Physics of the Future_ How Science Will Shape Human Destiny... Part 20

The future is wide open. As we mentioned, Silicon Valley could become the next Rust Belt in the coming decades, as the age of silicon pa.s.ses and the torch pa.s.ses to the next innovator. Which nations will lead in the future? In the days of the Cold War, the superpowers were those nations that could wield military influence around the world. But the breakup of the Soviet Union has made it clear that in the future the nations that will rise to the top will be those that build their economies, which in turn depends on cultivating and nouris.h.i.+ng science and technology.

So who are the leaders of tomorrow? The nations that truly grasp this fact. For example, the United States has maintained its dominance in science and technology in spite of the fact that U.S. students often score dead last when it comes to essential subjects like science and math. Proficiency test scores in 1991, for example, showed thirteen-year-old students in the United States ranking fifteenth in math and fourteenth in science, just above Jordanian students, who ranked eighteenth in both categories. Tests taken since then annually confirm these dismal numbers. (It should also be pointed out that this ranking corresponds roughly to the number of days that students were in school. China, which ranked number 1, averaged 251 days of instruction per year, while the United States averaged only 178 days per year.) It seems like a mystery that, despite these awful numbers, the United States continues to do well internationally in science and technology, until you realize that much of the U.S. science comes from overseas, in the form of the "brain drain." The United States has a secret weapon, the H1B visa, the so-called genius visa. If you can show that you have special talents, resources, or scientific knowledge, you can jump ahead of the line and get an H1B visa. This has continually replenished our scientific ranks. Silicon Valley, for example, is roughly 50 percent foreign born, many coming from Taiwan and India. Nationwide, 50 percent of all Ph.D. students in physics are foreign born. At my university, the City University of New York, the figure is closer to 100 percent foreign born.

Some congressmen have tried to eliminate the H1B visa because, they claim, it takes jobs away from Americans, but they do not understand the true role that this visa plays. Usually, there are no Americans qualified to take the highest-level jobs in Silicon Valley, which we've seen often go unfilled as a consequence. This fact was apparent when former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder tried to pa.s.s a similar H1B visa immigration law for Germany, but the measure was defeated by those who claimed that this would take jobs away from native-born Germans. Again, the critics failed to understand that there are often no Germans to fill these high-level jobs, which then go unfilled. These H1B immigrants do not take away jobs, they create entire new industries.

But the H1B visa is only a stopgap measure. The United States cannot continue to live off foreign scientists, many of whom are beginning to return to China and India as their economies improve. So the brain drain is not sustainable. This means that the United States will eventually have to overhaul its archaic, sclerotic education system. At present, poorly prepared high school students flood the job market and universities, creating a logjam. Employers continually bemoan the fact that they have to take one year to train their new hires to bring them up to speed. And the universities are burdened by having to create new layers of remedial courses to compensate for the poor high school education system.

Fortunately, our universities and businesses eventually do a commendable job of repairing the damage done by the high school system, but this is a waste of time and talent. For the United States to remain compet.i.tive into the future, there have to be fundamental changes in the elementary and high school system.

To be fair, the United States still has significant advantages. I was once at a c.o.c.ktail party at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and met a biotech entrepreneur from Belgium. I asked him why he left, given that Belgium has its own vigorous biotech industry. He said that in Europe, often you don't get a second chance. Since people know who you and your family are, if you make a mistake, you could be finished. Your mistakes tend to follow you, no matter where you are. But in the United States, he said, you can constantly reinvent yourself. People don't care who your ancestors were. They just care what you can do for them now, today. This was refres.h.i.+ng, he said, and one reason why other European scientists move to the United States.

LESSON OF SINGAPORE.

In the West, there is the expression "The squeaky wheel gets the grease." But in the East, there is another expression: "The nail that sticks out gets hammered down." These two expressions are diametrically opposed to each other, but they capture some of the essential features of Western and Eastern thought.

In Asia, the students often have test scores that soar beyond those of their counterparts in the West. However, much of that learning is book learning and rote memorization, which will take you only to a certain level. To reach the higher levels of science and technology, you need creativity, imagination, and innovation, which the Eastern system does not nurture. So although China may eventually catch up with the West when it comes to producing cheap factory-made copies of goods first manufactured in the West, it will lag for decades behind the West in the creative process of dreaming up new products and new strategies.

