrastructure is spread across a vast geographic area. If the political disintegration Stratfor predicts ever happens, it means that weapons, fissile materials, and delivery systems could end up exposed in what will suddenly become the world's most dangerous power vacuum.

The breakout of Russia's nuclear-weapons stockpile will be "the greatest crisis of the next decade," according to Stratfor.

And the US will have to figure out what to do about it, even if it means dispatching ground troops to secure loose weapons, materials, and missiles.

"Washington is the only power able to address the issue, but it will not be able to seize control of the vast numbers of sites militarily and guarantee that no missile is fired in the process," the Decade Forecast states. "The United States will either have to invent a military solution that is difficult to conceive of now, accept the threat of rogue launches, or try to create a stable and economically viable government in the regions involved to neutralize the missiles over time."
Germany is going to have problems ...
Germany has an export-dependent economy that has richly benefited from the continent-wide trade liberalization enabled through the EU and the euro, but that just means the country has the most to lose from a worsening euro crisis and a resulting wave of "Euroscepticism."

The country's domestic consumption can't make up for this dip in Germany's export economy or for a projected decline in population. The result is Japan-style stagnation.

"We expect Germany to suffer severe economic reversals in the next decade," the Decade Forecast says.
... and Poland will be one of Europe's leaders.
Look a little to Germany's east, and things won't be quite so bad.

"At the center of economic growth and increasing political influence will be Poland," the report says.

Poland's population won't decline as much as those of the other major European economies. The fact that it's the largest and most prosperous European state on Russia's western border will also thrust it into a position of regional leadership that the country could leverage into greater political and economic prestige.

And it only helps to have the kind of close, longstanding strategic partnership with the US that Poland enjoys.
There will be four Europes.
It wasn't long ago that European unity seemed like an unstoppable historical force, with political and economic barriers between countries dissolving and regionalism and nationalism disappearing from the continent's politics.

But in 10 years, that may all seem like a distant memory. The Decade Forecast talks about four Europes that will become increasingly estranged from one another: Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, and the British islands. They will still have to share the same neighborhood, but they won't be as closely connected as they were before.

"The European Union might survive in some sense, but European economic, political, and military relations will be governed primarily by bilateral or limited multilateral relationships that will be small in scope and not binding," the report says. "Some states might maintain a residual membership in a highly modified European Union, but this will not define Europe."
Turkey and the US will have to be close allies, but for an unexpected reason.
Several Arab countries are in a state of free-fall, and the Decade Forecast doesn't see the chaos ending anytime soon. The major beneficiary from all of this will be Turkey, a strong, relatively stable country whose borders stretch from the Black Sea to Syria and Iraq.

Turkey will be reluctant to intervene in conflicts on its borders, but will inevitably have to, according to the forecast. As Ankara's strength and assertiveness increase relative to its neighbors, the country will become an indispensable US partner.

But Turkey will want something in return: a line of defense against a certain powerful and aggression-minded country on the other side of the Black Sea that has military bases in neighboring Armenia. Turkey will want the help of the US in keeping Moscow out of its backyard.

"Turkey will continue to need US involvement for political and military reasons," the report says. "The United States will oblige, but there will be a price: participation in the containment of Russia. The United States does not expect Turkey to assume a war-fighting role and does not intend one for itself. It does, however, want a degree of cooperation in managing the Black Sea."
China will face one huge problem.
China may have a rough decade ahead as economic growth slows, leading to widespread discontent toward the ruling Communist Party. But the party will not liberalize, which means that its only viable option for controlling the gathering chaos while remaining in power will be to increase internal oppression.

Beijing also faces another, perhaps even bigger problem: China's growth hasn't been geographically distributed evenly. Coastal cities are thriving, but China's interior has less access to international markets and is comparatively poorer. That problem will only get worse as China continues to urbanize.

"The expectation that the interior - beyond parts of the more urbanized Yangtze River Delta - will grow as rapidly as the coast is being dashed," the report says.

And the growing rift between China's coast and its interior could presage even deeper, more ominous splits.

