The Next 100 Years

The New Year is a time to look forward, backward, and to contemplate the passage of time.  In that spirit, I wrote a list of predictions for the next 100 years.  I also asked my son and a good friend to write similar lists.  When I compared the lists, I was amazed at the convergence between our forecasts.  We envision sweeping changes that span the range of human experience; life in 100 years will be quite different than life today.  But for the most part, our forecasts represent the extrapolation of trends that are apparent today, using knowledge that we already possess or are actively seeking.  In general, this post is drawn from predictions that at least two of the three forecasters had in common.

I believe that we already have much of the knowledge that will change life in the next hundred years.  The fabric biplanes of 1917 foretold the Boeing 747 jetliners which were built 50 years later. Einstein’s publication of E = MC² in 1905 foretold the atomic bomb in 1945.

It is clear from current trends that the scientific and technological achievements of mankind have just begun.  In one hundred years, society will have a ten-fold increase in its ability to produce wealth, but it will struggle with equitable distribution and meaningful employment, as it does today.  Our ability to produce technological advancement greatly exceeds our ability to produce social, political, and economic advancements.  In other words, our ability to build new gadgets is much better than our ability to work together, to avoid conflict, and to share our wealth.  Most of the positive developments of the next hundred years will come from technology.  Most of the scary stuff will come from social problems.

Science is just beginning to solve deep mysteries of reality and life.  The technologies which might result from these discoveries will fundamentally change how people live on earth, and where we go from here.

This post is organized into four parts: Technology, Environment, Society and Science.

 Technology

Energy

• A breakthrough technology will make energy much cheaper than today, and enable the reversal of CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere.  The breakthrough may be fusion energy, or solar power, in combination with advances in storage and transmission technology.  Cheap energy should enable huge strides in global prosperity, but results will depend on how wealth is distributed.

Transportation

• Self-driving cars will be the norm; only hobbyists will own drivable cars.
• Domestic airline travel will soon reach a gridlock limit; alternatives of high-speed rail and/or hyperloop tube transport will be built within 50 years between American cities.  Trans-ocean hyperloops will be built by the second half of the century.
• Sub-orbital passenger aircraft will briefly compete with hyperloops, but will be less economical.

 Health

• Most cancers will be curable within 50 years, possibly sooner.
• Spinal cord injuries will be curable, as well as other injuries requiring cellular regeneration, such as blindness, deafness, and paralysis. 
• Mechanical aids will be better integrated with human bodies through bio-engineering, solving a variety of human illnesses.  Implanted mechanical aids will also offer the possibility of enhanced human performance for military or other purposes.
• Lifespans will (potentially) be much longer.  Science will decisively solve the mechanisms of aging, and develop effective therapies to extend healthy life.  Availability of those therapies may be limited by cost and affordability of extended life.
• Global population will not peak at 9 billion in 2050, as currently predicted, but will grow throughout the century due to extended lifespans.

 Biotechnology

• Genetic therapies will be available to cure genetic diseases, especially in children.  
• Genetic selection or modification will be available to create designer children, but with limited legality.  The topic of genetic child improvement will be as socially intractable as the abortion debate today.
• Hybrid and synthetic life forms will offer solutions to some problems, but will be the subject of sharp ethical controversy.
• All standard consumer meat will be synthetic.  Synthetic meat and food will provide healthier diets in developed countries, and eliminate malnutrition in currently undeveloped countries.
• A number of Pleistocene extinct species will be restored, including wooly mammoths and mastodons.  There will be an ethical argument about restoring Neanderthal and Denisovan people –they will not be restored.
• Biotechnology will emerge as the major threat in terrorism, assassination, and warfare.

 Computer Technology

• Quantum computing will be as common as flash memory is today.   There will be huge progress in miniaturization and efficiencies.  Artificial intelligence will eliminate many jobs.  Deep technical problems in mathematics and computing will be solved.  [For example, my son informs me that the NP-complete solution will be discovered – whatever that is!]
• Artificial sentience will not yet be a reality, but technologists will have a much clearer idea of what would be required to produce a sentient machine.

