The value of predicting the future is simple: we identify a range of possible scenarios and then work to bring some about or to avoid or prepare for others. For example, if you know that there is a 75% chance of rain later today, you can decide whether to water your garden or mow the grass now.
Predicting some things likely to happen in the rest of 2011 is a fairly straight forward process. We’ll get a few things wrong, but larger trends are not difficult. My guesses: The Chinese Crackdown will continue. Qaddafi will eventually fall, but I’d give it a 50/50 chance as to whether it will happen this year. The Syrian government will continue in power. China’s influence in Central Asia will increase, and America’s will decline. And so on.
Forecasting general events to 2015 and on to 2025 is more problematic but likewise straight forward. There will be more people. There will be several disasters (because more people are building less durable homes in more disaster-prone areas). Given a dozen flashpoints, it’s likely that there will be significant armed conflict at some point in the next five years.
Once we get out toward and beyond 2050, however, things get very dicey. Part of the challenge is that wildcards become successively more likely as you add more years. For example, a once-in-50-year storm (e.g. a hurricane or a tornado) is not likely to happen next year, but IS likely to happen by 2050 (and certainly by 2100). A once-in-a-century disaster becomes increasingly likely to happen at some point as you get between 2050 and 2100. Those kinds of events cannot by definition be predicted with exactness but can cause major changes when they do.
So, how do we make predictions for the long-range-future?
Let’s begin by considering what kind prediction we are making, and what it’s value is. I tend to aim for something that is less weather forecast (“cloudy with a 75% chance of rain”) and more generally descriptive of life on an average day (“in that day, it might be more sunny on average on any given day.”)
The best description I’ve heard of the difference was something David Barrett once told me: we aim more for a portrait than a photograph. A photograph is a black-and-white perfect reproduction of the person as they are. A portrait, on the other hand, can be a stylized painting. It captures the person’s likeness—you can probably recognize them—but it won’t be a perfect reproduction.
What’s the value of this? It gives you something to understand, and something to compare with where you are now. For example, in The Generational Future of Missions, I did not predict a future in which the Great Commission had been completed. The 2100 portrait was pretty far out, having more to do with expansion into space than the Great Commission. The point is: the things that will dominate our thinking and affect our decisions in 2100 will be wholly different from the things that dominate and affect us today. I think in 2100 people are more likely to be saying, “Osama who?” than today.
To build this portrait, consider the kinds of things that will impact it. There are a number of drivers to be taken into account. Here are some (and I’ve aimed to make this list reasonably comprehensive but I’ve probably left some out; if you can think of some, feel free to add in comments below).
Demographics. The basics of birth, death and immigration will impact the picture of any future. There will still be men and women, and the ratios will likely be pretty close: even today, we say there are 57 million more men, but this is driven by situations in India and China; and, really, in the context of 3.5 billion of each, 57 million’s not a lot. Population movements (urbanization, migration, etc.) are inexorable and ongoing trends that will impact every place. Lifespans, generational dynamics, and trends in youthfulness and aging will be different in different places and are very significant to keep in mind: the above-cited Generational Future illustrates the impact of these. Generations, for example, impact the transfer of wealth through legacies. Considering these “megatrends” for a given population is the first stop in predicting the future. Remember that the UN’s population prospects are revised frequently and have high, middle and low scenarios: I tend to use the median scenario when printing numbers but you’ve got to keep the high and low variants in mind, too.
Global issues. There are major global issues that likely won’t be stopped in the next century and will affect the character of a place. For example, conflict, famines, droughts, diseases, disasters, education, the treatment of women and children, the ability of dictators to hang on to power, the oppressiveness of some governments, the influence of multibillionaires and multinational corporations, climate change, economic growth—all of these won’t end. They need to be factored in. At the same time, it is possible that one particular trend in one particular place might be mitigated as a result of some major achievement—e.g. polio might be eradicated, or human trafficking eliminated on the border of a country. This is the idea that we paint a picture—and then we change it.
