Stuart Armstrong runs through five ways unpredictable technological and climate changes could transform our political world. My own nightmare scenario:
Here it turns out that as barriers to trade are removed and transaction costs go to zero, the natural state of the economy is one of perpetual crashes. Celebrity and fame feed upon themselves: everyone demands the best, and the definition of the best is shared widely: niche markets don’t exist. Incomes follow such a sharp power law that only a few percent of the population have any wealth at all. Automation means that most people can’t earn enough to sustain themselves: their income drops below the costs of keeping them alive. Hence a large, bloated, over-regulating government becomes a matter of survival.
I guess that's what you get if you extrapolate the trends of the last four years indefinitely. Yikes. He has other less horrifying possible futures, if you're into that kind of thing.
The Dish 