Space (Solar System)

• Thousands of people will be living and working off-world.
• Manned missions to Mars will be routine, but a permanent base will not yet exist.
• A permanent base will exist on the moon, but will be fully dependent on support from Earth.
• Asteroid mining will be a reality in the asteroid belt.  Projects will be underway to place asteroids into Earth orbit, lunar orbit, or Lagrange points.  The first sustainable colonies away from earth will revolve around asteroid mining activities.  International tensions will flare over the ownership of asteroids and the rights for colonization.
• Simple life will be discovered in the solar system, with the possibility of fossilized multicellular life on Mars.

Space (Interstellar Exploration)

• Interstellar probes will be returning the first data from other stars.
• Planning will be under way for a manned interstellar voyage.
• Signals from a distant alien civilization will be detected, but so far away (and long ago) that communication is impossible.

Environment

Wilderness and Wildlife

• Many extinctions will occur due to climate change and pressures from a larger human population. 
• Environmental degradation will be extreme in China, India, Africa and Latin America by mid-century.  Efforts to restore the environment will be a high priority by the end of the century.
• New large park systems will seek to re-establish wilderness ecosystems, including large predators and herd animals which are now extinct or will become extinct.
• Wilderness areas will be greatly diminished globally, and wildlife will be similarly diminished. 

Oceans

• Wild fish stocks will be recovering from severe depletion due to overfishing.  Commercial fishing will be illegal; fish for human consumption will be raised in fish farms.   Restoration projects for coral reefs will be underway, after the near-extinction of most reefs on earth. 

Climate Change

• Sea level will be 1 to 2 meters higher than today, sufficient to cause flooding in many coastal cities and communities, and abandonment of some communities.  Substantial melting will be occurring from the Greenland and Antarctic ice-caps.  Rising sea level will be accelerating and inexorable, with the greatest impact expected in the second hundred years. 
• Drought and desertification will spread northward and southward from the lines of 30 and -30 degrees of latitude as atmospheric convection cells grow stronger.  Areas affected will include Southwest and south-central United States, southern Europe, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, parts of China, Argentina and southeast Australia.  Famines are likely to occur in affected areas.  The extent of the problem will depend on how quickly mankind can implement low-CO2 energy technologies.  

Society

Economy

• The world will endure a severe global financial meltdown, based on failure of credit systems.  The crisis will cause an extended depression, and result in re-organization of political, economic, and financial systems. 
• Fewer than 15% of American workers are now working in industries with physical products.   Robots and artificial intelligence will continue to replace workers, as capital is more cost-effective than labor in many industries.
• Automation of the economy will leave the majority of people unemployed.  This will cause significant civil unrest and conflict.  The world will be divided into three groups: 1) the talented elite who work; 2) a minority of people who own capital, do little and earn much, and 3) those who do not own capital, do little, and earn very little.
• Sustained productivity growth of 2% to 2.5% annually will result in 7x to 12x total growth.  If distributed equally, average household income in the United States would increase from $52,000/year to about $500,000/year, adjusted for inflation.  Wealth inequality can be expected to grow for the foreseeable future, resulting in an extremely wealthy aristocracy and a moderately well-off middle class. 
• The problems of what people will do for employment and how wealth is distributed will be the root cause of most social conflict in the next century.

Politics

• The United States, as we know it, will be greatly changed or no longer exist.  The political organization of states will be changed, and the external borders will probably change.  There will be a slow regional consolidation of North America; economic integration will be followed by political integration.  Other megastates will also form, in Europe, Southeast Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and the former Soviet Union. 
• A third (or fourth) political party will emerge in the United States, winning substantial power in Congress and the Presidency.  One or both of the existing political parties will expire or be completely changed in a political transformation.  

International Relations

• Most of Africa will be economically developed.  The African Union will exist as a meaningful political and military bloc.
• There will be conflict between the major nationalistic interests (China, Russia, USA) and major trading block associations.   China will be involved in a major war against one or more of its neighbors. 
• There is a high probability of another World War.  The war will involve many advanced weapons (AI, drones, space-based weapons, and computer warfare), but probably not nuclear warheads.

