Ask A Genius 648: Effective Governance and the Future
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2021/12/07
[Recording Start]
Rick Rosner: Or at least for most of our lives. A vast majority of people will try to avoid old age in one way or another, but the pleasures of human life, up until around age 60 or 65, will still be embraced by many. Anyway, have you ever taken a physics class where you had to diagram all the forces acting on a box?
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Sure.
Rosner: Like one attached to a pulley, sliding across a flat surface?
Jacobsen: Not that specific experiment, no.
Rosner: Ok, it’s like first-year physics. You’ve got frictional resistance and the weight of the box exerting a downward force. Then there’s the normal force, which I forget the exact term for, but it’s the force exerted by the table on the box, keeping it from falling through. You have to diagram all these forces and then predict what will happen to the box. So, there’s a lot going on, and in the future, we can’t predict exactly what will happen; we can only discuss some of the forces.
One such force is climate change, which will displace people and may lead to strife or even wars. Another is political instability, with people being influenced by new forms of media, like the rise of anti-democratic forces. In America, for example, it seems an unprecedented number of people are becoming increasingly irrational. Several tens of millions, you could argue, are acting irrationally due to forces that encourage such behavior. And it’s not just in America, although it’s most apparent here.
There are various political forces at play. Look at China, urbanizing rapidly in its quest to become the world’s most powerful country, with an economic system that’s somewhat of a mix. It’s dictatorial yet capitalistic, labeling itself communistic, but in practice, it’s increasingly capitalistic. What it terms communistic is actually more dictatorial, but this approach is working for them in terms of gaining political power. As a result, democracy may become less influential as a political force. Governments in general will likely become less powerful as they struggle to handle technical challenges effectively.
So, we have political instability, climate change, and alternate forms of living, all contributing to the complexity of future scenarios.
[Recording End]
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