@MaximilienMoreau @Wired

ID:
TEN SCENARIO SPOILERS
The long boom is a scenario, one possible future. Its built upon the convergence of many big forces and even more little pieces falling into place - all of them with a positive twist. The future, of course, could turn out to be very different - particularly if a few of those big pieces go hay.
wire. Here are 10 things that could cut short the long boom:

1.
Tensions between China
and the US escalate into a
new Cold War - bordering
on a hot one.

2.
New technologies turn
out to be a bust. They simply
don't bring the expected
productivity increases or the
big economic boosts.

3.
Russia devolves into a klep-
tocracy run by a mafia or
retreats into quasicommunist
nationalism that threatens
Europe.

4.
Europe's integration process
grinds to a halt. Eastern
and western Europe can't
finesse a reunification, and
even the European Union
process breaks down.

5.
Major ecological crisis causes
a global dimate change that,
among other things, disrupts
the food supply - causing big
price increases everywhere
and sporadic famines.

6.
Major rise in crime and terror-
ism forces the world to pull
back in fear. People who
constantly feel they could be
blown up or ripped off are
not in the mood to reach out
and open up.

7.
The cumulative escalation
in pollution causes a dramatic
increase in cancer, which
overwhelms the ill-prepared
health system.

8.
Energy prices go through
the roof. Convulsions in the
Middle East disrupt the oil
supply, and alternative energy
sources fail to materialize.

9.
An uncontrollable plague
a modern-day influenza
epidemic or its equivalent
takes off like wildfire, killing
upward of 200 million people.

10.
A social and cultural backlash
stops progress dead in its
tracks. Human beings need to
choose to move forward.
They just may not

WIRED JULY 1997