Britain in 2055 Mad Max or Blade Runner?
The choice is not yours, but it seems that one or the other is inevitable. According to a government sponsored website called Foresight
“Foresight, and its associated horizon scanning centre aims to provide challenging visions of the future, to ensure effective strategies now.”
Checking through most of its boring and uninteresting stuff on the site one can get access to the document titled ‘The Scenarios Towards 2055′ (3mb). Also you can see ‚ÄòThe Scenarios Toward, the process.‚Äô.
This is a fascinating read, describing Britain upto 2055. But no matter how crazy the stories may seem, its government sponsored! This is what THEY think is going to happen.
But to save you the hassle of reading it I will provide some comment and analysis here.
Page 10 of the document begins to detail the ‘Perpetual Motion’ Scenario that readers maybe familiar from films such as ‘Bladerunner’ and ‘Minority Report’. As efficient cars zip backwards and forwards and video advertisements adorn the sides of buildings. We all end up with encrypted ID cards and so forth.
But turning to page 46 of the document we see ‘tribal trading’, things change from Phillip K Dick to Mad Max. But not the Mad Max we know and love, but a more British one. The timeline tells us that in 2011 we reach peak Oil and in 2026 the UK banking system collapses. The rest of the tribal trading article describes how we will move out of the cities and into the countryside.
“This is a world that seems to have stabilised, but the change has been traumatic. By 2055, many have died, from illness as much as the endless skirmishes over energy and food, and more have migrated, often unsuccessfully, in search of places with resources where they can settle.”
So the Kalashnikov society could come to Britain, we won’t be able to travel from one end of the country to the other by car or train, but by foot and horse. We will toil in the fields and die younger but live healthier. People will scavenge the landfill sites of the past searching form microchips. But we will, according to the document, still have computers and in one form or another an internet. Will Shiptonblog still be there in 2055 I wonder?
Anyway its nice to know what the government plans for us when the global economy, the environment and everything else goes tits up.
Check it out
“And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.”
Revelations 6,8
Does a dead Scottish Swan count? Quoting the Bible is always fun, because so much of it is bonkers. While studying for my GCSE in Religious Studies (because I wasn’t allowed to do German) I managed to read quite a lot of it. Often I would quote from my authorised King James Bible I was given by an ancient relative, which was also printed in olde English. You did not get extra points for that by the way.
My thoughts have not actually turned to the bible at all as we all face the inevitable prospect of death by bird flu. Now the infamous swan has been discovered we can prepare. I am not sure if the swan has been named, perhaps it is called ‘Swanny’.
Firstly people will start to catch it from pigeons, and swans in parks. Simply buying chicken from the supermarket will put you at risk before even opening the packet. As the mountains of bodies begin to pile in the streets the fabric of society will erode, there will be rioting as food runs short. There will be a curfew and martial law as are movements are restricted by the State. The police and the government will all be inoculated by their secret supplies of tamiflu, but this will only protect them for a while as the virus mutates over and over again. Tamiflu will fetch up to £500 a pack on eBay it will be even more useless as the postman will be dead. The economy will disintegrate as people flee the cities, other diseases will catch hold as paranoia and panic spread like wild fire.
Bird flu sufferers commonly appear to die a slow and lingering death. Then, a short while after they appear to have died, they are re-animated with an unquenchable thirst for human flesh. Depending on the strain of bird flu the sufferers will only be able to mumble things like “Mnnnurgh! Mnnnurgh!” or “Brains!”. Some will run, some will simply shamble. They will blindly attempt to re-create their previous lives, sometimes in ironic and dryly amusing ways. These attempts will not extend much further than shambling around shopping centres or business parks. All will be killing machines defeatable only by severing the head or destroying the brain. Bird flu is spread in the air, by touch, by biting and by sight.
As the survivors emerge from the shattered mess of Britain they will see a country reduced to a quasi medieval society. Business parks will be clogged with trees, cars will be pulled by horses and the name ‘Swanny’ will only be whispered in the most fearful and hushed tones.
Personally I am looking forward to the post-apocalyptic part of our societies decline. The transitional phase as we return to a tribal society is clearly not far off. And as our fuel and energy rich economy collapses our once common machinery will decline, and a frantic search for fuel and parts will take place.
