Life in 2020

"My interest is in the future because I am going to spend the rest of my life there."  
               -  Charles F. Ketterling

The great thing about predicting the future is that it offers up the opportunity to be optimistic and not have anyone call you wrong.  Ericsson's film project, collecting the thoughts of 20 futurists, professors, technologists, etc., asks each what the world will look like in 2020.  Given Ericsson's business, most of the videos have to do with the role of technology and inter-connectivity will play in shaping the world ten years down the road. 

Huffington Post has posted eleven of the short videos.  All are worth watching, but I particularly enjoyed Dr. Hans Rosling's take on globalization and income distribution. 

That's a "nice world" indeed.  But it strikes me that one of the biggest obstacles to reaching that world is the transition from a zero sum to a positive sum world view.  To a very great extent, Western superpowers determine, through either prioritization or neglect, the status of Dr. Rosling's red Legos.  Until those Western powers view emerging nations as partners rather than threats to power and prosperity, Rosling's "nice world" seems unlikely.