Impact of technology. The seeping change of technology is difficult to predict in any given year but not challenging over the scope of time. For example, “Moore’s Law” predicts that computing power doubles every eighteen months: a year and a half from now, a chip that costs what chips cost now and is the size of chips now will be twice as powerful. You might think that has little to do with anything, but in fact it determines a great many things—like the probably-inexorable approach of smarter-than-human intelligence, for example. It also drives things like the capacity of Google-type searches, cloud-based computing, touch screens, etc. For me, the best way to think about it is this: for anything which is consistently working in a research lab today, there is the possibility (and perhaps probability) that it is going to be available commercially within 5 years, and mass-market within 10 years. Consider the following: Jeff Han demoed a touchscreen in 2006 at TED. The iPhone was released June 29, 2007. The iPad became available in 2010. If you want to see a very long term future of where things are possibly going, consider: Corning’s “Glass Future” scenario, Microsoft’s “Sustainable Future Video,” or even the future of gaming (hyper-realistic first person shooter). These are not crazy ideas. They are entirely workable given about 5 to 10 years on where we are now. What will 2100 be like, if this kind of thing is only a generation out? One way to consider it is to take any scenario and try to identify the probable year where the likelihood of it coming into existence is 50%. After that point, it becomes progressively more likely. This is especially true for things like nanotechnology, biotechnology, genetic engineering, space exploration, etc.
Religious trends. Humanity is religious—that has been shown time and time again. The major world religions are not likely to go away any time soon, if only because of demography. Religious trends can be mapped out through 2050 on the basis of the past century. It is true that these could be deeply impacted by technology or the move of God’s Spirit, but in fact technology does not change enormous religious trends that much.
Wildcards. One always has to prepare for the unexpected, which in point of fact does more to change trends than anything else. We’ve discussed wildcards elsewhere: see Wildcards: extreme possibilities and how to prepare for them, and On the accuracy (or impossibility) of long-range predictions. One way to try to build this into your portrait is just to list off a handful of possible wildcards that would make your portrait very unique (for example, in our 2100 portrait, the assassination of religious leaders using genetically targeted weapons).
Finally, try to keep the portrait fairly simple. Aim for the painting, not the photograph. You might begin by considering a single question that deeply impacts your work. Consider the population segment among which the question will be answered (which will be affected by the trends above). Now, what are two factors that will affect the question in the future—and which you can affect by your actions now?
For example, consider this question, posed by Kris Heiple in response to an earlier post:
Raising support for frontier mission, especially among an American church whose giving as of right now still only supports the frontiers at 1 dollar for every 100 being invested in mission, how will the next generation get involved in cross-cultural ministry in significant ways? I’d like to think that the current mission boards, colleges, and churches will respond by making it more realistic for millennial’s like myself to be sent. But the way they are currently structured, really makes it difficult for us to be involved vocationally–specifically in regards to education, training, debt, and support. What do you think? Will the current mission structures be able to accommodate millennial’s, or will new structures be created to sidestep the awkward organization of the current way churches, colleges, and agencies are structured?
My response:
There are basically four scenarios that I could envision using two axes: (1) a choice between inadequate support, and adequate support; and (2) a choice between agency support, and going it alone. The four scenarios, then are: go it alone with inadequate support (the lone-ranger pioneer), go with an agency with little support (e.g. agencies that are very small or that take a semi-poverty approach, like YWAM or WEC–and I say this with love for them, having many friends among them); go it alone in an entrepreneurial/tentmaker/BAM role in which finances are less of anissue (especially for those who are very entrepreneurial), or go with a high-end agency that provides a lot of support and help (e.g. ummm IMB?)
Do you think my response was right? Can you envision other axes or scenarios? Which of the scenarios that I listed above do you think might dominate? Post your comments below, and tell Kris & I what you think. (Or, if you have a different question—post that!)
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