2050 — A Hopeful Vision, For Once

I’ve realized lately that a glaring gap in leftist/progressive politics is its failure to articulate a clear, compelling, and hopeful vision of the future we seek. What do we want the future to look like, if we succeed in changing the world and get things more or less right?

I’m not for a moment saying that we should forsake reality for pollyannish thinking. But in any endeavour, it’s critical to know where you’re trying to get to or what you’re trying to accomplish. And it’s time we moved beyond vague platitudes like “a better world”. We need specifics. Young people in particular need something to work towards, something to be hopeful and optimistic about, even in the midst of so much encroaching darkness. Why should they rage against the machine or the dying of the light or whatever?

To answer, I offer this, which I’ve been sitting on for awhile. It’s probably simplistic, but we have to start somewhere.

2050

The world has changed for the better.

During the 2020s, the nations of the world finally committed to combatting anthropogenic climate change. Through a combination of rapid abandonment of fossil fuels, mass adoption of clean energy technology, a global food program that de-emphasized livestock agriculture, large scale rewilding efforts, an ocean cleanup program, and some modest success with carbon capture technology, the worst anticipated effects of climate change were prevented, and carbon emissions peaked and went into decline. The warming trend levelled off, and a gradual reversion is occurring. The problem is not solved yet, and the consequences of decades of inaction are still being felt, but measurable and noticeable progress is being made.

Global plant-based food production has exploded. Older and abandoned skyscrapers in cities around the world have been repurposed into self-sustaining “vertical farms”, drawing much of their water from the atmosphere and recycling it, and powered by transparent solar panels. Advances in materials science and 3-D printing have rapidly shrunk construction costs and time frames, such that large scale vertical farming facilities have been established in the world’s most impoverished regions. Extreme poverty has been eliminated, and world hunger and malnourishment exist only in the most remote and arid regions. Large scale, industrial animal agriculture has been all but completely phased out; lab grown meat is widely available, though still relatively expensive.

Improved sanitation has led to the near-eradication of malaria, typhus, and cholera. Nanorobotic medicine is now commonplace and inexpensive. Free or cheap birth control options are widely available around the world, and the rate of population growth — especially in the developing world — has slowed to near the replacement rate. Full literacy is closer than ever to becoming a reality, and massive expansion of communications networks has brought distance learning options to most of the globe.

The world has largely abandoned the scarcity economic model. The massive injection of infrastructure spending into the global economy has resulted in a much more skilled population, and a sharp drop in global unemployment. Universal basic income programs have been instituted around the world, which has brought radically improved levels of sanitation, electrification, housing and connectivity to all who wish it. Conservation has become the model of the new economy; while financial speculation and the pursuit of wealth and prestige goods still exist, they are seen by most as irresponsible, unsophisticated fringe behaviours and outdated relics of the more cutthroat, selfish, less harmonious past. The de-prioritization of monetary wealth and the elimination of much poverty have led to radical reductions in crime; drug addiction has declined and, though still a problem, is treated as a health issue. More and more people use bicycles for local travel, many equipped with electric motors for uphill assistance that are charged via pedaling. The shift has also led to medical systems emphasizing preventative care, and coupled with an attitudinal shift such that the majority of personal food choices are made on the basis of health benefit, overall the human population is fitter and healthier than it has ever been before. Incidence of cancers, heart disease, diabetes, obesity and respiratory ailments have all seen considerable decline.

With the end of the fossil fuel era and the near end of livestock agriculture, geopolitics in 2050 is nearly unrecognizable from that of the 2020s. Regional flashpoints such as the Middle East are no longer of strategic significance, since the importance of oil extraction has plummeted. Desalination plants have been constructed on a large scale around the world, providing clean drinking water to impoverished and arid regions. National borders still exist, but international cooperation seems to happen almost automatically and organically now; with the decline of capitalist economics came the reduction of most of the causes of international conflict. Nationalist and religious strife have proven challenging problems to overcome, though improved living standards have significantly reduced the power of demagogues or zealots to sway large populations.

There are small but growing permanent human settlements on the Moon, primarily focused on mining, and humans have set foot on Mars and established outposts. Advances in spacecraft propulsion have shortened travel times in space considerably.

Overall, humanity has at last broken free of its chaotic, conflict-ridden past, learned to live sustainably and in relative harmony with its home planet, and stands on the threshold of a brighter future.