Conquer Club

kusunoki wrote:Which nation will become the world leader by 2100?

kevinc wrote:It's interesting the way people say "China is our biggest threat" or "Russia will take over the world"

The thing about emerging economies like China & Inida, and Eastern Europe is that it's good for the world's overall economy for them to do better.

In the short term, you might see some jobs moving places, and some indisutries moving elsewhere, but on the overall scale, it results in cheaper goods, and a healthier economy for all.

Basically, we'll all be richer is China's (or other countries) become richer.

BigBallinStalin wrote:

army of nobunaga wrote:food/water/metal to population ratio + social infrastructure = your world powers of the future.

You guys picking already overpopulated countrys that jsut hit their personal industrial revolution like 10 years ago, are missing the mark.

Germany and japan ftw. I pick japan because somehow their population does not spike and they seem to be able to get every resource they need. Germany is jsut doing their thing... anyone that has visited either one of these country will know what I mean.

Didnt a state or province or whatever they are in canada have a vote to become its own country not long ago? The "social infrastructure" thing I mentioned also includes nationalistic vision.

But why Japan? They're at max potential right now. And they lack an army, of course that could be built later but their population in general isn't against it, in addition to that China's economy + military would just dominate them.

Also, given China's soon to be larger than the USA's economy, China has the ability to give aid to many countries around the world, thus securing UN votes as well as popularity in general. Japan can't do this to the degree that China is and will be doing.

Japan is resource starved, so it's vulnerable to fluctuations in the resource market--unlike China (except for oil, which will be interesting to watch develop. Iran will most likely supply them, so it may not even be a problem.) Japan also depends heavily on US protection while China has the ability bow down to no man.

China's "industrial revolution" is still exploding. Their growth is at ludicrous speed.

And Germany doesn't even come close to consideration because it's just Japan but to a lesser degree.

And for the sake of brevity, there's much more reasons to support China being dominant in the future. And many more against Japan and Germany.

BigBallinStalin wrote:

72o wrote:

BigBallinStalin wrote:

72o wrote:Interesting thought. I think the world will be radically different than we know it today. Borders will have been erased or redrawn to include/exclude certain populations and resources. By 2100 most of the fossil fuel reserves will be nearing complete exhaustion, if it doesn't happen much earlier. The next most valuable resource will be water. Cities like LA and Vegas will be barren wastelands as the populations move towards water. Des Moines, St. Louis and Memphis will be huge cities.

It will be interesting to see what will have happened with our energy sources by then. If it's not figured out soon, we will be in a pretty bad situation in 90 years.

Right, but when a certain resource comes to the point where it becomes too expensive to extract and ship, then the world economies will shift to something else, as seen in history (maybe, good god, 1700s?) with the shift from wood to coal for industrial and as well as residential purposes.

There's plenty of other methods of producing without the need of oil. The world just needs the shock that shifts it from oil to the next big thing or things (like nuclear energy, wind, solar, water).

Regarding fresh supplies of water, you do have a good point. That's pretty hard to replace the underground source, and methods like desalinization aren't cheap at all and still don't fix the problem of polluted water.

Renewable energy has the potential to offset some of our fossil fuel energy demands, but not eliminate it. Unfortunately, we won't embrace renewables until the fossil fuels are basically gone, where we will be pretty much screwed.

Desalinization uses horrendous amounts of energy. Not a viable option in all but the most arid climates. Easier to just move to water.

This shortage of resources will likely result in a much more dangerous society in 90 years.

Aren't you ignoring the use of nuclear energy? Aren't supplies for that good for a long way to come? Besides, we're talking about 90 years here. Hydrogen cells might be as cheap and limitless as Duracell batteries before then.

And over the course of that time, hopefully people become more conservative with their water usage, thus lengthening the time of that timebomb. Also, there may be cheaper and widely available methods in purifying water.

90 years is a long time and with many technological advancements along the way. Compare the world now to 90 years ago, and then think about how much technology and its achievements have exponentially increased.

BigBallinStalin wrote:

spurgistan wrote:Global Defense Initiative.

OH YES!! *FISTPUMP*