What Gross World Flourishing Could Look Like

Off a Cliff: We're reaching key tipping points

My Predictions for 2026

We're On the Cusp of Greatness

A Word With Marty: "FUTURE"

When Most People Don't Earn Enough Money

My Thoughts at the New Year

My Best Ideas....Inspired by listening to Lex Fridman

My Predictions for 2022

My Psychology Today article today offers my predictions for 2022.

5 Trends That the Career-Minded Should Consider in 2021

As a career counselor, part of my job is to anticipate trends and the implications for people at work and for those who are looking for work. My PsychologyToday.com article today describes five such trends.

Likely Trends in Work in 2021 and beyond

Rarely are predictions of dramatic change accurate. Prospects are better although less impressive when predicting continuation of existing trends. My Psychology Today article today offers my best shots.

Life in 2030? How politics may affect our work lives, values, and personal lives

The times have always been a-changin’ and people have always predicted that the changes will be big. I’m no different.

My PsychologyToday.com article today proposes how likely political changes could affect our work lives, our values, our personal lives.

13 Societal Trends

In understanding and negotiating our fast-changing world, it may be helpful to recognize its major trends: My PsychologyToday.com article today offers 13.

Career and Workplace Predictions for 2017

The past two years, I’ve written career and workplace predictions for TIME and they’ve been reasonably accurate. So, my PsychologyToday.com article today offers my predictions for 2017.

My Workplace and Career Predictions and Trends for 2015

As you make your career and workplace plans for 2015, you might want to consider the list of predictions and trends I identify in my Time.com article today.

My Predictions and Trends for 2013 and Beyond

This week, AOL selected my article, "The Biggest Job Trends to Be Ready for in 2013" as one of its Featured Stories. 

Job Market Predictions for 2013

HERE is my inaugural weekly contribution to U.S. News.

It's Part I of My Job Market Predictions for 2013 and Beyond.

What Might the World Be Like 100 Years From Now?

I wrote a recent post, Musings on Mortality. A reader, Jeffrie, commented, "May I ask what you would expect and/or hope the world would be like if you got to see the world 100 years after you die? And how would you live?"

Predictions beyond a year or two are notoriously invalid because too many factors can render them wrong. But for the fun of it, I'll take a shot here.

I'll get the bad news out of the way first. My guess is that 100 years from now, we'll have suffered a near Armageddon. The dramatic miniaturization of weapons of mass destruction make it too likely that a solo actor will have, for example, opened a vial of mutated highly communicable, deadly smallpox virus in the lobby of the international terminal of a major airport, infecting hundreds of people who are headed all over the world. Before a cure could be invented (Remember it's mutated and so no vaccine would exist), much of the world's population could die. Of course, almost no one would be crazy enough to do that. But among the billions of people on the planet, it only takes one person, for example, one disgruntled, demented scientist. 

Because of that and advances in clean-tech such as truly safe nuclear power, we'll worry far less about environmental degradation. 

I'd imagine we'll be transporting ourselves in nuclear-powered flying cars that can take off vertically from whatever parking spot we're in. 

We will have determined what gene clusters cause the major characteristics in humans: intelligence, impulse control, predisposition to cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. Prospective parents will, at their election, choose to ensure their children have good genes for such characteristics. Most parents will eagerly take advantage of this. Government will make that option available free to the poor as part of its Single Payer health plans. Life Expectancy will be 110, nearly all of it spent in good health. The right to assisted suicide will be ubiquitous and widely used among those in severe, likely irreversible pain. 

Because nearly all people will have high intelligence, greater efforts will have been made to automate menial tasks. So robots will replace humans in everything from busboy to janitor, ditch digger to cab driver. (You'll enter a cab, enter your desired address, and be flown directly to your destination. Sensors will prevent crashes.)

Asia will become dominant, America just a large midlevel player, exceptional mainly for its diversity. There will have been minor civil-war-like skirmishes but America will have become the true salad bowl envisioned by today's diversity activists. Privately, people will still choose to socialize mainly with people from similar socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds but, in the workplace, differences will be grudgingly accepted as "just the way things are."

The academic side of education will occur outside of a school. Each student will use his SmartPhone with a screen that folds out to 8 inches to take mini-courses taught online by dream-teams of the world's best instructors. These will be interactive and simulation-rich. Testing will all occur online, of course. Students will sign-in using iris-recognition technology. Small-footprint schools will exist but mainly for extracurricular and socialization activities. 

Politically, the world will have continued its leftward move. National sovereignty will be giving way to one-world government, with much redistribution from wealthier regions to poor ones. I believe that because the Have-Nots have more babies than do the Haves and they vote for liberal/redistributive governments. Also, many of the Haves feel guilty about their wealth and the media and colleges exacerbate that with such theories as "white male privilege," which implies that sexism and racism significantly affect people's success. 

How would I live in this new world? I'd probably choose to earn my living as a physician. I've always been in awe of the miracle of the human body and value life immensely. I'd consider it a privilege to help people extend the quality and quantity of theirs. My career counseling clients consider me a good listener, which is critical in a physician. I'd be additionally attracted to the medical profession 100 years from now because science will have advanced enough that so many currently difficult-to-treat conditions will have ready cures. 

Avocationally, I'd, as I do now, look to champion causes for making the world better that are not widely supported. That way, I'd feel my individual efforts would make more of a difference than if I simply jumped on an already large bandwagon. For example, I'd guess that 100 years from now, a commonly supported cause would be calls for yet more efficiencies. Because of that, I'd probably be a counter voice: reminding us of the importance of kindness, of smelling the roses a bit, and of pets. Indeed, one thing I wouldn't change in my life, even if it were 100 years from now: I'd try to find a pet as sweet as my doggie Einstein. 

