Whatever I happen to think will happen, or what I think should happen, I think it’s pretty definite that there’s huge changes happening within the next couple decades. We’re running out of oil, which doesn’t just affect energy and transportation, it affects the entire manufacturing industry. Everything that’s made of plastic is made from oil. Computers, toothbrushes, ziplock bags, every kind of toy and every kind of package. They’re all made out of oil, with machines powered by oil, and then transported to stores with trucks that run on oil. Then you buy things by swiping your credit card which is made of oil through a machine which is made of oil and bring it out to your car that has tired made of oil and runs on oil. I don’t think we’re fucked or anything, but this might completely change how we live.

Another big change is well under way, the ‘free’ revolution. Now that many products exist only as bits of information, an arguably unlimited resource that costs near nothing to distribute, things are getting a lot more free. Before the internet people didn’t really get anything for free. It was a free sample maybe, or buy one get one free, but nothing was just free. Google has made billions of dollars from free. Free search, free e-mail, free maps, free books, free student resources, free online document storage and word processing… there are tons of free online games, from yahoo games to ‘second life’. Encyclopedia Britannica is spinning over in it’s grave trying to spit on Wikipedia. Radiohead’s album ‘In Rainbows’, where they let fans pay whatever they wanted, from free and up was one of their most commercially and financially successful albums. Then there’s ‘open source’ software, an internet revolution in the way companies model themselves and deal with their intellectual property. And of course there’s piracy. All I’m saying is that this completely uncharted territory for economists, and this revolution is still in its infancy.

The economy is collapsing and as much as they say it’s getting better, overall there are no real signs that this is true. The US just sinks further and further into debt that is impossible to pay off. I think they’re barely making the interest payments and once they can’t even do that anymore something is going to have to happen.

We’re destroying the environment, wonder if that’s gonna come back to bite us in the ass. Might not, there’s a good chance we’ll be able to fix the damage that’s been done, but the whole thing is still sort of a dark cloud looming over us right now.

Poor countries in Africa and other parts of the world are starting to get widespread internet access. $100 netbook computers are making this a conceivable reality for even poor people. The untethered availability of information has just become a reality at home in the past 10 years, and it’s spreading across the world. The world is shrinking by the minute. People all across the world can connect, come together, talk and share ideas with each other. The great distances that separate us are beginning not to matter.

“What’s gonna happen to the arms industry when we realize that we’re all one?”
-Bill Hicks

So yeah those things, along with our booming population and rapidly accelerating technological growth, I think are reason enough to believe that this is definitely an interesting time to be alive.