I once spoke at a conference in Saudi Arabia, where another featured speaker was Lee Kuan Yew, prime minister of Singapore from 1959 to 1990. He is something of a rock star among the developing nations, since he helped to forge the modern nation of Singapore, which ranks among the top nations in science. Singapore, in fact, is the fifth-richest nation in the world, if you calculate the per capita gross domestic product. The audience strained to hear every word from this legendary figure.

He reminisced about the early days after the war, when Singapore was viewed as a backwater port known primarily for piracy, smuggling, drunken sailors, and other unsavory activities. A group of his a.s.sociates, however, dreamed of the day when this tiny seaport could rival the West. Although Singapore had no significant natural resources, its greatest resource was its own people, who were hardworking and semiskilled. His group embarked on a remarkable journey, taking this sleepy backwater nation and transforming it into a scientific powerhouse within one generation. It was perhaps one of the most interesting cases of social engineering in history.

He and his party began a systematic process of revolutionizing the entire nation, stressing science and education and concentrating on the high-tech industries. Within just a few decades, Singapore created a large pool of highly educated technicians, which made it possible for the country to become one of the leading exporters of electronics, chemicals, and biomedical equipment. In 2006, it produced 10 percent of the world's foundry wafer output for computers.

There have been a number of problems, he confessed, along the course of modernizing his nation. To enforce social order, they imposed draconian laws, outlawing everything from spitting on the street (punishable by whipping) to drug dealing (punishable by death). But he also noticed one important thing. Top scientists, he found, were eager to visit Singapore, yet only a handful stayed. Later, he found out one reason why: there were no cultural amenities and attractions to keep them in Singapore. This gave him his next idea: deliberately fostering all the cultural fringe benefits of a modern nation (ballet companies, symphony orchestras, etc.) so that top scientists would sink their roots in Singapore. Almost overnight, cultural organizations and events were springing up all over the country as a lure to keep the scientific elite anch.o.r.ed there.

Next, he also realized that the children of Singapore were blindly repeating the words of their teachers, not challenging the conventional wisdom and creating new ideas. He realized that the East would forever be trailing the West as long as it produced scientists who could only copy others. So he set into motion a revolution in education: creative students would be singled out and allowed to pursue their dreams at their own pace. Realizing that someone like a Bill Gates or a Steve Jobs would be crushed by Singapore's suffocating educational system, he asked schoolteachers to systematically identify the future geniuses who could revitalize the economy with their scientific imagination.

The lesson of Singapore is not for everyone. It is a small city-state, where a handful of visionaries could practice controlled nation building. And not everyone wants to be whipped for spitting on the street. However, it shows you what you can do if you systematically want to leap to the front of the information revolution.

CHALLENGE FOR THE FUTURE.

I once spent some time at the Inst.i.tute for Advanced Study at Princeton, and had lunch with Freeman Dyson. He began to reminisce about his long career in science and then mentioned a disturbing fact. Before the war, when he was a young university student in the UK, he found that the brightest minds of England were turning their backs on the hard sciences, like physics and chemistry, in favor of lucrative careers in finance and banking. While the previous generation was creating wealth, in the form of electrical and chemical plants and inventing new electromechanical machines, the next generation was indulging in ma.s.saging and managing other people's money. He lamented that it was a sign of the decline of the British Empire. England could not maintain its status as a world power if it had a crumbling scientific base.

Then he said something that caught my attention.

He remarked that he was seeing this for the second time in his life. The brightest minds at Princeton were no longer tackling the difficult problems in physics and mathematics but were being drawn into careers like investment banking. Again, he thought, this might be a sign of decay, when the leaders of a society can no longer support the inventions and technology that made their society great.

This is our challenge for the future.

People alive now are living in the midst of what may be seen as the most extraordinary three or four centuries in human history.

-JULIAN SIMON Where there is no vision, the people perish.

-PROVERBS 29:18

In mythology, the G.o.ds lived in the divine splendor of heaven, far above the insignificant affairs of mere mortals. The Greek G.o.ds frolicked in the heavenly domain of Mount Olympus, while the Norse G.o.ds who fought for honor and eternal glory would feast in the hallowed halls of Valhalla with the spirits of fallen warriors. But if our destiny is to attain the power of the G.o.ds by the end of the century, what will our civilization look like in 2100? Where is all this technological innovation taking our civilization?

