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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dethklok" data-source="post: 6293266" data-attributes="member: 6746469">I'll comment that the scenarios you've given already seem rather sanguine. Whether you consider environmental issues, economic problems, peak oil, downbreeding, or the simple model of an aging civilization written about by Carroll Quigley, there are reasons to think that current rates of expansion will taper off, leaving us not in a postapocalptic setting but in an aged world civilization - comfortable and over-ripe.Just taking a few existing trends and extrapolating 100 years forward, we see:* Global temperatures are up around 5 degrees F* Computers will be incredibly powerful* Society will be largely religious* Oil reserves are almost gone; solar power will take up the slack* World population will be high, but so will the average age* Obesity will be the normOf course, there are reasons to think that nonlinear effects will kick in to moderate these trends - as obesity rates continue to rise, the issue will be taken increasingly seriously, for instance.But the higher rate of reproduction in the religious community is more interesting to me, since it will likely accelerate rather than tapering off. Impressionistically, it suggests something different from a high-tech explosion; devoutly religious groups are seldom enthusiastic about technology, as we see from the case of Hassidic Jews banning cell phone use for women, or the Amish banning everything use for everybody.* Both of these groups, like virtually every devoutly religious group, have very high fertility and have therefore been growing exponentially.So what about a world where technology has stagnated, except in the areas of medicine, food production, and to some degree computers? What about a world where rival religions clash; where cities are filled with sectarian churches and secret societies struggling to sway local policies toward their religious ideals, some of them peacefully, some through the many-layered global Net, and some violently? It looks more like Paranoia than Cyberpunk or Heroes Unlimited... unless one of these religions genuinely is The Right One, in which case players may have to figure out which, before the demons claim them.*Admittedly this is somewhat unfair. The Amish do allow their members to use roller blades.</blockquote>

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