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. |
Nehaveigur 
6 responses to “How I’ll Know if Things are Going Well”
[…] My baseline expectations that will allow me to judge if things are going […]
LikeLike
[…] Distress is a science fiction novel by Greg Egan that came out in 1995 and is set in 2055. The world of the mid-21st century in Distress is an extrapolation of the world of 1995, which is to say that it’s not a dystopia. Yes, there are climate refugees, but there hasn’t been an apocalypse or societal breakdown either. It’s a world that would hit most or all of my metrics of success. […]
LikeLike
[…] My expectations for 205 and my post on […]
LikeLike
[…] it’s composed of forecasts, it should change in response to events rather quickly. Here is my more long-term index to monitor if things are going […]
LikeLike
[…] Yet I don’t feel it. The reason is probably simply that my personality isn’t compatible with long-term gloom. There’s also the observation that we can’t predict the course of events. Things may get worse or they may get better. It’s basically a random walk. There’s a 50% chance things will look up in a few years. Given the longer-term trends over the last decades, it may even be higher than that. Either way, I’ll let you know when we get there. […]
LikeLike
[…] I have previously shared my expectations for America in 2050. If all of those expectations are met it’ll mean that there hasn’t been any catastrophic breakdown of the country. What I wasn’t doing in that post was imagining what a better or a great future may look like that’s not just an extrapolation of current trends. Here is my wish list: […]
LikeLike