Natural Disaster

• A global epidemic will result in up to 30% population loss.  
• A solar flare will devastate electrical infrastructure, electronic communications and satellites.  Rebuilding the lost infrastructure will be uneven, and will require most of a decade.
• Major earthquakes with huge damage and loss of life will occur in Turkey (south of Istanbul), California, Oregon, Italy, Chile, Japan, and Indonesia. 
• The Mosul dam in Iraq will fail, with large loss of life downstream.
• One or more meteors will hit the earth with enough power to obliterate a city.

Terrorism

• A major terrorist attack will occur causing tens-to-hundreds of thousands of deaths.  The incident may spark a major war, possibly along the Christian/Muslim divide.  The incident will increase global surveillance and eliminate most privacy protections around the world. 

Civil Rights

• In the United States, the trend of acceptance of alternative lifestyles will continue.  Some structural change will occur in a small percentage of American families, equivalent to the legalization of gay marriage.  The change may be in terms of polygamy or polyamory, limited marriage contracts, three-parent children or children raised by communities instead of families.  In other words, something weird by today’s standards.
• A number of forces, including the threat of terrorism, will challenge the principles of privacy in most countries.  Most people in the world will live in what we consider to be surveillance states.
• Racism will diminish as genetic mixing makes the separation of races less distinct.

Science and New Technology

There will be at least one completely revolutionary discovery in physics in the next century, which will enable some transformative new technology.  In the last century, most of the science for 20^th century technologies was already known by 1917 (airplanes, E = MC^2, etc.).  Application and implementation of that knowledge produced the new technologies which changed the world.  Likewise, I believe that we already have the science for the technologies of the next century.  The breakthrough scientific discoveries of the next one hundred years will produce the transformative technologies of the following century. 

The first list shows potential revolutionary scientific discoveries, in order of likelihood.  All of the items on the list are areas of current research.  I excluded potential discoveries which are outside the boundaries of known physics, such as faster-than-light travel or telepathic telekinetic dragons.

The second list is of potential technologies which might result from such discoveries and completely transform human life and human destiny, also listed in order of likelihood.

Potential Scientific Discoveries

• Full understanding of the processes of human aging.
• The discovery of a habitable planet orbiting a nearby star.
• Full understanding of gravity, and how it produces distortion of space-time, or the discovery that gravity is an emergent phenomenon, i.e., a product of other, more fundamental forces.
• The ability to alter time for small, table-top objects: to accelerate or decelerate time; to reverse time, or to put objects into a closed time-loop.
• The discovery and proof of sentient machines.
• Discovery of intelligent alien life.
• Discovery of how to manipulate space-time. 
• Proof that we live in a multiverse.
• Proof that reality is non-material.

Potential Transformative Technologies

• Cheap fusion power.
• Asteroid mining and orbital manipulation.
• Permanent, independent, communities in space.
• A practical and efficient space-drive which does not require thruster propellant.
• Artificial Intelligence smarter than people, and capable of self-design with improvements.
• A cure for aging. 
• The ability to generate localized, focused artificial gravitational fields.
• Faster-than-light communication, using separated quantum entangled particles.
• Sentient machines.
• Terraforming planets in our solar system.
• Manipulation of planetary orbits.
• Teleportation of physical objects.
• The ability to adjust current reality, in terms of modifying physical laws, physical objects or actions, or past events, based on a new understanding of reality.
• Communication with parallel universes.

The Black Swan

Most of the predictions in this post are consensus ideas, given by at least two of the three forecasters.  But life-changing developments may be completely unexpected, in the sense of Nassim Taleb’s Black Swan events. (Even if, as Taleb writes, the Black Swan events are completely predictable in hindsight.) 

It is therefore worth noting a few of the non-consensus predictions. 