All the technological revolutions described here are leading to a single point: the creation of a planetary civilization. This transition is perhaps the greatest in human history. In fact, the people living today are the most important ever to walk the surface of the planet, since they will determine whether we attain this goal or descend into chaos. Perhaps 5,000 generations of humans have walked the surface of the earth since we first emerged in Africa about 100,000 years ago, and of them, the ones living in this century will ultimately determine our fate.

Unless there is a natural catastrophe or some calamitous act of folly, it is inevitable that we will enter this phase of our collective history. We can see this most clearly by a.n.a.lyzing the history of energy.

RANKING CIVILIZATIONS.

When professional historians write history, they view it through the lens of human experience and folly, that is, through the exploits of kings and queens, the rise of social movements, and the proliferation of ideas. Physicists, by contrast, view history quite differently.

Physicists rank everything, even human civilizations, by the energy it consumes. When applied to human history, we see that for countless millennia, our energy was limited to 1/5 horsepower, the power of our bare hands, and hence we lived nomadic lives in small, wandering tribes, scavenging for food in a harsh, hostile environment. For eons, we were indistinguishable from the wolves. There were no written records, just stories handed down from generation to generation at lonely campfires. Life was short and brutish, with an average life expectancy of eighteen to twenty years. Your total wealth consisted of whatever you could carry on your back. Most of your life, you felt the gnawing pain of hunger. After you died, you left no trace that you had ever lived at all.

But 10,000 years ago, a marvelous event happened that set civilization into motion: the Ice Age ended. For reasons that we still do not understand, thousands of years of glaciation ended. This paved the way for the rise of agriculture. Horses and oxen were soon domesticated, which increased our energy to 1 horsepower. Now one person had the energy to harvest several acres of farmland, yielding enough surplus energy to support a rapidly expanding population. With the domestication of animals, humans no longer relied primarily on hunting animals for food, and the first stable villages and cities began to rise from the forests and plains.

The excess wealth created by the agricultural revolution sp.a.w.ned new, ingenious ways to maintain and expand this wealth. Mathematics and writing were created to count this wealth, calendars were needed to keep track of when to plant and harvest, and scribes and accountants were needed to keep track of this surplus and tax it. This excess wealth eventually led to the rise of large armies, kingdoms, empires, slavery, and ancient civilizations.

The next revolution took place about 300 years ago, with the coming of the Industrial Revolution. Suddenly, the wealth acc.u.mulated by an individual was not just the product of his hands and horse but the product of machines that could create fabulous wealth via ma.s.s production.

Steam engines could drive powerful machines and locomotives, so that wealth could be created from factories, mills, and mines, not just fields. Peasants, fleeing from periodic famines and tired of backbreaking work in the fields, flocked to the cities, creating the industrial working cla.s.s. Blacksmiths and wagonmakers were eventually replaced by autoworkers. With the coming of the internal combustion engine, a person could now command hundreds of horsepower. Life expectancy began to grow, hitting forty-nine in the United States by the year 1900.

Finally, we are in the third wave, where wealth is generated from information. The wealth of nations is now measured by electrons circulating around the world on fiber-optic cables and satellites, eventually dancing across computer screens on Wall Street and other financial capitals. Science, commerce, and entertainment travel at the speed of light, giving us limitless information anytime, anywhere.

TYPE I, II, AND III CIVILIZATIONS.

How will this exponential rise in energy continue into the coming centuries and millennia? When physicists try to a.n.a.lyze civilizations, we rank them on the basis of the energy they consume. This ranking was first introduced in 1964 by Russian astrophysicist Nikolai Kardashev, who was interested in probing the night sky for signals sent from advanced civilizations in s.p.a.ce.

He was not satisfied with something as nebulous and ill defined as an "extraterrestrial civilization," so he introduced a quant.i.tative scale to guide the work of astronomers. He realized that extraterrestrial civilizations may differ on the basis of their culture, society, government, etc., but there was one thing they all had to obey: the laws of physics. And from the earth, there was one thing that we could observe and measure that could cla.s.sify these civilizations into different categories: their consumption of energy.

So he proposed three theoretical types: A Type I civilization is planetary, consuming the sliver of sunlight that falls on their planet, or about 1017 watts. A Type II civilization is stellar, consuming all the energy that their sun emits, or 10 watts. A Type II civilization is stellar, consuming all the energy that their sun emits, or 1027 watts. A Type III civilization is galactic, consuming the energy of billions of stars, or about 10 watts. A Type III civilization is galactic, consuming the energy of billions of stars, or about 1037 watts. watts.