My Predictions and Trends for 2011

My annual predictions, with implications for career, business, and investments have been reasonably accurate. They are among my most widely read and republished work. Here are my predictions and trends for 2011.

America 2.0: What Happens After America's Decline and Fall?

I have a client in Shanghai, a landscape architect. Like many of his colleagues there, he works from 9 AM to midnight most days--virtually all their waking hours. To encourage that, the employer houses the workers on-site in one-room "apartments" (more like a dorm room) and feeds them cafeteria-style.

That reminds me of the extraordinary work ethic of the Asian students at my alma mater, U.C. Berkeley. As much as Berkeley students normally resist stereotyping, it's widely acknowledged that most of the Asian students work much harder than the other students.

Meanwhile, America, in its attempt to be a kind nation, is making decision after decision to redistribute resources from those with the greatest potential to create jobs and thereby stimulate the economy, to those with the least. For example, the government continues to take our tax dollars, print money, and borrow from China, endangering our children's and our nation's future, to pay for, for instance:

• Extending unemployment payments, a not insubstantial amount (about $2,000 a month in large states), to a remarkable 99 weeks, which so encourages people to not look for jobs. (Nearly all my clients who are on unemployment say they wait until it's about to run out before they'll look for a job.) In responding to today's jobs report in which the private sector created almost no jobs (the job growth was mainly government temporary census workers) President Obama is calling for even more money to give to the unemployed.
  
• Prop up companies that make inferior cars.
  
• Wage wars and build nation-states in places like Afghanistan and Iraq.
• Aid countless poor countries.
• Not only condones but financially supports uncontrolled illegal immigration: largely poor, uneducated people from an agrarian society, unscreened for criminality, diseases, etc. For example, public schools are not allowed to ask parents whether they're here legally. The toll on the schools is tremendous: unprecedentedly large numbers of non-English-speaking students from poor backgrounds descending upon the schools, with their advocates insisting they be taught in the same classes as native speakers, which forces dumbing down of instruction. And the proposed "Dream Act," would enable illegal immigrants to attend our most prestigious public universities at in-state tuition. Because of reverse discrimination admission policies, that would mean that, for example, many legal residents of Arizona with an excellent high-school record and willing to pay the high out-of-state tuition, would likely be rejected from UCLA or Berkeley so an illegal with a worse high-school record could be admitted and allowed to pay only the low in-state tuition, and likely receive all sorts of scholarships and financial aid to boot. And now, when President Obama fulfills his promise of comprehensive immigration reform/amnesty, the illegals will qualify for ObamaCare and because most immigrants and their family members' income are low, they'll have their health care paid for by the taxpayer and will additionally overwhelm our health care system.
  

Ironic that America's kindness will be a major source of its demise.

Activists tout diversity as a strength. As I've seen it play out in workplaces and schools, it's a net weakness. Companies spend billions of dollars to manage diversity, this supposed strength. And among my career counseling clients, I almost never hear them discuss their workplace's diversity as a strength but often as a weakness: "All the Filipinos hang out by themselves and talk in Tagalog," The Black manager lets the Black employees get away with stuff they'd never let the white employees get away with." "I hate the Asians. They have no work-life balance and make us all look bad." "They don't speak English. I can't understand them and they can't understand me."

Perhaps the most powerful factor that will reduce America to third-world status is the gap between its middle 75% of its population versus that of countries like China and India. Those countries have a deep bench. Compare the Chinese or Indian average person, where hard work, science, technology, and entrepreneurship are core. Compare that with America's 225 million people in our middle 75%. I do not have statistics, but visits to average classes in average high schools and colleges and conversations with average people (for example, while waiting in line at supermarkets, the Department of Motor Vehicles, etc) let's just say, do not inspire optimism.

I am aware that America retains strengths, for example, it tends to value creativity, its women and minorities have opportunities, its universities produce top research (along with a lot of junk,) it offers strong consumer and worker protections. (Although the latter makes it very expensive to hire employees in the U.S., which encourages offshoring.) The U.S. still is the hub of the world's financial, biotechnology, and entertainment industries.

I am also aware of China''s and India's weaknesses, for example, an out-of-balance work ethic, an aging population, water supply problems, pollution, religious extremism (India), and a perhaps excessively conformist mindset.

But, net, I am convinced that we are seeing America's sunset and the Indo-China Empire's sunrise. All empires have their rise and fall: The Roman, The Ottoman, the British, and, I believe, now, the American.

So what do I predict for America? That we will join the world of nations as just another country, with a lower standard of living. Like residents of most countries, we will live in small apartments, drive small cars or not drive, eat more basic food, wear more basic clothes. The America of $200 jeans, $4.00 cups of coffee, and widely held mini-mansions will be over. Maybe that's a good thing, and just maybe, that will reduce the enmity that foreign terrorist groups have for the U.S.

What's an American to do? Learn that living simply doesn't mean living badly. Expect that you'll likely have long periods of un- and underemployment. To keep feeling productive, find rewarding productive, non-paying work: tutor a kid, act in a play, clean up the dog poop on your block. Constantly be nice--look for every opportunity to make the lives of those around you, including strangers, better. You may end up more contented and maybe even America 2.0 will, net, be a better place to live.

Oh, and invest in FXI, the China equivalent of the Dow-Jones Industrial Average.