• Science will find evidence that the human soul exists beyond death.
• Marine archeology will discover ancient civilizations flooded by sea level rise, dating back to 30,000 years or more.
• Society-wide panopticon surveillance will challenge and possibly end the liberal, democratic, rule of law society of the west.
• Wealth inequality will bottom out, having reached a nadir in about 20-40 years, and be improved in 100 years compared to today.

It is entirely appropriate that these last predictions are about what we are, who we have been, and how we will live.

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References and Credits

Many thanks to Steve R. and Greg B., whose thoughtful correspondence enabled me to write this post and in other ways enrich my life.

Bill Gates, February 2016, interview with Charlie Rose, https://charlierose.com/videos/23144

David Deutsch, 1997, The Fabric of Reality, 390 p.

David Deutsch, 2011, The Beginning of Infinity, 496 p. 

Jacob Bronowski, 1973, The Ascent of Man, 448 p.

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Coda

The Boeing 747

Not long ago, I watched a Boeing 747 airplane take off from our local airport – that was the inspiration for this post.  The 747 is a massive airplane, and appears to hang in the air as it is gaining altitude.  The 747 has been in service since 1970 – nearly 50 years.  The plane’s startling size immediately garnered nicknames: jumbo jet, queen of the skies, and my favorite, the aluminum overcast.  Recent versions of the plane are still among the largest passenger planes in the world.   

Despite the fact that the plane has been in service for 46 years, the sight still inspires awe.  It made me wonder what people would have thought, if they had seen this aircraft one hundred years ago.  The year 1916 was the midpoint of World War I, and airplanes were still crude novelties made of fabric and wood.   The idea of an airplane weighing nearly one-half million pounds, capable of carrying up to 600 passengers, or another half-million pounds of cargo, would have seemed beyond comprehension.  And yet within little more than 50 years, such planes flew. 

The sight of this plane made me wonder what the world will see in the next one hundred years.  What technologies will become commonplace in our grandchildren’s lifetimes that are beyond our comprehension today?

Primary Election Reform

America is in a situation of political division which is unprecedented in my lifetime.  Our government processes are paralyzed by partisanship.  The tone of political rhetoric in the media and in public life has reached levels of ugliness that I never before experienced.  Politicians in office increasingly represent the extremes of our political spectrum rather than the middle.  The presidential candidates chosen by both political parties are viewed unfavorably by a majority of the public.

We need to reform the process by which we winnow the field of potential candidates to nominees who participate in the general election.  Our political parties administer these processes, with party rules that are wildly inconsistent and unfair.  It is time for the government to take control of these processes, and to make changes in the interest of better government and a healthier society.

 A simple change to our election processes would address many of these problems.  If we replace our system of closed party primary elections and caucuses with an open general primary, it would force candidates to seek support from the middle of the political spectrum, rather than the extremes.  I believe this would set the country on the course of solving our problems.  

Primary Election Reform

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are poised to compete for the Presidency of the United States as candidates of America’s major political parties.  The candidates will set a record as the most detested presidential candidates for as long as public opinion has been recorded.  It is an indication of the increasing polarization of American society, and an indication that our political system is broken.

How did we come to be in this situation in a democracy, where people choose the very candidates that they dislike?  The problem is in our system of winnowing the field of candidates through primary elections and party caucuses.

Our system of primary elections is partly to blame for our political dysfunction and gridlock.  The system divides the electorate into partisan camps.  Each camp tends to select a candidate who epitomizes the most partisan views of that camp.   The process produces a government which lurches from extreme to extreme at the highest levels, and a government which is locked in acrimonious and dysfunctional gridlock at lower levels.  We have created a government in which the willingness to compromise is seen as a fatal flaw.  The judicial system, which is the strongest stabilizing force in American government, has likewise become a battleground of ideology.   Political discourse has become increasing bitter over the past 25 years, and political conflicts increasingly violent. 

