Food supplies

What does the future hold for our world?

My expectations are of a future with future shortages, which creates a market for artificial food. Artificial food will start out tasting really bland, and looking worse than spam. In time, this will be refined. You will be eating what looks like a rib eye, tastes like one, but it may not have the texture of a rib eye. In time, you will forget what texture to expect, as you become accustomed to the artificial rib eyes.

Mash potatoes would be far easier to ‘duplicate’ texture, taste and of course make. All our food will be artificial with only the very rich being able to afford private farms where the real stuff exists. Visionaries will buy farm land and keep it for the long term. Unfortunately, governments will use some ‘legislation’ to take that farm land for the ‘greater good’ and end up turning it into a apartment complex or business park.  The question is :”How do you ‘keep’ your farm land from being taken? The answer is far from simple and one that I have no comment on.

Churches will do what they always have. They will merely adapt their theology espousing the ‘value’ of being ‘green’. During the horrible days of Nazi rule churches bowed down to the politics of the day. This will once again be the prevailing pattern. Church leaders are too afraid of ‘rocking the boat’ and as such they would become ‘all things to all men’ and compromise ‘truth’ for political correctness.

Opponents will be labeled as terrorists, hell bent on destroying the earth, radicals etc etc. What about the internet? We are fast learning that social networking sites like ‘twitter’ ‘facebook’ are dangerous for any government. Take the latest uprising in Egypt, or a while back China (for reference this is Feb 2011). These spontaneous uprisings have occurred due to the the popularity of social networking and the rapid dissemination of information. The big problem with the ‘net is that nobody checks facts. So, a falsehood can spread across the globe in minutes and nobody even knows if its a ‘fact’ or just a fantasy.

The second major problem for any government is that this same ‘net can be sued to stir up people, move them to vote one way or another. In the hans of a skilled ‘operator’ the internet is far more powerful than any mass media. Support for an idea can be garnered quickly and quite unpredictably. Point is, there is no control over the flow of information. THIS IS TOO DANGEROUS and will have to change. Politicians like to be on control of information. This is not a reflection of good or bad governments, but human nature. Human nature enjoys power, and as the adage goes, information does in fact equal power. He (or she, or the entity) that can influence the flow of information on the internet will indeed be able to influence the direction of any conversation that begins at the grass roots level.

This is bad for business, politicians and anybody who aspires to be in power. The safe bet is that there will be an attempt to control the internet. This is far more possible than we would like to believe in our present age. It will be interesting to see how quickly politicians realize that the internet can play a major role in who gets elected. 

Water is the next critical element that will have a major impact on our lives. Clean water is slowly disappearing. We will either have to start searching the solar system for a fresh supply of water. Desalinating sea water is a short term solution to a growing problem. In of itself, desalinating has some problems...mainly we would be using up the very water that our food supply needs to live in. As our population continues to explode, this will only be a short term solution.

Pollution, food supply and not enough land will all add to the inevitable conclusion - we need to start colonies on other planets. Eventually big business will take over the space race, and this will become profitable, and rapid advances will occur. I do wonder how soon the first colonies will be planted off planet, and on which planet? Somebody with vision and a tremendous financial source will become the next pioneer of settlers. The USA history is full of adventure stories of how the west was won. The new stories will be on how Mars was conquered.