How I’ll Know if Things are Going Well

I feel like most people are too pessimistic about the long-term development of the United States, but it’s also possible that I’m too optimistic. While I can’t know for sure now, I will be able to know in 2050 looking back at the list of forecasts below that I made in early 2024. Any expectations that were not met will support the view that I was overly optimistic. I plan to revisit this periodically.

Area	Baseline expectations	Notes
Society	1. The population of the U.S. has grown (2024 estimate: 336 million) 2. U.S. life expectancy has increased (2022 estimate: 77.5 years)	Population growth and increasing life expectancy would be unlikely with widespread war, famine or decline in healthcare standards.
War	1. No military intervention by a sovereign state resulting in more than 100 casualties on U.S. territory 2. No civil unrest resulting in more than 1,000 casualties within a single month	There is some space for interpretation (would ambiguous biological warfare count?).
Economics	1. Real median household income has increased (2022: $74,580) 2. The S&P 500 index continuously exists and is at more than 40,000 (Start of 2024: 4,769.83)	Median household income is preferable to mean GDP per capita since it is more likely to capture outcomes for the average American family.
Technology	1. Real residential electricity prices have not increased (15.45 cents per kWh in 2024) 2. The number of U.S. citizens visiting outer space in 2049 has increased (6 U.S. orbital space travelers in 2023) 3. At least on successful crewed U.S. mission to Mars	1. is meant to be a metric for the development and implementation of low-cost energy generation technologies. It seems the most likely failure on this list. 2. and 3. are metrics for continued investment in crewed spaceflight and serve as proxies for overall technological ability.
Governance	1. No state has left the union 2. No federal election has been canceled 3. There has been no presidential election that would have resulted in a different winner if the same standards of fairness applied prior to 2020 would have been applied 4. There has been at least one constitutional amendment with the aim of increasing freedom, democracy, equality, or quality of governance	Proxies for the quality and continuity of governance. The last two points are open to interpretation.

Baseline expectations for the United States on January 1st, 2050. Expectations not met would count towards supporting a pessimistic outcome while met expectations would count towards an optimistic outcome.