The advantage of this cla.s.sification is that we can quantify the power of each civilization rather than make vague and wild generalizations. Since we know the power output of these celestial objects, we can put specific numerical constraints on each of them as we scan the skies.

Each type is separated by a factor of 10 billion: a Type III civilization consumes 10 billion times more energy than a Type II civilization (because there are roughly 10 billion or more stars in a galaxy), which in turn consumes 10 billion times more energy than a Type I civilization.

According to this cla.s.sification, our present-day civilization is Type 0. We don't even rate on this scale, since we get our energy from dead plants, that is, from oil and coal. (Carl Sagan, generalizing this cla.s.sification, tried to get a more precise estimate of where we ranked on this cosmic scale. His calculation showed that we are actually a Type .7 civilization.) On this scale, we can also cla.s.sify the various civilizations we see in science fiction. A typical Type I civilization would be that of Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon, where an entire planet's energy resources have been developed. They can control all planetary sources of energy, so they might be able to control or modify the weather at will, harness the power of a hurricane, or have cities on the oceans. Although they roam the heavens in rockets, their energy output is still largely confined to a planet.

A Type II civilization might include Star Trek Star Trek's United Federation of Planets (without the warp drive), able to colonize about 100 nearby stars. Their technology is barely capable of manipulating the entire energy output of a star.

A Type III civilization may be the Empire in the Star Wars Star Wars saga, or perhaps the Borg in the saga, or perhaps the Borg in the Star Trek Star Trek series, both of which have colonized large portions of a galaxy, embracing billions of star systems. They can roam the galactic s.p.a.ce lanes at will. series, both of which have colonized large portions of a galaxy, embracing billions of star systems. They can roam the galactic s.p.a.ce lanes at will.

(Although the Kardashev scale is based on planets, stars, and galaxies for its cla.s.sification, we should point out the possibility of a Type IV civilization, which derives its energy from extragalactic sources. The only known energy source beyond our galaxy is dark energy, which makes up 73 percent of the matter and energy of the known universe, while the world of stars and galaxies makes up only 4 percent of the universe. A possible candidate for a Type IV civilization might be the G.o.dlike Q in the Star Trek Star Trek series, whose power is extragalactic.) series, whose power is extragalactic.) We can use this cla.s.sification to calculate when we might achieve each of these types. a.s.sume that world civilization grows at the rate of 1 percent each year in terms of its collective GDP. This is a reasonable a.s.sumption when we average over the past several centuries. According to this a.s.sumption, it takes roughly 2,500 years to go from one civilization to the next. A 2 percent growth rate would give a transition period of 1,200 years.

But we can also calculate how long it would take for our planet to attain Type I cla.s.sification. In spite of economic recessions and expansions, booms and busts, we can mathematically estimate that we will attain Type I status in about 100 years, given an average rate of our economic growth.

FROM TYPE O TO TYPE I.

We see evidence of this transition from Type 0 to Type I every time we open a newspaper. Many of the headlines can be traced to the birth pangs of a Type I civilization being born right in front of our eyes.

*The Internet is the beginning of a Type I planetary telephone system. For the first time in history, a person on one continent can effortlessly exchange unlimited information with someone on another continent. In fact, many people already feel they have more in common with someone on the other side of the world than with their next-door neighbor. This process will only accelerate as nations lay even more fiber-optic cables and launch more communications satellites. This process is also unstoppable. Even if the president of the United States tried to ban the Internet, he would be met only with laughter. There are almost a billion personal computers in the world today, and roughly a quarter of humanity has been on the Internet at least once.

*A handful of languages, led by English, followed by Chinese, are rapidly emerging as the future Type I language. On the World Wide Web, for example, 29 percent of visitors log on in English, followed by 22 percent in Chinese, 8 percent in Spanish, 6percent in j.a.panese, and 5 percent in French. English is already the de facto planetary language of science, finance, business, and entertainment. English is the number-one second language on the planet. No matter where I travel, I find that English has emerged as the lingua franca. In Asia, for example, when Vietnamese, j.a.panese, and Chinese are in a meeting, they use English to communicate. Currently, there are about 6,000 languages being spoken on earth, and 90 percent of them are expected to become extinct in the coming decades, according to Michael E. Krauss, formerly of the University of Alaska's Native Language Center. The telecommunications revolution is accelerating this process, as people living in even the most remote regions of the earth are exposed to English. This will also accelerate economic development as their societies are further integrated into the world economy, thereby raising living standards and economic activity.

