Over The Last Thirty Years, Our World Has Been Transformed Into a Science Fiction Movie

Anyone who doubts today that in thirty years, we will be living in a world that we cannot even begin to imagine today only has to look back thirty years.

In retrospect, the year 1990 does not seem so long ago when we are already over forty. If we do not consider what has really happened since then, we do not immediately realize how existentially the world has changed since then.

Had it been possible in 1990 to send my former self thirty years into the future, I would have been shocked and completely disoriented. Almost nothing commonplace today was possible in 1990. Hardly anything that we thought was normal and without alternative in 1990 is still imaginable today.

Technological progress

The most important technological development of the past thirty years is probably the mass distribution of the Internet.

In 1990 it already existed, but compared to today, it was, at best, an exciting gadget for nerds. Nobody could just surf the world wide web, which was just born. Providers like Compuserve and AOL were the first to offer access portals for private individuals. At that time, the Internet was still far from a triumphant worldwide advance.

Nobody could imagine that supply chains, trade, research, the stock exchanges, and almost everything else would soon no longer function without the transfer of data via the Internet.

The e-mail replaced the letter and the postcard. The result was the constant accessibility that one suddenly had to live with. Whoever is available also has the feeling of having to react immediately.

E-mail has made the world faster and more hectic. But nobody would want to miss it anymore.

Later, the Internet received another decisive boost. Long after the first clunky mobile phones, the first mass-selling smartphone came onto the market in 2007.

It was only then that you could really be on the Internet anywhere and anytime.

Today it is no problem to configure a new car on the bus on the way to work, get financing, and buy it before you arrive at your destination.

Processes that used to take days or weeks are now handled in minutes or seconds.

Online shopping is now commonplace. Only thirty years ago, you could never have imagined something like this. How could you pay if all you could do was tap virtual buttons?

Back then, we paid with cash or with a credit card. For both, you had to be present in a store with a cash register or a card reader. How would you shop in a store hundreds or thousands of miles away?

Today such questions seem ridiculous to us. Nobody could answer them back then.

E-mail has made everyday life faster. The spread of the mobile Internet has increased this acceleration.

The Internet has made other groundbreaking technical innovations possible and spread rapidly.

Cloud computing, satellite-based navigation for everyone, capturing, and real-time analysis of biometric data - the average citizen, could not imagine all this thirty years ago.

When we look back today, it seems as if we were survivors of a perished world.

And technological development has only just begun to accelerate. We are at the beginning of the triumphal march of artificial intelligence. We should not expect our world to develop at the same rate in the next thirty years as it has in the past thirty years. The development will be exponential, beyond our wildest dreams.

Geopolitics

In 1989 the iron curtain fell. Here in Germany, where I live, this year was a turning point. Our country was suddenly reunited after forty years of division, which had been considered permanent.

The Eastern Bloc was disintegrating, and the Western world seemed to be the natural winner of history. Everyone thought that democracy and human rights would now spread rapidly around the globe.

Instead, we witnessed the rise of asymmetric warfare, international terrorism, the resurgence of autocratic and dictatorial regimes, and China's triumph.

The traditional transatlantic alliance between Europe and the United States has been ripped ever deeper and is now mainly on the ground.

Old alliances no longer apply and who are a friend and foe changes almost monthly.

Globalization

As early as 1990, the worldwide exchange of goods and services was a matter of course. What we call globalization today began as early as the sixties of the twentieth century.

However, the term "globalization" only became known to a broad public from 1986 onwards, when more and more books appeared that dealt with the topic and used the new catchword.

Globalization probably received its most significant boost after the end of the Cold War. In addition to the geopolitical distortions described in the previous section, the collapse of the communist system also brought about a massive expansion of world trade.

Suddenly, new, previously untapped markets emerged. New low-wage countries were suddenly available to produce goods for the Western world at unbeatable prices. As a result, the political divide in Europe was gradually replaced by a social gap.

Today, Eastern European countries are among the economically weakest states in the European association of states. Moreover, even in the rich industrial nations, society has split into winners and losers of globalization over the last thirty years.

A direct consequence of globalization's adverse social effects can be seen today in the resurgence of right-wing populist parties. The approval ratings for the democratic system are falling.

But globalization also has undeniable positive effects. Technical and scientific innovations can be advanced and disseminated much faster in a primarily deregulated world.

The flood of information available everywhere in the world through the Internet enables people living in repressive systems to obtain independent information. Electronic communication possibilities help these people organize themselves and make themselves heard in the world public.

Who could have imagined thirty years ago that anyone could broadcast live images of demonstrations and police violence in real-time to the whole world?

And what applies to political activists also applies to artists, publicists, and small business owners. They all have direct access to an international audience today.

Conclusion

For me, the past thirty years are a preview of what we can expect in the near future.

The changes we are facing will be even more radical and even faster than in the past.

Whether these upheavals will be predominantly positive or negative is up to us.

At the moment, the negative consequences of the developments we have gone through over the past decades are becoming particularly apparent. Global warming and the corona epidemic are only the most prominent examples.

But we must not let this obscure our view of the opportunities.

Although we are receiving much more bad news in the media today than in the past, many things are already turning to the positive.

The number of people living in absolute poverty is continually decreasing. The number of people with access to clean drinking water is increasing year by year.

Medical progress and the spread of renewable energies would not be possible at the current level if the world were less interconnected.

As always, it is up to us to decide what the future will bring. However, there is no doubt that the next thirty years will probably be one of the most exciting years humankind has ever experienced.