The major political parties, Democratic and Republican, are essentially private clubs, who presently dominate the processes of winnowing candidates for all political offices.  The parties dictate the processes of winnowing the pool of candidates in a mind-numbing morass of differing primary election and caucuses, with different rules in every state. (The process is detailed at the end of this article for readers unfamiliar with the American system).   The process rewards corruption, and allows established political powers and wealthy political donors to strongly influence the selection of the party candidates.  It is in the interest of the nation to remove that power from the parties, and institute primary elections which are fair and equal for all citizens.

Primary election processes must be reformed.  A reformed process of winnowing the field of candidates would necessarily force candidates to compete for the middle of the political spectrum.  Politically extreme candidates would be eliminated from contention in general elections.   Reforming our primaries would improve the policies that govern the nation and allow the smooth functioning of government.

Reform Proposal – Simultaneous Open Primaries and Negative Votes

Winnowing the slate of candidates for office is far too important to be left to the whims of political parties.  There is ample justification in the Constitution to overturn our current system, and establish a new system, which will provide of equal rights to all citizens in the selection of our political candidates. 

The solution to our problem is remarkably simple.  We must establish general primary elections, to be held simultaneously in all states.  Candidates would compete for votes from all citizens, decreasing our tendency to elect extremists from the ends of the political spectrum.   Candidates would be less bound by party orthodoxy, and able to express a range of opinions, which would be healthy for our general political discourse.  The top two candidates in the general primary would compete in the general election, eliminating the problem of a three-way race, in which two candidates with similar views split a majority vote, allowing a candidate supported by a minority to win an election.  The process should be applied at every level, from President to mayor of the smallest hamlet.

I would propose a further variant.  The power to say “NO” is an important element of decision-making, embodied in the President’s veto power over actions of Congress, and in Congress’ power, with a super-majority, to override the President’s decisions.   That power should also be given to the voters.  I would suggest, that in any primary election with more than three candidates, each citizen should be given three votes: two positive votes, and one negative vote.   In a field of many candidates, such as we had in this Presidential cycle, the “NO” votes would eliminate extreme and unpopular candidates.  I think a system which gives citizens a veto would produce a government more accurately of the people, by the people, and for the people. 

When candidates compete in an open primary, by necessity, they must learn to represent all of the people.  Success will depend on winning over the middle of the political spectrum, rather than the extremes.   Candidates will be empowered to express views on some issues which are outside of their party orthodoxy, and they will be empowered to compromise with their political opposition

We are at a political crossroads in America.  We are on the edge of collapse of the two-party system which has generally governed our country since its inception, and in the current form which has existed for over a century.   We have the opportunity now to make it better, and we may never have another chance.

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The following section is added for readers unfamiliar with the American system of Primary Elections.

The American System of Primary Elections and Caucuses

In general, America has a two-party political system.  In the American system, candidates for political office compete for nomination by the political party of their affiliation.  The candidates chosen for nomination then compete in a general election against the candidate of the other major party.  Occasionally, there are candidates from minor political parties, or independent candidates, but these are rarely significant in the general election.  

Each party sets its own rules for winnowing the field of candidates to determine a nominee, for both national and local offices.  In fact, the parties set different rules in each state, resulting in a patchwork of irregular processes depending upon location.  

In most states, the nominee is selected by the result of a primary election.  In some states, the primary is restricted to only party members; in some states the primary is open to independent voters; in some states open to all voters.  Some states employ another variant.  Instead of an election, the nominee is selected through local meetings termed caucuses.  The caucuses require several hours of time.  Caucuses are attended by only about 5 percent of the population.  By comparison, about 35 to 40 percent of the population participate in primary elections. 

Primary elections are held according to an arbitrary schedule, at various times in various states.  The process gives the states with early voting a disproportionate influence on results, by directing additional media attention and political donations to the winners of the early contests.  Those early results tend to reflect the parochial interests of those states, rather than the broader interests of the nation. 

The Republican Party (ironically) has a more ‘democratic’ system than the Democratic Party.  Republicans have given more power directly to the voters in the system of primary elections.  Essentially all of the Republican delegates are chosen by primary election results, and those delegates are bound to vote according to primary election results on the first ballot at the party convention.  The Democratic Party allocates about one-eighth of the delegates to existing party officials and office-holders. 