Some people will bemoan the fact that some ancestral languages will no longer be spoken. But on the other hand, the computer revolution will guarantee that these languages are not lost. Native speakers will add their language and their culture to the Internet, where they will last forever.

*We are witnessing the birth of a planetary economy. The rise of the European Union and other trade blocs represents the emergence of a Type I economy. Historically, the peoples of Europe have fought blood feuds with their neighbors for thousands of years. Even after the fall of the Roman Empire, these tribes would continue to slaughter one another, eventually becoming the feuding nations of Europe. Yet today, these bitter rivals have suddenly banded together to form the European Union, representing the largest concentration of wealth on the planet. The reason these nations have abruptly put aside their famous rivalries is to compete with the economic juggernaut of nations that signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In the future, we will see more economic blocs forming, as nations realize that they cannot remain compet.i.tive unless they join lucrative trading blocs.

We see graphic evidence of this when a.n.a.lyzing the great recession of 2008. Within a matter of days, the shock waves emanating from Wall Street rippled through the financial halls of London, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Today, it is impossibleto understand the economics of a single nation without understanding the trends affecting the world economy.

*We are seeing the rise of a planetary middle cla.s.s. Hundreds of millions of people in China, India, and elsewhere are entering its ranks, which is perhaps the greatest social upheaval in the last half century. This group is savvy about cultural, educational, and economic trends affecting the planet. The focus of this planetary middle cla.s.s is not wars, religion, or strict moral codes, but political and social stability and consumer goods. The ideological and tribal pa.s.sions that might have gripped their ancestors mean little to them if their goal is to have a suburban house with two cars. While their ancestors might have celebrated the day their sons went off to war, one of their main concerns now is to get them into a good college. And for people who enviously watch other people rise, they will wonder when their time will come. Kenichi Ohmae, a former senior partner of McKinsey & Company, writes, "People will inevitably start to look around them and ask why they cannot have what others have. Equally important, they will start to ask why they were not able to have it in the past."

*The economy, not weapons, is the new criterion for a superpower. The rise of the EU and NAFTA underscores an important point: with the end of the Cold War, it is clear that a world power can maintain its dominant position mainly through economic might. Nuclear wars are simply too dangerous to fight, so it is economic might that will largely determine the destiny of nations. One contributing factor to the collapse of the Soviet Union was the economic stress of competing militarily with the United States. (As the advisers to President Ronald Reagan once commented, the strategy of the United States was to spend Russia into a depression, that is, increase U.S. military expenditure so that the Russians, with an economy less than half the size of the United States', would have to starve their own people to keep up.) In the future, it is clear that a superpower can maintain its status only through economic might, and that in turn stems from science and technology.

*A planetary culture is emerging, based on youth culture (rock and roll and youth fas.h.i.+on), movies (Hollywood blockbusters), high fas.h.i.+on (luxury goods), and food (ma.s.s-market fast-food chains). No matter where you travel, you can find evidence of the same cultural trends in music, art, and fas.h.i.+on. For example, Hollywood carefully factors in global appeal when it estimates the success of a potential blockbuster movie. Movies with cross-cultural themes (such as action or romance), packed with internationally recognized celebrities, are the big moneymakers for Hollywood, evidence of an emerging planetary culture.

We saw this after World War II when, for the first time in human history, an entire generation of young people possessed enough disposable income to alter the prevailing culture. Formerly, children were sent into the fields to toil with their parents once they hit p.u.b.erty. (This is the origin of the three-month summer vacation. During the Middle Ages, children were required to do backbreaking work in the fields during summer as soon as they were of age.) But with rising prosperity, the postwar baby boom generation left the fields to head to the streets. Today, we see the same pattern taking place in country after country, as economic development empowers youth with ample disposable incomes. Eventually, as most of the people of the world enter the middle cla.s.s, rising incomes will filter down to their youth, fueling a perpetuation of this planetary youth culture.

Rock and roll, Hollywood movies, etc., are in fact prime examples of how intellectual capitalism is replacing commodity capitalism. Robots for decades to come will be incapable of creating music and movies that can thrill an international audience.

