This decade:
1. Growing sovereign debt - it's not something democratic states seem to be able to solve.
2. Weakened/collapsing states in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, etc. The Arab Spring showed that revolutions rarely lead to stable, prosperous regimes - more often, you just end up with years or decades of anarchy and instability.
3. Global tilt: the relative decline of America, and it's effect on international geopolitics. Westerners will realise how much their preaching to the rest of the world was dependent on having the biggest army. Russia and China grow increasingly more daring. The BRICs build their alternative world bank (it's a real project, Google it) and an alternative international financial system starts to form.
100 years:
1. Climate change/environmental damage. This won't kill us all, I think, but could majorly lower our quality of life.
2. Overpopulation/mass migrations. Nigeria's population is predicted to be over a billion by the end of this century - an 8-fold increase. India's population growth isn't slowing down either. It does look as though humanity's population will peak at around 9/10 billion - but this will be predominantly within the most unstable regimes. Expect mass movement of refuges, further destabilising governments in advanced economies, fuelling further growth in mass surveillance, etc.
3. The singularity. This one could kill us all. Or it could become the AI philosopher-king that solves all our other problems.
100 years: 1. Climate change/environmental damage. This won't kill us all, I think, but could majorly lower our quality of life. 2. Overpopulation/mass migrations. Nigeria's population is predicted to be over a billion by the end of this century - an 8-fold increase. India's population growth isn't slowing down either. It does look as though humanity's population will peak at around 9/10 billion - but this will be predominantly within the most unstable regimes. Expect mass movement of refuges, further destabilising governments in advanced economies, fuelling further growth in mass surveillance, etc. 3. The singularity. This one could kill us all. Or it could become the AI philosopher-king that solves all our other problems.