Princeton physicist Gerard K. O'Neill's 1981 book, 2081: A Hopeful View of the Human Future was an attempt to predict the technological and social state of humanity one hundred years in the future.

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  • Princeton physicist Gerard K. O'Neill's 1981 book, 2081: A Hopeful View of the Human Future was an attempt to predict the technological and social state of humanity one hundred years in the future. As the title indicates, O'Neill's positive attitude towards both technology and human potential distinguished this book from gloomy predictions of Malthusian catastrophe by contemporary scientists such as Paul R. Ehrlich's 1968 The Population Bomb ("…in the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death …") and the Club of Rome's 1972 Limits to Growth prediction of a catastrophic end to the Industrial Revolution within 100 years from resource exhaustion and pollution. O'Neill's contrary view had two main components. First, he analyzed the successes and failures of previous attempts to predict the future of society -- including many predictions of catastrophe that had not materialized. Second, he extrapolated historical trends such as increasing income (leading to a prediction of a 2081 average American family income of $1M/year) under the assumption that the obstacles identified by other authors would be overcome by five technological "Drivers of Change". Two that were based on his own research were responsible for much of his optimism. As O'Neill's The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space describes, solar power satellites will provide unlimited clean energy, making it far easier for all of humanity to reach and exceed present developed-world living standards. Over-population pressures will be relieved as billions of people eventually emigrate to colonies in free space (i.e. not on the surface of a planet) that offer an Earth-like environment but with vastly higher productivity for industry and agriculture. These colonies and satellites will not be launched expensively from Earth, but largely constructed from asteroid or lunar materials moved into the desired orbits cheaply by the mass drivers O'Neill's group developed. (en)
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  • Princeton physicist Gerard K. O'Neill's 1981 book, 2081: A Hopeful View of the Human Future was an attempt to predict the technological and social state of humanity one hundred years in the future. (en)
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  • 2081: A Hopeful View of the Human Future (en)
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