This is also happening in the world of fas.h.i.+on, where a handful of brand names are extending their reach worldwide. High fas.h.i.+on, once reserved for the aristocracy and the extremely wealthy, is rapidly proliferating around the world as more people enter the middle cla.s.s and aspire to some of the glamour of the rich. High fas.h.i.+on is no longer the exclusive province of the privileged elite.

But the emergence of a planetary culture does not mean that local cultures or customs will be wiped out. Instead, people will be bicultural. On one hand, they will keep their local cultural traditions alive (and the Internet guarantees that these regional customs will survive forever). The rich cultural diversity of the world will continue to thrive into the future. In fact, certain obscure features of local culture can spread around the world via the Internet, gaining them a worldwide audience. On the other hand, people will be fluent in the changing trends that affect global culture. When people communicate with those from another culture, they will do so via the global culture. This has already happened to many of the elites on the planet: they speak the local language and obey local customs but use English and follow international customs when dealing with people from other countries. This is the model for the emerging Type I civilization. Local cultures will continue to thrive, coexisting side by side with the larger global culture.

*The news is becoming planetary. With satellite TV, cell phones, the Internet, etc., it becomes impossible for one nation to completely control and filter the news. Raw footage is emerging from all parts of the world, beyond the reach of censors. When wars or revolutions break out, the stark images are broadcast instantly around the world as they happen in real time. In the past, it was relatively easy for the Great Powers of the nineteenth century to impose their values and manipulate the news. Today, this is still possible, but on a much reduced basis because of advanced technology. Also, with rising education levels around the world, there is a much larger audience for world news. Politicians today have to include world opinion when they think about the consequences of their actions.

*Sports, which in the past were essential in forging a tribal and then a national ident.i.ty, are now forging a planetary ident.i.ty. Soccer and the Olympics are emerging to dominate planetary sports. The 2008 Olympics, for example, were widely interpreted as a coming-out party for the Chinese, who wanted to a.s.sume their rightful cultural position in the world after centuries of isolation. This is also an example of the Cave Man Principle, since sports are High Touch but are entering the world of High Tech.

*Environmental threats are also being debated on a planetary scale. Nations realize that the pollution they create crosses national boundaries and hence can precipitate an international crisis. We first saw this when a gigantic hole in the ozone layer opened over the South Pole. Because the ozone layer prevents harmful UV and X-rays from the sun from reaching the ground, nations banded together to limit the production and consumption of chlorofluorocarbons used in refrigerators and industrial systems. The Montreal Protocol was signed in 1987 and successfully decreased the use of the ozone-depleting chemicals. Building on this international success, most nations adopted the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 to address the threat of global warming, which is an even greater threat to the environment of the planet.

*Tourism is one of the fastest-growing industries on the planet. During most of human history, it was common for people to live out their entire lives within a few miles of their birthplace. It was easy for unscrupulous leaders to manipulate their people, who had little to no contact with other peoples. But today, one can go around the globe on a modest budget. Backpacking youths of today who stay in budget youth hostels around the world will become the leaders of tomorrow. Some people decry the fact that tourists have only the crudest understanding of local cultures, histories, and politics. But we have to weigh that against the past, when contact between distant cultures was almost nonexistent, except during times of war, often with tragic results.

*Likewise, the falling price of intercontinental travel is accelerating contact between diverse peoples, making wars more difficult to wage and spreading the ideals of democracy. One of the main factors that whipped up animosity between nations was misunderstanding between people. In general, it is quite difficult to wage war on a nation you are intimately familiar with.

*The nature of war itself is changing to reflect this new reality. History has shown that two democracies almost never wage war against each other. Almost all wars of the past have been waged between nondemocracies, or between a democracy and a nondemocracy. In general, war fever can be easily whipped up by demagogues who demonize the enemy. But in a democracy, with a vibrant press, oppositional parties, and a comfortable middle cla.s.s that has everything to lose in a war, war fever is much more difficult to cultivate. It is hard to whip up war fever when there is a skeptical press and mothers who demand to know why their children are going to war.

There will still be wars in the future. As the Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz once said, "War is politics by other means." Although we will still have wars, their nature will change as democracy is spread around the world.