As the report notes, regional fissures have been a persistent driver of political chaos throughout China's history, and there is an unlikely but "still conceivable outcome in which political interests along the coast rebel against Beijing's policy of transferring wealth to the interior to contain political unrest."
Japan will be Asia's rising naval power.
Japan has a maritime tradition going back centuries, and as an island nation it is dependent on certain imports. China is building a state-of-the-art navy of its own, and it may become even more aggressive in controlling shipping routes in the East China and South China seas and Indian Ocean that Japan depends upon.

Japan will have no option but to project power into the region to counter China and protect its supply routes. With US power waning, it will have to do this on its own.

"Right now [Japan] depends on the United States to guarantee access," the forecast states. "But given that we are forecasting more cautious US involvement in foreign ventures and that the United States is not dependent on imports, the reliability of the United States is in question. Therefore, the Japanese will increase their naval power in the coming years."
The South China Sea islands won't start a war, but there's a catch.
The regional powers will decide that South China Sea island disputes aren't worth a major military escalation, but they will still be a symptom of a volatile power dynamic.

"Fighting over the minor islands producing low-cost and unprofitable energy will not be the primary issue in the region," the report predicts. "Rather, an old three-player game will emerge. Russia, the declining power, will increasingly lose the ability to protect its maritime interests. The Chinese and the Japanese will both be interested in acquiring these and in preventing each other from having them."

Dangerous great-power dynamics are returning to East Asia, even if it may not result in armed conflict in the South China and East China seas.
There will be 16 mini-Chinas.
China's economy will slow down, and growth in production capacity will flatline. That's actually good news for a handful of countries. The entry-level manufacturing jobs that China used to gobble up will migrate to 16 emerging economies with a combined population of 1.15 billion.

So while China's growth will stall, leading to unforeseeable political and economic consequences, Mexico, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Peru, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines, and Indonesia could see improving economic fortunes over the next decade as more manufacturing jobs arrive.
US power will decline.
With the world becoming an even more disorderly and unpredictable place over the next 10 years, the US will respond by being increasingly judicious about how it picks its challenges, rather than taking an active leadership role in solving the world's problems.

A growing economy, surging domestic-energy production, declining exports, and the safety of being in the most stable corner of the world will give the US the luxury of being able to insulate itself against the world's crises.

While this more restrained US role in global affairs will make the world an even less predictable place, it's a reality that other countries will have to deal with.

"The United States will continue to be the major economic, political, and military power in the world but will be less engaged than in the past," the forecast says. "It will be a disorderly world, with a changing of the guard in many regions. The one constant will be the continued and maturing power of the United States - a power that will be much less visible and that will be utilized far less in the next decade."
Read more: * Morgan Stanley: What a world without oil looks like​Read the original article on Business Insider UK. © 2015. Follow Business Insider UK on Twitter.
* Cameron EU deal prompts hailstorm of criticism
* New EU-US data transfer deal has been reached
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11 chilling predictions for what the world will look like in 10 years

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In 2015, private-intelligence firm Strategic Forecasting, or Stratfor, published its Decade Forecast, in which it projects the next 10 years of global political and economic developments. While international analysts often try their hand at predicting the major events of the coming year, Stratfor believes that it's identified the major trends of the next decade.

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LongBets collects predictions of the future

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LongBets collects predictions of the future

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The Arena for Accountable Predictions - Long Bets

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The purpose of Long Bets is to improve long-term thinking. Long Bets is a public arena for enjoyably competitive predictions, of interest to society, with philanthropic money at stake. The Long Now Foundation furnishes the continuity to see even the longest bets through to public resolution.

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Alex Gross labeled this set of paintings "Future Tense." Take a look at how he portrays the future.

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Alex GrossFuture Tense - Jonathan Levine Projects

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NEW YORK, NY (August 30, 2014) - Jonathan LeVine Gallery is pleased to present Future Tense, a series of new oil paintings and mixed media works by Los Angeles-based artist Alex Gross in what will be his fourth solo exhibition at the gallery. In conjunction with Future Tense, the artist will release a new monograph...

