21st century

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{{centurybox | cpa=20 | cpb=th century | c=21st century | cn1=22nd century }}

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The 21st century is a century of the Gregorian calendar which began on 1 January 2001 and will last to 31 December 2100.

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Overview

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The 21st century has had an influence on culture since well before it began. Speculation about future, social, cultural, and technological trends frequently centered on the year 2000, starting with late-19th century essays and novels (often of a utopian nature) such as Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward, though Bellamy explicitly called the year 2000 "the Twentieth Century." It's been said that the event horizon of Western culture was steadily shrinking in this period, since as late as the 1990s people were still often focusing on the year 2000 in their discussions of the future.

As of 2006, the 21st Century retrospectively refers to the years 2000-2006 and informally sometimes to events of the 1990s.

Religious beliefs in a "millennial apocalypse" were supplemented by genuine concerns about the Y2k computer "bug" and about possible terrorist attacks centered on the year-2000 celebrations, but the actual turn of the millennium (both the popularly-celebrated one in 2000 and the "purist" one in 2001) went by in a fairly anticlimactic manner. Interestingly, many of the trends of the early 21st Century began in the 1990s (and even earlier decades). In fact, one could argue that the 1990s decade is in the same social era as the 2000s and a separate one from the 1980s and earlier decades.

However, the years since have continued in the tumultuous manner people of the 20th century were accustomed to expect, with wars and other conflicts, as well as continued advances in science and technology including the continuing expansion of the use of computers and the Internet (despite the "tech bubble burst" where the overexuberance of early Internet companies was deflated).

So far in the 21st century, the main historical trends have been the violent conflict between Western Civilization and Islamist Terrorism, the search for solutions to global warming, the continued growth of the European Community and the rapid emergence of China and India as global industrial powers.

More Y2k-style computer date failures are due before the end of the 21st century; the Unix datestamps, consisting of a count of the number of seconds since 1970, may overflow in 2038, while the family of operating systems descended from MS-DOS (including the various versions of Microsoft Windows) can't handle dates beyond 2099.

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Important developments, events, achievements

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Politics

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Science and technology

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Conflicts and civil unrest

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Worldwide deaths from war and terror attacks

Furthermore, there are several wars and dictatorships continuing from the 20th century. In most cases, the death toll is unclear. See also [3].

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Natural disasters

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Sports

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Issues and concerns

Some of the things that have dominated discussion and debate in this century include:

