[FORUM] How will we see the present in the longue durée?

[rfmcdonald]

At the beginning of the month, rather acute science fiction writer Charlie Stross started a 1308-post discussion thread at his blog asking a question: How will the future see our present day? What will be the profound trends of note in the 1700-2300 period?

Please note that this is a 600 year span—around the duration of the entire mediaeval period. Events a mere 20 years apart, such as the first and second world wars, merge together when viewed through the wrong end of a temporal telescope, just like the 30 years' war or the Wars of the Roses. Individual people, even hugely influential thinkers and rulers and tyrants, are a jumbled mass of names with dates attached. This is a question about the big issues—the ones big enough to remember half a millennium hence, like the Black Death, the Crusades, or the conquest of the Americas.

I'm not asking for specific historical events but for major trends. Anthropogenic climate change is obviously one of the big ones, and I have a number of others in mind; I want to see if I've missed anything obvious.

I'm inclined to think that the abandonment of traditional high-mortality/high-fertility demographic patterns is going to be one, along with the creation of a unified global society.

And you?