Any thoughts on this book? All the predictions it made are surprisingly accurate

Any thoughts on this book? All the predictions it made are surprisingly accurate.

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Which predictions did you found accurate?

USA remaining the dominant world superpower, USA vs Russia 2.0, Turkey going Ottoman Empire 2.0, and Japan re-militarizing. Some of the other ones like Poland growing in influence seems to be underway.

Is this the guy who wrote about Japan and the us going to war in the 80s?

Global warming destroys the world. The 1% escape to Mars and the rest of us plebs go seasteading.

Meh, WWIII in that is so lame lame in kill count I honestly hope it never happens. It's about all I remember from the book honestly. Poles in mechsuits and Japs with supersonic missles should be cool, but the scenario is the most drab instance of applying WWII alliances to a futuristic scenario.

No, that's a different Friedman.

No, that was absolutely not a different Friedman.
The Coming War With Japan, 1991.

WW3 with Japan... he's still at it!

honestly that war-narrative at the end of the book is the worst part by far. Its strength is the application of past history to predict future trends and balance of power changes, which is the most accurate and useful thing it does. that sci-fi skit is clearly some bullshit made up to appeal to normies and Friedman pulled it out of his ass.

Somehow I thought that was Thomas Friedman, my bad.

Thomas Friedman has predicted literally everything wrong.

The further in the future predictions get, the inevitably less sensible they can be.

You're going to have predictions based on predictions based on predictions. It's the same idea as a slippery slope, the validity of the final conclusion depends on ALL the others becoming true. One thing going the wrong way can fuck everything else up. If Poland had a civil war over some dumb reason, if some political flashpoint caused a stupid war, if somebody in dumbfuckistan manages to bomb a major American population center, etc.

>USA remaining the dominant world superpower,
His prediction was that this would be the case for 100 years and it's been less than 10. And I doubt it will come true considering how the US is currently in decline (though there is a chance that this could be reversed).
He also predicted that Ukraine would be a Russian ally by now and that China will collapse by 2020.

Any thoughts on the bible? All the predictions it made have come true so far.

If we could terraform Mars, it would probably be easier to just fix Earth.

You still waiting on Jesus my dude?

What about the whole Polish superpower thing?

>USA remaining the dominant world superpower

Uhhh no. China will probably be a major player in the coming decades. Its already asserting its regional power. Right now, China's economy is greater than US, nominally. It will however reach US level in about 30 years, in which case their military/economy power will be roughly double that of ours, if not more.

Those are hardly even predictions. The book was written in 2009, all those things were already going on by that point

>I doubt it will come true considering how the US is currently in decline

No it's not. Please show me trends which will show another country overtaking the US.

And no, China doesn't count, since (as predicted their growth is slowing and may never even reach the status of a rich country. They have a jhigher chance of falling into the middle-income trap like Brazil then becoming a westernized economy like Japan.

umm sorry sweetie

youtube.com/watch?v=9wd-HoqNArI

>Right now, China's economy is greater than US, nominally.

It isn't, it is in PPP though.

the whole thing about Mexico becoming a dominant power made the whole book less credible

>Please show me trends which will show another country overtaking the US
No one has to overtake america. The prediction wasn't that america would remain the strongest country in the world, it's that america would "remain the dominant world superpower".It can remain the strongest country in the world, but if it becomes unable to influence events in significant parts of the world, it is no longer a global superpower.
As for trends that show America's decline or the rise of rival countries
>Ever since Russia took Crimea, America's foreign interventions started resembling its proxy wars with the USSR more than the one-sided affairs of the 90s and 00s
>China becoming ever more relevant in the world economy
>increased willingness of both Russia and China to go against US interests
>key allies (philippines, turkey) growing more distant
>American birthrate below Russia's and still declining while Russia's is recovering

>its 2025 the US has built a wall on its southern border

>American birthrate below Russia's and still declining while Russia's is recovering
That's completely wrong. US birth rate, 1.9, Russia is 1.7

I think this underestimates the CCP distrust of Capitalism. I don't see the CCP becoming "Free market" societies like the west at all. I know as a fact from talking to CCP analysts that they basically view the west as a chaotic clusterfuck.