The parties also have processes which give considerable power to established political interests.  Both parties have “rules committees” which are able to change the rules for nomination, even after the conclusion of all primary voting.

In the current presidential election cycle, Donald Trump prevailed over the established powers of the Republican party, riding a wave of populist rage and racist rhetoric to overwhelm the establishment candidates.  In the Democratic Party, the establishment candidate Hilary Clinton called upon a deep well of political obligations owed to her husband, Bill Clinton, from his eight-year presidency.  Even so, she narrowly prevailed against a more articulate and extreme candidate from the left side of the political spectrum, Bernie Sanders.   Neither partisan racist mob-rule, nor entrenched political dynasties serve our country well.  

Ukraine – A Nation on the Edge, Update #2 – Differing Perspectives from East and West

The crisis in Ukraine has been the subject of two previous posts on this blog. 

Fifty years ago, as an eight-year old playing with older boys, I learned the name "Ukraine" in a board game called "Risk".  It was a war game, and the goal was global domination by building military empires.  The most important place on the map was Eastern Europe, stretching from the Barents Sea to the Middle East.   This large block, half the size of a continent, controlled the expansion of empires from east or west.  That crucial geopolitical place, the key to success in this boys' game, was given a single name: Ukraine.  (Strangely, the name of Russia did not exist on the map; perhaps this was some artifact of the cold war.  

Status of the Ukrainian Crisis

The Ukrainian crisis is unfolding with the inexorable logic of a slow-motion train wreck.  I wrote those words about a month ago, but failed to finish this post.    I originally wrote that outright war was unlikely…then still unlikely… and now would say increasingly likely.  Considerable violence will occur before the crisis is resolved. 

Russia has annexed Crimea, and cities of eastern Ukraine are in turmoil.  Separatists in these cities have created an ungovernable climate, using the same tactics used by rebels to overthrow President Yanukovich.  It is clear that Russian special forces are organizing the opposition, and performing the takeover of strategic infrastructure before handing control of these assets to local militias.

Perspectives on the Crisis

From the Russian perspective, the turmoil in Ukraine is a result of Western meddling.  Western interests attempted to pull Ukraine into the economic orbit of the European Union, and provoked a revolution, unseating a democratically elected president.   Further, Russia’s  annexation of Crimea is simply the settlement of a long-standing territorial dispute.  Most Russians of this generation regard Crimea as part of Russia, separated from Russia in 1958 by an arbitrary administrative act by Nikita Khrushchev.  In the post-war Soviet Union, Crimea was a popular resort destination for citizens of the Soviet Union.  Russians regard Crimea much as Americans would regard Florida.  It is a traditional resort and vacation land, a place of pleasant memories for today’s generation of Russians, their parents and grandparents.  

From the Western perspective, Russia’s actions are a war of territorial expansion, an unimaginable return to the predatory aggression of World War II.  Western diplomats regard Crimea is an integral part of Ukraine.  Ukraine’s border were established two generations ago, and guaranteed by a treaty in 1994.  In that treaty, Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons, in exchange for the guarantee of security of its borders.

Each perception contains partial truth.   But reality goes beyond either perspective.   Western interests did provoke this crisis.   Europeans pursued economic integration with Ukraine, in a genuine, well-meaning attempt to improve the lives of people.   American diplomats promoted the Western-leaning opposition in a geo-political game of domination, and undermined the existing democratic government.  Russia, for its part, is over-reacting, to its own detriment.  Vladimir Putin is using this crisis to demonstrate that he has no tolerance of such interference in satellite countries.   Russia does not regard Ukraine as an equal sovereign state, but rather like a vassal, a little brother bound to Russia politically, economically, and militarily.  Russia will not tolerate the disloyalty and insubordination of Ukraine pursuing a different destiny.

