The Next 10 Years

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The Next 10 Years

According to Douglas Coupland

(Administrator) 2010-10-10, 21:23 #1

Member since May 2011 · 2203 posts · Location: Brisbane
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Subject: The Next 10 Years

Douglas Coupland wrote a book I really liked. Recently, he wrote a pessimist's guide for the next 10 years.

Several of the things he says echo my own beliefs, and I repeat them here for your reflection:

8) Try to live near a subway entrance

In a world of crazy-expensive oil, it's the only real estate that will hold its value, if not increase.

9) The suburbs are doomed, especially those E.T. California-style suburbs

This is a no-brainer, but the former homes will make amazing hangouts for gangs, weirdoes and people performing illegal activities. The pretend gates at the entranceways to gated communities will become real, and the charred stubs of previous white-collar homes will serve only to make the still-standing structures creepier and more exotic.

13) Enjoy lettuce while you still can

And anything else that arrives in your life from a truck, for that matter. For vegetables, get used to whatever it is they served in railway hotels in the 1890s. Jams. Preserves. Pickled everything.

That's pretty much how I think it's going to happen. I've been saying for a couple of years that anyone who is still planning, allowing, building or buying a house in the suburbs is an idiot. In the world of fuel shortages, the distance your house is from <everything else> will define your wealth: the farther you have to drive, the poorer you're gonna be. We need urban densification and we need a workable plan to keep it from making us all insane. People are fucking idiots, being forced to live closer to them will make me crazy.

20) North America can easily fragment quickly as did the Eastern Bloc in 1989

Quebec will decide to quietly and quite pleasantly leave Canada. California contemplates splitting into two states, fiscal and non-fiscal. Cuba becomes a Club Med with weapons. The Hate States will form a coalition.

When Canada held a Referendum in 1995 to decide if we wanted Quebec to stay close or fuck off, a lot of people were shocked. I was too, for about two seconds, at which point I realized that this world of stable, mostly uncontested borders is recent, and weird.

Things change. Things are gonna keep changing, and they're gonna change quickly.

There are a few other gems in the article, I recommend you read it.

BLEARGH

2010-10-11, 00:14 #2

Member since Oct 2007 · 271 posts
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I take it this Coupland person is relatively young? Quebec holds a referendum to secede about once a decade. Although the first actual vote came in 1980, they have been advocating for it all through the 20th century. Nobody is actually shocked when the idea is voted upon. The long-term view is that Quebec has no interest in seceding, but is happy to threaten it in order to win concessions from the Canadian federal government. This allows it to prolong certain aspects of special treatment, such as laws requiring bilingual packaging.

On this matter in particular I view Quebec like I view Scotland. Its residents might dream of sovereignty and independence, but the reality is that economic matters will win out over ethnic pride every time.

Back to the main subject, I don't know if a fragmented North America is something to worry about. Just twenty years ago, speculative historians were worried about a *unified* North America, whereby NAFTA would give the US a flimsy justification to annex Canada and Mexico. As with the other extreme situation, that's unrealistic and alarmist.

(Administrator) 2010-10-11, 07:29 #3

Member since May 2011 · 2203 posts · Location: Brisbane
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Yeah, I mostly brought it up 'cause a large part of my current audience is Australian, and probably didn't know about it. Thanks for filling in more gaps. =)

There's often talk of all kinds of splintering in North America. British Columbia and Alberta, or BC and a handful of western American states, etc.

I like the article's phrase "Hate States". You must live in one of them, going by the things I read on your blog.

BLEARGH

2010-10-12, 07:13 #4

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On the subject of a splintering North America, I find the speculation alarmist and narrowly focused. Not twenty years ago, analysts had the exact opposite fear. Those who dreaded a new world order were afraid that the NAFTA trade treaty would give the United States a flimsy excuse to annex Canada and Mexico, and so the fear was over North American consolidation instead. As always, the truth is somewhere closer to pragmatism (or at worst, the path of least resistance.)

Florida doesn't have as many hate groups as you might think, but the city I live in does have a large chapter of the NAAWP. They're a group that believe affirmative action and political correctness rob white people of opportunity and financial security. If you argue that most of the CEOs and police in town happen to be white, then their counter-argument is to provide an exceedingly narrow definition of what 'white' is. As would be expected, the rest of the world is happy to leave them behind.

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