They are not going to "democratize" I know this as a fact. China actually looked into this back in 2012 and sent groups out to western countries to study their political systems, Australia, the US, Europe etc.

What they saw they were basically disgusted with, they saw major parties deny climate change, even the most basic of 21st century infrastructure wasn't being built or was sabotaged from the get go, policy was way too slow to react to anything and especially parties like the Australian Liberal party and US Republicans and UK Tories being anti-intellectual, purposely sabotaging assholes basically made them go "Nope".

Thats basically the problem with West-centric modelling like this, they think China is going to follow a development trajectory like the west based on previous western trends, but it doesn't really take into account, China is a completely alien society to the west. They're highly collectivist people by nature, they distrust Capitalism and are led by a technocratic order made up of scientists and engineers, not typical Politicans.

In China, the most watched TV show is called "In the name of the people" Which follows around a CCP internal force who hunt down and arrest or kill capitalists who dare stand against the CCP or corrupt CCP officials who work with Capitalists.

Right now, in 2017, it's the most watched show in China. (and the world.)

>"In the name of the people"
This sounds cool as fuck. Is it subbed?

Its in the same vein as "People's Republic of China"

Or PRC Army or PRC Navy or PRC etc etc..

"In the name of people" is just another play
on the propaganda words

youtube.com/watch?v=PXkgp7gYqCc

Apparently.

Well, Barnett has done some consulting and projection work for the Chinese as well. This presentation is from 14/15 I believe. Which "model" do you think they are going to evolve into then? The "hybrid" model, or something more like Japan/EU ?

Funny you mention birthrates, since both Russia and China have LOWER fertility rates than the USA. The US will grow while those two will shrink.

Kinda goes against your point, doesn't it?

Chinese birthrate is artificially lowered due to government mandate.

This is in the process of being lifted.

and about a gazillion times cheaper too.

Probably none of them at all.

They're Communists, they understand why Capitalism is fucked and the party wants to keep Capitalists under the boot. They directly see Capitalists as a challenge to party authority, it's why the "corruption campaign" for the past few years has gone on, it curb the excesses of the reforms and remind the Capitalist clique who is in charge.

Nope. The Chinese birthrate was decreasing even before the one-child policy. The only thing it did was accelerate the process. Now that the policy is being relaxed, there's no magical rebound like some people thought. They could completely eliminate all fertility restrictions tomorrow and the effect would be minimal, because the culture already changed.

I know guys like you really want China to grow strong because it's more interesting for geopolitics, but it doesn't match reality. By any objective measure they're fucked.

Really? Moses lived to see the Holy Land? There's never been another flood since Noahs? Jesus came back within the lifetime of his apostles?

What are you smoking? PRC birthrate has been government mandated. Before the one child policy, it was two child per women. And before the two child was have as many as possible policy.

The specific reduction you see are tied to government attitude. From "many as possible" to "two per family" to "one per family"

Not seeing the U.S. military space stations or plans for them yet.

Fertility rate is not the same as birth rate. Birth rate describes what is currently happening, fertility rate describes what is expected to happen.

>The birth rate (technically, births/population rate) is the total number of live births per 1,000 of a population in a year.
>The TFR is, therefore, a measure of the fertility of an imaginary woman who passes through her reproductive life subject to all the age-specific fertility rates for ages 15–49 that were recorded for a given population in a given year. The TFR represents the average number of children a woman would potentially have, were she to fast-forward through all her childbearing years in a single year, under all the age-specific fertility rates for that year. In other words, this rate is the number of children a woman would have if she was subject to prevailing fertility rates at all ages from a single given year, and survives throughout all her childbearing years.

data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN
Russia's fertility rate is at 1.75 and on an upwards trajectory, America's is 1.85 and on a downwards trajectory

data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.CBRT.IN
Russia's birthrate is at 13.3, America's is at 12.4, and both are on roughly the same trajectory as their respective fertility rates.