  • Overpopulation. The United Nations estimates that world population will reach 9.1 billion by mid-century. Such growth raises questions of ecological sustainability and creates many economic and political disruptions. In response, many countries have adopted policies which either force or encourage their citizens to have fewer children, and others have limited immigration. Considerable debate exists over what the ultimate carrying capacity of the planet may be; whether or not population growth containment policies are necessary; to what degree growth can safely occur thanks to increased economic and ecological efficiency; and how markets should accommodate demographic shifts. Evidence forms that developed countries (such as Japan) suffer population implosion, and the population debate is strongly tied with poverty.
  • Poverty. Poverty remains the root cause of many of the world's other ills, including famine, disease, and insufficient education. Poverty contains many self-reinforcing elements (for instance, poverty can make education an unaffordable luxury, which tends to result in continuing poverty) that various aid groups hope to rectify in this century.
  • Global warming. The overwhelming majority of climate scientists think that the earth is currently undergoing significant anthropogenic(human-induced) global warming. [4] The resulting economic and ecological costs are hard to predict, and by the end of the 21st century could be quite severe.
  • Other environmental changes. Trends such as increased pollution, deforestation and biodiversity loss occurring in the 20th century are likely to continue into the 21st century.
  • Global power. Issues surrounding the cultural, economic, and military dominance of the United States and its role in the world community have become even more pointed given its recent military activities, problematic relations with the United Nations, disagreement over several international treaties, and its economic policies with regard to globalization. Integration of the European Union and the African Union have proceeded.
  • Intellectual property. The increasing popularity of digital formats for entertainment media such as movies and music, and the ease of copying and distributing it via the Internet and peer-to-peer networks, has raised concerns in the media industry about copyright infringement. Much debate is proceeding about the proper bounds between protection of copyright, trademark and patent rights versus fair use and the public domain, where some argue that such laws have shifted greatly towards intellectual property owners and away from the interests of the general public in recent years, while others say that such legal change is needed to deal with the threat of new technologies against the rights of authors and artists (or, as others put it, against the outmoded business models of the current entertainment industry). Domain name "cybersquatting" and access to patented drugs to combat epidemics in third-world countries are other IP concerns.
  • Technology developments show no sign of ending. Communications and control technology continues to augment the intelligence of individual humans, collections of humans, and machines. Cultures are forced into the position of sharply defining humanity and determining boundaries on desire, thought, communication, behavior, and manufacturing. Some predict that by the middle of this century there will be a Technological Singularity if artificial intelligences are created that are smarter than humans. If these then create even smarter AI's technological change will accelerate in ways that are impossible for us to foresee.
  • Energy is becoming scarce and more expensive, due to the escalating demand for petroleum ("oil") and oil-based products such as gasoline and kerosene, unmatched by production. Discovery of new oil fields has not been sufficient to sustain current levels of production, and some fear that the earth may be running out of economically viable oil. While complete depletion will not happen in the near future, some fear that a peak in production will cause an end to the trend of economic expansion in modern society, perhaps resulting in a collapse of modern civilization itself. Others believe that alternative sources of energy will prevent this disaster.
  • Civilization is subject to increasing pressures due to overpopulation and culture clash. Samuel Huntington has spoken of a crash that may lead to extended wars and global instability. At the same time, there is increasing concern of decadence in Western arts and sciences among the leading intellects of the time, from Jacques Barzun to John Horgan´s "End of Science" to the columnist Spengler of Asia Times (who took his pseudonym from Oswald Spengler).


The United Nations lists global issues on its agenda here and lists a set of Millennium Goals to attempt to address some of these issues.

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Significant people

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Influential people in politics as of 2006

(in alphabetical order)

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Influential people in religion as of 2006

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Influential people in technology as of 2006

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Influential people in science as of 2006

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Influential people in mathematics as of 2006

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Influential people in the arts as of 2006

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Astronomical events and predictions

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Scientific and technological predictions

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Socio-political predictions

  • A woman once told Winston Churchill: "By the year 2100, women will rule the world." Churchill asked: "Still?" By 2005 with the appointment of Margaret Wilson as Parliament's speaker, New Zealand had women at the head of all branches of Government: Sovereign, Governor-General, Prime Minister, Speaker and Chief Justice.
  • Several leaders in politics, religion, etc., have set goals for the elimination of dictatorship, disease, hunger, illiteracy, lack of drinkable water, over-population, poverty, racism, tyranny and war in the 21st century.
  • Many in the media have begun referring to the 21st century as the Asian Century because of the predicted growing power in Asia.
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Science fiction set in the remaining years of the 21st century

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Television and film

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Computer and video games

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Novels

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Decades and years

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External links

als:21. Jahrhundert ast:Sieglu XXI bg:21 век be:21 стагодзьдзе bs:21. vijek br:XXIvet kantved ca:Segle XXI cv:XXI ĕмĕр cs:21. století cy:21ain ganrif da:21. århundrede de:21. Jahrhundert et:21. sajand el:21ος αιώνας es:Siglo XXI eo:21-a jarcento fr:XXIe siècle fy:21e ieu ko:21세기 io:21ma yar-cento id:Abad ke-21 is:21. öldin it:XXI secolo he:המאה ה-21 kw:21ns kansblydhen ku:Sedsala 21'an lt:XXI amžius lb:21. Joerhonnert li:Einentwintegste iew hu:21. század nl:21e eeuw ja:21世紀 no:21. århundre nn:2000-talet os:XXI æнус pl:XXI wiek pt:Século XXI ro:Secolul XXI ru:XXI век simple:21st century sk:21. storočie sl:21. stoletje sr:21. век fi:2000-luku sv:2000-talet th:คริสต์ศตวรรษที่ 21 tr:21. yüzyıl uk:21 століття ur:2000صبم wa:21inme sieke zh:21世纪

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