What's More Likely to Happen?

[Frodo]

Make your best guess!

[Asian Nazi]

More likely to ever happen, or happen anytime soon?

Nuclear fusion becoming primary source of energy?  Possibly, but unlikely to ever happen imo.  Human civilization will likely wipe itself out before we get to that point.

Humans establishing permanent settlement on Mars?  I don't think there's any incentive to.  There's no profit to be had, and any research can be done much easier and more cheaply via robot.  Not much military utility either.

China becoming a liberal, multi-party democracy is not going to happen.

The United States remaining global hegemon for centuries to come isn't happening either.  The United States and any successor states will remain structurally influential for quite some time, but the position as hegemon is likely unsustainable.

Establishing contact with extraterrestrial civilizations.  I personally buy the Dark Forest theory on this one.  Contact is unlikely to happen and if it does it will NOT go well for us.

[Asian Nazi]

How so?  Our defense budget is currently only about 3.5% of our GDP, and at the height of the Iraq and Afghan wars, never went over 5%.  Compared with that of the British Empire, we run ours on the cheap. 

Oh, you're just talking in terms of raw firepower?  In that case America's military is likely to remain the most powerful in the world for at least a couple more generations.  Culturally, too, America is in such a dominant position globally that it likely won't be surpassed anytime soon.  Economically, America has already lost its hegemon status by every reasonable measure.

[dead0man]

The only one that won't happen is the first one.  We will put dudes on Mars.  China will eventually be free.  The US will be on top for a long time.  And we will eventually find or be found by "others".

As for what happens first, sadly, we'll probably have dudes on Mars before China is free.  It will be bloodier and more expensive to make it happen too.  Alien contact is much too random, could be this afternoon, might not be for another 200,000,000 years.

[Figueira]

Tossup between 1 and 4 for me. Voted 1 because I'm an optimist.

[angus]

haha.  They are all far-fetching scenarios.  Okay, then, I've made a wild guess.  I was torn between the only two somewhat realistic options:  colonial Mars and contact with aliens.  As much as I want to establish communication with the others, I think a Mars colony will be established sooner, so I voted for the second option.

The fourth option vaguely seems among the least objectionable by some interpretation.  I do think that a sort of North American golden half-millenium, which began circa 1991 when the "cold war" ended, is real, owing to North America's advantageous cultural and economic relations to both Europe (and the faded European half-millenium which began around 1492 when the Ottomans shut off the land route to Asia for non-Muslims forcing Europe to seek a long sea route to the East Indies), and the emerging Asian economic and cultural megahegemony which is only now in its infancy, but I don't necessarily think that exactly translates into the statement encapsulated in the fourth option.  

[muon2]

The Sun's light comes from nuclear fusion, so does solar power count on number 1?

Other is a strange option here. I could fill in almost anything, like there will be a future year warmer than 2015, and then check the box. I like the free response, so I voted other.

[Illiniwek]

I guess fusion is impossible unfortunately...
Mars could happen
I think a revolution would have to happen in China to have that degree of change
Extraterrestrial contact is possible, but highly unlikely.
I guess we will dominate the world. I just don't see who is going to knock us down yet.