By Dick Pelletier
I believe humans and their machines will evolve into a
mind-boggling future.
We will greet new technologies with much joy. By late 2020’s and
early 2030’s, advanced nanotech could be making everything from
dishes to carpets 
self-cleaning, and household air permanently fresh. For
properly designed nano-replicators, dirt would become food.
High resolution screens could project different images to each
eye, giving us incredible 3D TV so real that the screen would seem
like a window into another world.
Some envision systems that would share thoughts and emotions
from mind to mind. It may be possible in the future to link neural
structures via transducers and electromagnetic signals to provide a
sort of telepathy easier to use than today’s telephones.
And of course as we trek through what some experts describe as
the “golden age of intelligence” – 2035-2050 – humanity could learn
to merge with their machines resulting in powerful bodies that
require no maintenance. Say goodbye to human aging and unwanted
deaths.
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Are we due for a massive cyclical U.S. crisis that finally
spurs institutional change? A regular revolution not tied to the
accelerating curves driving so much growth and innovation?
In large nations big spurts of institutional change tend to
occur every four generations (roughly every 88 years, 1 generation
= 22 years) when economic resources trapped by out-dated,
inefficient systems are shifted over to efficient new systems once
societies reach a cyclical tipping point for change. 
Generational theorists Strauss and Howe
call this tipping point a fourth
turning, a point in time where social power shifts to the
generations too young to have witnessed the previous correction.
They liken this pattern to a forest growth cycle: 1) new saplings
take root, 2) the forest grows tall, 3) dead branches fall and
choke off new species, 4) lightning strikes, the brambles burn and
new saplings are free to grow—repeat.
As seen widely in biology, this sort of change is called
Punctuated
Equilibrium, which contrasts with the gradual evolution that
many scientists intuitively believed to be true but ultimately was
not supported by research nor the fossil record. Similarly, the
historical record shows that the United States has regularly
experienced punctuated social crises, aka fourth turnings,
stretching all the way back to its roots in England. And just like
all of the scientists that deny punctuated evolution/development,
there is a huge % of the population that does not intuitively
believe another fourth turning will occur because they have not
encountered the historical evidence and are used to a relatively
stable socio-economic situation. (Ironically, this blindness seems
to be built into the very fabric of our social system and may
result in more efficient growth when looked at from the broader
context of inter-meshed life systems on our planet.)
Like it or not, cyclical crises pegged to
human generations are real and
should be considered when evaluating the future, right
alongside accelerating change. So the questions we need to ask are
1) “When will the next fourth turning begin?”, 2) “Are there any
dynamics that might break or trump the pattern of punctuated
national change every 88 years?”
A Likely Fourth Turning Scenario
79 years ago, on October 24, 1929, the Great Wall
Street Crash sparked the Great Depression and the last U.S.
fourth
turning. What followed was the New Deal Era, WWII, the transformation of most U.S. socio-economic
sectors and ultimately the birth of what we now refer to as “The
American Dream”.
79 years later the U.S. economy is facing a variety of problems
that could spark a down-turn and a new fourth turning. (cont.)
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