Making history

Many thousands of years from now when future students of history look back at the enduring contributions and the transformational periods only a few shall be remembered.

The 14th Century BC will be remembered for the boy-king Tutankhamun; the 6th Century BC will be remembered for Confucius; the 1st Century for Jesus, the 7th Century for Mohammed, the 14th Century for the Black Death; the 15th Century for the printing press and Leonardo da Vinci, the 16th Century for Michelangelo and Shakespeare; the 17th Century for Sir Isaac Newton and Vivaldi; the 18th Century for Mozart and Beethoven; and the 19th Century for the Industrial Revolution, Vincent Van Gogh and Verdi.

Closer to our time, the 20th Century will be remembered as the century in which mankind acquired the capability to destroy itself and the biosphere.  It will be remembered for Albert Einstein, for the first Moon landing, for the failure of Communism, for Rachmaninov and the Beatles, and for the advent of the Internet.  It will be remembered as the age of rampant consumerism and of globalisation.  It will be remembered for Adolf Hitler, Auschwitz, and Pol Pot.  Nelson Mandela will not be forgotten.

But the present century, the 21st Century, will be remembered as the most important in history.  There will be the nuclear war between India and Pakistan.  The nuclear, chemical and biological war between China and the USA that would destroy Japan will be narrowly averted.  September 11 and the global Islamic insurgency will be remembered.  There will be the massive upheavals caused by global warming and environmental despoliation.  Africa will continue to die of despotic tribalism.

In the 21st Century cancer will be cured and physical ageing will be significantly slowed if not halted.  Markets will be harnessed^[1] and intensively modulated^[2].  Value will be determined by efficiency and durability.

Sustainability^[3] will replace consumerism as a core driver of social behaviour.  The burning of fossil fuels will all but cease and air travel will become exceptional.

Nuclear generated electricity and nuclear desalinated water will be the principal sources of funding for the democratically endorsed global meritocracy whose leaders and officers will owe their primary allegiance not to themselves and their kin, nor to ethnicity, nor to nationality, nor to religion, nor to their electorates, but to future generations.

Weapons of mass destruction and the industrial scale production and sale of weapons of war of any kind will be banned.  There will still be thugs^[4], gangs and armies but they will fight with sticks and stones.  There will be permanent and self-sustaining human habitation on the Moon^[5] and on Mars, and thugs will not be allowed in.

In this, the 21st Century, mankind will almost self-destruct^[6] and then transform its values and social and economic organisation to ensure the indefinite survival of humanity.  Otherwise history will end here.