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PAINTINGS OF THE FOOD NOT BOMBS MOVEMENT

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In 2000 the CIA tried to predict what the world would be like in 2015. Check out the video about how accurate they were and what they got wrong.

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But other predictions have fallen flat - such as the notion we'd all be eating cloned beef burgers, or that North and South Korea would be unified.

Read on to find out just what they got right and wrong about the world of today.

The internet revolution: RIGHT

The CIA's experts correctly predicted the explosion in digital and mobile technology which has transformed the world as we know it.

"Universal wireless cellular communications", they said, would create "the biggest global transformation since the industrial revolution." Looking at the way smartphones have proliferated across the planet, putting seven times more computing power than the chess computer which beat Gary Kasparov into the palm of your hand, who could disagree?

The "IT revolution", as they called it, would also have political consequences. In the Middle East, a "web-connected opposition" would pose new challenges to authoritarian regimes - as it did in the Arab Spring.

Meanwhile, the same technologies would create new avenues for conflict between states. This was borne out in reality by Chinese and Russian cyber-attacks in the USA and by America's own use of a computer virus, Stuxnet, to sabotage the Iranian nuclear programme.

The biotech boom: HALF-RIGHT

The CIA was overly optimistic about the effects of biotechnology. Personal genomic profiling and artificially grown replacement organs would be commonplace, it said. Animals would be cloned to provide meat, while terrorists would genetically engineer new and dangerous diseases.

They even raised the spectre of the super-rich living "dramatically" longer than everybody else thanks to advances in medical technology.

Some of this now seems fanciful. There is no longevity treatment for rich old people (unless they're keeping it secret from the rest of us).

But in two areas the CIA were right. The price of genomics has dropped dramatically in the past five years and the NHS is attempting to sequence the DNA of 125,000 people to help fight cancer.

And it was right about GM crops. Despite opposition, GM breeds have swept across the world, accounting for 82 per cent of global soy bean hectares, 68 per cent of cotton, and 30 per cent of maize.

The rise of Russia: WRONG

The CIA could see that Russia might react badly to its loss of superpower status, and that it would use its gas reserves as a lever to regain it.

Indeed, resistance to the "new American century" - as one contemporary think tank termed it - is an explicit concern of Russian foreign policy.

But the CIA thought that the "most likely outcome" would be a weak Russia, linked into international diplomacy primarily through its veto on the UN security council.

Instead, Vladimir Putin has built a web of influence from Greece to Syria, intervening in foreign wars, annexing new territory, and frustrating Western ambitions. Rather than the predicted 2,500 nuclear warheads, he has over 8,000.

Other failed geopolitical predictions include the reunification of North and South Korea - which never happened - and the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

After escaping numerous CIA assassination plots in the 1960s, Cuban leader Fidel Castro has thwarted his old enemies once again - by failing to die.

Population: HALF RIGHT

The report correctly believed that world population would grow to over 7 billion, and that it would slow, or even fall, in Russia and eastern Europe. That's true: Russia has fewer people today than in 2000.

But it was wrong about the ill fortunes of Africa. Instead of declining due to the AIDS epidemic, populations in sub-Saharan countries have shot up, while their economies have defied expectations.

Population change in regions not including the West, 2010-15 (%)

The West's demographic crisis: RIGHT

The CIA foresaw how ageing populations in developed countries would cause a slow crisis.

It's worth quoting their report in full:

The declining ratio of workers to retirees will strain social services, pensions, and health systems. Governments will seek to mitigate the problem through such measures as delaying retirement, encouraging greater participation in the work force by women, and relying on migrant workers.

"Immigration will complicate political and social integration: some political parties will continue to mobilize popular sentiment against migrants, protesting the strain on social services and the difficulties in assimilation.

"European countries and Japan will face difficult dilemmas in seeking to reconcile protection of national borders and cultural identity with the need to address growing demographic and labor market imbalances. "

Sound familiar?

The Financial crisis: WRONG

The report expected high levels of growth throughout the noughties - and this was true, to a point.

"The global economy is well-positioned to achieve a sustained period of dynamism through 2015," it said. "Global economic growth will return to the high levels reached in the 1960s and early 1970s."

