Uncharted Territories in 2022: What Do You Want to Read?

Last week, we had a look at all the articles I wrote through 2021. 

Today, I want to give you a sense of some of the articles I’ve been working on over the past few months, and what you can expect for 2022.

In the premium post later this week, premium subscribers will be able to vote on the topics they’re most interested in. The most voted topics will get prioritized through the year. If you’re interested in participating, subscribe to vote!

But before that, a small update: in How to Fight Ocean Plastic, we saw the problem of plastics in the environment, and I proposed to join #TeamSeas to fight it. I’m happy to announce that we made it to the goal of $30 million raised to clean 30 million pounds of plastic in the ocean!

More details here

Thanks again Tyler B, William E, Jeff W, Lea K, Nejc Z, Semi C, Panu V, Pierre D, Sonal S, Dror B, Borja F, William H, Kimber W, David D, Pablo A, Gregg R, Matthias L, Charles R, Jennifer W, Josh K, Jacob F, Antonio M, Jane B, Michelle Y, John O, David O, Tina B, and especially Mitch L, who accounted for half of our contribution!

---

OK, here are the big themes, along with some of the articles I’ve been thinking about:

The Future of Nation-States

This series continues the work of The End of Nation-States. It will cover many aspects, such as:

• If nation-states lose power, what will replace them?

• States are still going to be necessary. What will be their role?

• The main raison d’être of states is the monopoly of violence. What will happen with violence in a world of weaker nation-states? What’s the future of violence?

• Space politics: what will happen to society as we start colonizing space?

The Future of Knowledge Industries

As famous Venture Capitalist Marc Andreessen said, software is eating the world. This will trigger revolutions in many industries. 

• Education: as a knowledge industry, it’s going to be completely upended. Why hasn't it happened yet? What will it take for it to happen?

• Healthcare: while less obvious, it’s also a knowledge industry. Like all the others, it’s about to undergo a revolution. What are the barriers to its revolution? Why do we want to avoid them?

The Future of Atoms

But revolutions won’t be limited to bits. The world of atoms will also be revolutionized. 

• Retail: e-commerce has been destroying it. Will it survive? If not, what will happen to our cities?

• Urbanism: what are the biggest failures of urbanism and how will it change in the future?

• Real Estate: I believe it’s going to be a bad investment in the coming decades.

• Energy: several revolutions are happening here: renewables, fusion, maybe even fission. What are these revolutions, what can we expect from them, and what will happen once they live up to their full potential?

• Transport: we don’t have flying cars yet. Why? What other transport revolutions are happening? What are their ramifications?

The Future of Demographics

• Baby boomers: what’s their fault? What isn’t?

• Degrowth: there’s a trend against having kids. What is it? Is it right? I believe this is a catastrophe, and I’ll explain why.

• Fertility: if you agree that we should grow, then you should care about fertility, which is catastrophically low. Why? What can we do about it?

• Migrations: one solution to fertility is migration. What would it solve? How will countries’ attitudes towards migration change?

The Future of Humans

• Aging: another variable in the puzzle of demographics is aging. Aging research is living a golden age. What does it mean? Will we be able to become immortal?

• Immortality: there are other ways we can become immortal. What are all the ways, and how likely are you to live to see them—and maybe become immortal?

Artificial Intelligence & Automation

• How AI does it better: disciplines where AI is already better than us, and what’s coming.

• Artificial General Intelligence: it might be the end of mankind, or the beginning of a new era. Which one will it be? By when?

• Automation: will it destroy jobs, or create them? By when?

• Inequality: what will be the consequence of automation on inequality? How are we going to deal with that?

• The future of capitalism: why universal basic income is the only solution.

Blockchain

• NFTs: are they a fad? Or is there something that makes them fundamentally valuable?

• The importance of Blockchain: my view on the eternal debate of whether it’s a solution looking for a problem.

• Smart Contracts: Do we want them? Do they need the blockchain?

• Modern Monetary Theory: what is it, is it real, and how is it influenced by Blockchain?

The Future of Countries

Some countries are going to be transformed more than others, or will have an outsized impact in the world. This series will try to understand them better.

• China: we’ve already covered what it wants, but what will happen to it in the future? 

• Oil Countries: their future is tied to that of fossil fuels today. What will happen to them? What can history tell us about their prospects?

GeoHistory Series

These articles dive deep into specific countries to understand why they are the way they are today. In the past, I’ve written articles about this for countries and regions including China, India, Egypt, Ethiopia, Mexico, the Caribbean, and the US. Here are some other countries I’ve been considering this for, along with some other crucial geohistory patterns:

• Why was Africa conquered after America?

• What’s the role of mountains in history?

• What’s the most important accident in the world, and how has it birthed civilizations?

• How is our world determined by space?

• Argentina

• Brazil

• Spain

• France

• Nigeria

• UK

• Netherlands

• Russia

• Turkey

• Israel

• Iran

• Indonesia

• Japan

Social Engineering

As we become a networked society, how we engineer our social interactions will become the single most important series of decisions we can make. This series explores what factors influence human societies, and what we can do to better engineer them.

• Climate Change activism has failed. Why? What can we do about it?

• 100 mental hacks: how companies manipulate us, and what we can do about it.

• Why Democracy will win.

• The importance of decentralization.

• Why debate is broken.

• How to design a religion.

• The importance of rites of passage.

• The psychology of gifting: what makes a great gift? How does that change in the digital world?

• The psychology of randomness: why it’s attractive, and how companies use it to take advantage of you.

• Should we liberalize drugs? Prostitution?

• The unbundling of marriage.

• The game theory of sex.

• What’s wrong with content today.

Personal Development of the Future

A networked world also means massive transformations to every person’s life. How can we navigate that?

• The secret of happiness: what it is, and how to achieve it.

• Influence: how you can increase your influence on others.

• Contrarianism: why it matters, and how to become contrarian.

• How Elon Musk thinks.

• How to solve any problem.

• How to give feedback.

• How we should think about money.

• The most important skill for success.

The Corporate Future

• Aggregators: the robber barons of the Internet era.

• The merger of marketing and product.

• The paradoxes of growing organizations.

• Remote work: I’ve argued it’s here to stay, and it will have massive consequences. What are those consequences? (and how will that impact nation-states?)

If you’re interested in these topics and want me to focus on some more than others, subscribe to vote.

Subscribing also has another effect: you’ll support this project, which will allow me to focus more on all these topics, and even recruit help to accelerate it.

And if you can’t subscribe, another way to support this project is to share my articles, so that you spread the message and more people join us! 

This year is going to be wild. To an amazing 2022!