Taking a Really Long-Range View - Graham T.T. Molitor's predictions - Brief Article

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Dec, 2000

Many experts make forecasts for the next year or two. Futurist Graham T.T. Molitor is trying to look 1,000 years ahead. Already, he is anticipating a series of new eras that will unfold during the coming third millennium. They will be as important as the Agricultural Age, Industrial Age, and Information Age have been to earlier generations.

"The current Information Age has relatively few remaining years of dominance--possibly as few as 20," predicts Molitor, vice president of the World Future Society and an editor of The Encyclopedia of the Future. He expects a Leisure-Time Era to emerge by 2015 and dominate the world economy until 2100.

"Leisure-oriented businesses--everything from bars to video stores to opera houses--will account for 50% of the U.S. gross national product shortly after 2015." Entertainment conglomerates such as Disney's ABC will be in the forefront of this growing sector.

Molitor believes that new technology and ongoing trends will result in shorter workweeks, longer holidays, and earlier retirement for workers. By 2015, people will be able to devote more than 50% of their time to leisure.

Subsequent waves of change will bring the Life Sciences Era, the Megamaterials Era, and the New Atomic Age. Beginning in 2500, the New Space Age will see humans establishing space-based travel businesses and interplanetary colonies to mine the resources of the Solar System.