Walking along the Embarcadero every day, I have long unobstructed views. I can look east across the bay, north toward the Ferry Building, south toward the ballpark. Sometimes I try to identify people and pick out details from 100 yards away or farther. Since I spend most of my time looking at screens from about two feet away, using my distance vision is a nice break. It feels like it does good things for my eyes and my brain.

It makes me think about using my distance vision through time. What future events can I see coming, not as fated events, but probabilistically, as likely outcomes? For the scenarios that are problematic, what can I do to mitigate those probable outcomes, or steer my fate in a more favorable direction?

And not just for myself, but for my country and planet? What problems can we see coming from years, decades, or centuries away, and how can we envision and manifest more desirable futures? It’s the kind of question science fiction writers obsess on.

The problem with looking through time is that everything seems obvious with hindsight. Actually making accurate predictions is more difficult. We can extrapolate current trends, but we can’t account for black swan events, inventions that have yet to be invented, or seismic mass behavioral shifts.

Still, imperfect predictions are better than refusing to look forward in time at all. Here are a few trends I’m “seeing” at the moment, in no particular order:

  • Minority rule in the US (less populated states having outsized representation in the Senate) is eroding civil rights, public safety, healthcare availability, and quality of life, and will continue to do so until citizens demand structural/systemic change.
  • USD as the dominant global reserve currency has a limited shelf life. Years, decades? Not sure. China has its own major debt problems (real estate bubble).
  • Global warming is going to destroy a lot of coastal real estate, and make many part of the world significantly less comfortable or even uninhabitable.
  • The biosphere has started a “reorganization” (from global warming and human overpopulation) that will probably last at least a century before reaching a new point of relative stability, with massive upheavals in habitats, agricultural regions, dominant species, and many painful transitions and required adjustments for both humans and non-humans.
  • We’re in the midst of an absolutely necessary multi-generational, global values shift:
    • TOWARD economic/environmental sustainability, self-determination, experiential focus
    • AWAY from productivity/growth, authoritarianism/patriarchy, materialism
      But the old ways are putting up a vicious fight, kicking and screaming all the way. The old ideas will continue to recruit young minds for decades or even centuries.
  • We are just beginning a global era of intentional biology/biological self-determination enabled by genetic engineering. We are only decades away from individuals being able to choose their gender, body type, biological age, baseline mood, and unnatural enhancements (night vision, bioluminescence, extra fingers or appendages, etc.). These same technologies applied to plants and animals will figure in to how we manage our climate, food supply, and oceans (plastic-metabolizing bacteria, carbon-sequestering algae, etc.).

And what about distance vision in my own life? I hesitate to share those insights; I don’t want to jinx myself. But mostly good things. Nobody gets out of this game alive, but I’m trying for a very long health span. I have so much more that I want to accomplish and experience and contribute. And a few more tricks up my sleeve.