(There is another reason why wars are becoming more difficult to wage as the world becomes more affluent and people have more to lose. Political theorist Edward Luttwak has written that wars are much more difficult to wage because families are smaller today. In the past, the average family had ten or so children; the eldest inherited the farm, while the younger siblings joined the church, the military, or sought their fortunes elsewhere. Today, when a typical family has an average of 1.5 children, there is no more surplus of children to easily fill the military and the priesthood. Hence, wars will be much more difficult to wage, especially between democracies and third-world guerrillas.) *Nations will weaken but will still exist in 2100. They will still be needed to pa.s.s laws and fix local problems. However, their power and influence will be vastly decreased as the engines of economic growth become regional, then global. For example, with the rise of capitalism in the late 1700s and early 1800s, nations were needed to enforce a common currency, language, tax laws, and regulations concerning trade and patents. Feudal laws and traditions, which hindered the advance of free trade, commerce, and finance, were quickly swept away by national governments. Normally, this process might take a century or so, but we saw an accelerated version of this when Otto von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor, forged the modern German state in 1871. In the same way, this march toward a Type I civilization is changing the nature of capitalism, and economic power is gradually s.h.i.+fting from national governments to regional powers and trade blocs.

This does not necessarily mean a world government. There are many ways a planetary civilization could exist. It is clear that national governments will lose relative power, but what power will fill the vacuum will depend on many historical, cultural, and national trends that are hard to predict.

*Diseases will be controlled on a planetary basis. In the ancient past, virulent diseases were actually not so dangerous because the human population was very low. The incurable Ebola virus, for example, is probably an ancient disease that infected just a few villages over thousands of years. But the rapid expansion of civilization into previously uninhabited areas and the rise of cities mean that something like Ebola has to be monitored very carefully.

When the population of cities. .h.i.t several hundred thousand to a million, diseases could spread rapidly and create genuine epidemics. The fact that the Black Plague killed perhaps half the European population was an indication, ironically, of progress, because populations had reached critical ma.s.s for epidemics and s.h.i.+pping routes connected ancient cities around the world.

The recent outbreak of the H1N1 flu is thus a measure of our progress as well. Perhaps originating in Mexico City, the disease spread quickly around the globe via jet travel. More important, it took only a matter of months for the nations of the world to sequence the genes of the virus and then create a vaccine for it that was available to tens of millions of people.

TERRORISM AND DICTATORs.h.i.+PS.

There are groups, however, that instinctively resist the trend toward a Type I planetary civilization, because they know that it is progressive, free, scientific, prosperous, and educated. These forces may not be conscious of this fact and cannot articulate it, but they are in effect struggling against the trend toward a Type I civilization. These are: *Islamic terrorists, who would prefer to go back a millennium, to the eleventh century, rather than live in the twenty-first century. They cannot frame their discontent in this fas.h.i.+on, but, judging from their own statements, they prefer to live in a theocracy where science, personal relations, and politics are all subject to strict religious edicts. (They forget that, historically, the greatness and scientific and technological prowess of the Islamic civilization were matched only by its tolerance of new ideas. These terrorists do not understand the true source of the greatness of the Islamic past.) *Dictators.h.i.+ps that depend on keeping their people ignorant of the wealth and progress of the outside world. One striking example was the demonstrations that gripped Iran in 2009, where the government tried to suppress the ideas of the demonstrators, who were using Twitter and YouTube in their struggle to carry their message to the world.

In the past, people said that the pen was mightier than the sword. In the future, it will be the chip that is mightier than the sword.

One of the reasons the people of North Korea, a horribly impoverished nation, do not rebel is because they are denied all contact with the world, whose people, they believe, are also starving. In part, not realizing that they do not have to accept their fate, they endure incredible hards.h.i.+p.

TYPE II CIVILIZATIONS.

By the time a society attains Type II status thousands of years into the future, it becomes immortal. Nothing known to science can destroy a Type II civilization. Since it will have long mastered the weather, ice ages can be avoided or altered. Meteors and comets can be also be deflected. Even if their sun goes supernova, the people will be able to flee to another star system, or perhaps prevent their star from exploding. (For example, if their sun turns into a red giant, they might be able swing asteroids around their planet in a slingshot effect in order to move their planet farther from the sun.) One way in which a Type II civilization may be able to exploit the entire energy output of a star is to create a gigantic sphere around it that absorbs all the sunlight of the star. This is called a Dyson sphere.