When protests in Kiev reached a tipping point, Russia acted opportunistically, implementing a well-defined plan to dismember Ukraine.   After Russia annexed Crimea, the next steps were predestined.  Despite reassurances by Putin, diplomats and news media, Russia never intended to stop after the annexation of Crimea.  Crimea is dependent on the Ukrainian mainland for water, for power, and for natural gas.  To obtain a secure border for Russian territory, it was immediately necessary to control Kherson province.   And secure control of Kherson province requires control of the Black Sea coast, and the roads and infrastructure of eastern Ukraine.    At this point, Russia cannot back away.   Russia will continue its well-practiced process of local insurrection, military acquisition of strategic infrastructure and annexation until it has acquired all of Eastern Ukraine and the Black Sea coast to Moldova.  Russia's goals will be to obtain a secure border, separation of Russian-speaking regions from Ukraine, control of critical infrastructure, and ownership of prospective petroleum resources within Ukraine.   These petroleum resources exist in the Donets basin of Eastern Ukraine, and the offshore areas of the Black Sea.  The Black Sea coast of Ukraine is a highly prospective but mostly unexplored petroleum province.

Economic and Political Systems

Here’s my political theory. 

The political organization in a society must match the economic organization in that society.  Political structures which do not match the economic structure of the society are unstable, and will not endure.

When the economic unit consisted of a city and surrounding farmland, the political unit was the city-state.   As trading between cities increased, the level of political organization grew to principalities or small kingdoms.  Larger economies, such as ancient Egypt, carried correspondingly large political systems.  Empires sometimes arise as a result of aggressive leadership, but unless supported by widespread trade (e.g, the circum-Mediterranean trade of the Roman Empire), empires divide and die over the course of a few generations.   And so, the main political unit of the 20^th century has been the nation-state.   In recent decades, the increasing scale of trade caused more consolidation.  The European Union represents the next scale of political organization, reflecting economic integration across an entire continent, spanning many nations, languages, and cultures.  North America is awkwardly adjusting to the integration of Mexican and American cultures.

The Soviet Union was perhaps the first economic super-state.  The Soviet economy spanned 15 countries, and was continent-wide in political and economic union.  But this first experiment as a super-state failed, due to the flawed paradigm of strong state control, micro-managed economic planning, single-party political rule, and disregard for human liberty. 

The conflict in Ukraine is a conflict at the border between two expanding economic systems, each striving to improve lives through improved efficiency and economic integration.  But for the people with the misfortune to live in this torn country, there is no benefit. 

Consequences

As usual, there will be no winners in this conflict.

Russia will consolidate its influence in Eastern Ukraine and the Black Sea coast; the only question is how much violence will occur.  Western Ukraine will adopt an economic alignment with the European Union.   The West will need to provide substantial economic support to Western Ukraine for many years.   The people living in the disputed territories will suffer from local conflict for years to come.   Russians living in other satellite countries may be subject to prejudice or expulsion, as the principle rationale for Russian incursions into Crimea, S. Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Eastern Ukraine is that Russians are living in these places, and need protection.  Satellite countries that wish to preserve their autonomy may decide to preempt this process by expelling ethnic Russians, as occurred in several former Soviet Republics, following the breakup of the Soviet Union.  Russia will see the departure of Western investment, jobs, and technology.  The Russian economic growth was already slowing before the Ukrainian crisis; economic sanctions are likely to push the economy into recession. 

Vladimir Putin’s vision of Russia is that of a self-contained and self-sufficient society.  But the world is moving toward greater economic integration.  Every industry is benefiting from innovation and investment that is only possible in a world without economic borders.  Russia is shutting the door to participation in that world.

Putin’s Russia would be the center of an economic and political super-state, along the lines of the Soviet Union.   But Putin’s Russia has not corrected the flaws of the Soviet system.  And Russia lacks the wealth and technology to create a 21st century super-state.  Because of these actions in Ukraine, I believe Russia will become less wealthy, less influential, and more politically unstable in the coming decades.

And the question remains whether the adults and political leaders of the 21st century can hold the lives of people and the prosperity of society in higher regard than boys playing a game of world domination, fighting for control of a piece of territory called Ukraine.