It did consider the possibility of financial crisis, but spent most of its time talking about the risks to developing countries who had failed to reform - that is, liberalise - their financial systems.

Instead, lax regulations caused a banking collapse in the USA itself which brought down the global economy and sparked a new conversation about the limits and wisdom of capitalism.

And the EU? By now it would be "relatively peaceful and wealthy", perfecting "the final components of EU integration".

International terror: HALF RIGHT

The CIA's concern about more sophisticated and lethal terrorist attacks was justified very quickly with the events of September 11, 2001.

But it couldn't have imagined the extent to which terrorism would define the foreign policy of the West for the next ten years.

Perhaps only the collapse of Lehman Brothers can claim the same influence on American politics as the fall of the Twin Towers.

Beyond this, the CIA's experts saw insurgent groups, drug smugglers, and criminal gangs across the world exploiting globalisation to band together into ever-larger networks.

They would even traffic in nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons - which would be increasingly likely to be used against the West.

It was a nightmare vision of amoral international evil pieced together from the ashes of the Cold War, its tentacles spreading across borders, selling weapons of mass destruction to the highest bidder.

That hasn't exactly come to pass. But the reality might actually be worse.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is a sophisticated terrorist organisation that carries out, or at least inspires, attacks all around the world. And it's funded through a broad spectrum of criminal activity, from oil sales through antiques trading to taxation. It is a criminal terrorist entity for all seasons, with fingers in many pies.

No, the US has not suffered a dirty bomb attack or a genetically engineered disease outbreak. But Isil has used chemical weapons it looted from the Syrian government and is working on producing its own. And its territory encompasses the site of a clandestine nuclear reactor destroyed by Israel in 2007 - which would otherwise now belong to the group.

But unlike the criminal networks imagined by the CIA, Isil is not just trying to make a profit. It has its own apocalyptic ideology which puts it at ground zero of a final confrontation between Islam and the West.

What will today's experts, predicting 2030, make of that?

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15 years ago the CIA tried to predict the world in 2015. Here's what they got wrong

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But other predictions have fallen flat - such as the notion we'd all be eating cloned beef burgers, or that North and South Korea would be unified. Read on to find out just what they got right and wrong about the world of today.

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Future Timeline makes predictions for our future

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Future Timeline makes predictions for our future

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Future Timeline | Technology | Singularity | 2020 | 2050 | 2100 | 2150 | 2200 | 21st century | 22nd century | 23rd century | Humanity | Predictions | Events

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Future timeline, a timeline of humanity's future, based on current trends, long-term environmental changes, advances in technology such as Moore's Law, the latest medical advances, and the evolving geopolitical landscape.

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They range from the serious to the fanciful, from the exciting to the petrifying.

And to get a gauge on how likely they are to happen, we asked the special bets department at British betting firm Ladbrokes to give us their odds on each prediction coming true.
What have we missed? What else would you have liked to have seen in this graphic? Let us know on our page or message us on .

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Tomorrow's world: A guide to the next 150 years

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They range from the serious to the fanciful, from the exciting to the petrifying. And to get a gauge on how likely they are to happen, we asked the special bets department at British betting firm Ladbrokes to give us their odds on each prediction coming true. What have we missed?

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First, we brought you a prediction of the forthcoming year. Then we brought you a timeline of the near future, revealing what could happen up to around 100 years time. But here's our most ambitious set of predictions yet - from what could happen in one thousand years time to one hundred quintillion years (that's 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 years). As the song says, there may be trouble ahead...
To see more of our infographics, click here. What have we missed? What else would you have liked to have seen in this graphic? If you would like to comment on this, or anything else you have seen on Future, head over to our Facebook or Google+ page, or message us on Update: As reader Katja Lindblom points on Twitter, the Arecibo message might not reach M13. The message was sent towards the area of space M13 occupied in 1974, but in 25,000 years time it will have moved. .

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First, we brought you a prediction of the forthcoming year. Then we brought you a timeline of the near future, revealing what could happen up to around 100 years time. But here's our most ambitious set of predictions yet - from what could happen in one thousand years time to one hundred quintillion years (that's 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 years).