Things are going to get wierd.

Things are changing very quickly now, though it is surprisingly easy to miss. Exponential change can be easy to miss. The standard thought exercise for understanding exponential change is the jar of bacteria. If a bacteria doubles every 30 seconds, and takes 24 hours to fill the jar, at what time was the jar only half full? 11:59:30; over the next 30 seconds the bacteria doubled again and the jar was full. More bacteria breeds more bacteria, more progress breeds more progress.

Exponential change may be may be hard to see coming into it, but obvious in hindsight. Taken individually any world event may be shrugged off. The majority of people will stick to a belief that things will continue on the same, but world events are already past a point of no return. Japan will not continue to hold US Savings bonds, the population is against it and no about of diplomacy will hold back a public backlash. The very same reason we lost international support of the Iraq War. We may be able to strong-arm the governments, but not their citizens. A collapse of the dollar combined with our ballooning budget deficit will put a very quick (in Geo-political terms) end to the American Empire (if you doubt the US is an empire you don't pay attention).

So in the next 10 years we are going to see a collapse of the last great empire, an ever increasing rate of interconnectedness and access to information, exponential technological progress (nanotech, first true cyborgs, AI, personal genetic manipulation, discovery/or disprovable of the the God particle, alternative energy bubble, etc), a generational shift towards moral relativism and atheism, drug liberalisation, collapse censorship, collapse of consumerism, and governments failures to keep up. Governments are quickly becoming irrelivent.

California's economic solutions are going to include mass prison release. What is going to happen to government control and unemployment rate when these prisoners are released? Are they going to continue to imprison people for moral crimes when they don't have room for even the violent ones? Are these people going to get liveable wages? Majority rule is not always the best for long-term planing. Californians wanted much lower taxes and much longer prison terms, they wanted everything; and now they're broke. The federal government will soon be looking the same, with one very distinctive difference; the ability to print money. California is trying, but now banks are no longer taking their IOUs. The Fed can print money. In fact that is what is already happening. All major media outlets have direct interest in not letting people know what is going to happen. If people think there is going to be inflation there will be. Why would they act to drive the economy down by sharing this information? But now there is the Internet. Yes; the majority of people do not get their news online, but that is changing with the changing generation. Information gathering on-line is also going to lead to the generation change to moral relativism and atheism. Typically major social movements have a militant arm, so I expect to see a rise in militant atheism.

"The fanatical atheists are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who--in their grudge against traditional religion as the 'opium of the masses'-- cannot hear the music of the spheres" ~Einstein

Personal beliefs matter only on a personal level. Societal beliefs matter on a societal level. What is the world going to look like in 10 years? If you are afraid of change now is the time to be really afraid. If you are eager to witness the next chapter in human existence it is a thrilling time to be alive. If you think nothing is going to really change then you are expecting something that has never happened, and unprepared to handle the inevitable new world order. Things are going to get wierd.