Dire future from Britain’s Ministry of Defense, tasked with anticipating the challenge to its armed forces:
Information chips implanted in the brain. Electromagnetic pulse weapons. The middle classes becoming revolutionary, taking on the role of Marx’s proletariat. The population of countries in the Middle East increasing by 132%, while Europe’s drops as fertility falls. “Flashmobs” – groups rapidly mobilised by criminal gangs or terrorists groups.
Among the environmental problems they cite are water scarcity and climate change. All in all, it’s not too cheery.
A great deal of these probabilities (not ‘predictions’, says the BBC article!) have long been the centre of fantastic science fiction. Most notable of all is the existentially-challenging series, “Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Shell:_S.A.C._2nd_GIG). The volume of internet-enabled cyborg mystique, enmeshed in award-winning screenplay and plotlines, is enough to enthrall the most pessimistic Luddite.