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(2011-04-27) Optimistic Near Future Vision

Is there a novel, other book, or other resource out there that paints an Optimistic Near Future Vision (10-20yrs) SmallWorld/Network Economy picture that's not overly-darkened by Peak Oil or other Collapse factors (or Singularity wishful-thinking)?

Is Science Fiction the only place to look?

Daemon/Freedom Tm have bits of that, surrounded by transitional violence. And a bit too much Deus Ex Machina (Deus Ex dead-guys-machina).

Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom has a little too much material-abundance wishful-thinking.

Accelerando is a utopia only for the roughly 1% of humanity who don't get exterminated by the ab-human products of the singularity. Do pay attention, please?... You missed the bit with the Vile Offspring in the last third of the novel, did you? They're dismantled and recycled as computronium. And the upload minds the Vile Offspring are firing at the survivors on Saturn are actually a denial-of-service attack using fakes (literally: false consciousness). (Also a bit too far-tech, after the early lobster part.) 2010-12-06-StrossSeekingUtopias

Brin's Earth

Jul28'2011:

Later:

Also

Mar'2012: I guess I'll settle for some inspirational Non-Fiction.

Jul'2014: Kevin Kelly sought short descriptions of a plausible but attractive future from the crowd.

  • His favorite of the submissions: Physical and Virtual Reality-s are meshed together with no distinction. Ideas are given sovereignty with their creators rewarded fairly and directly. The world itself does the drudgery of assembling itself across all sectors that information science has been applied, which is limited only by the quantum information underpinnings of the universe. Humans have taken up their primary purpose of creativity and now work with other intelligences of any kind to ask questions and achieve answers, with an eye toward more questions. “Human” has taken on flourishing new meanings. Imagination has been unleashed upon the world in a literal sense. — JohnHanacek
  • His own pastiche: 2121: Population 4 billion; 85% Urban. Cities boom, empty suburbs struggle. Agriculture acreage reduced with GMO-s. Nature monitored quantitatively; green lands expand with genetic engineering. Solar, fusion, mini nukes generate cheap power. Climate Change adapted. Creative Class Middle Class the new majority, globally mobile. Computer pilots make travel common internationally. Eco and heritage tourism primary income for poorest. Robot-s takeover remaining Blue Collar jobs in Asia and Africa. Internet of everything physical (Internet Of Things) continued. Universal library, and universal lifelong education for free. All humans Always On the net anywhere. Brain interface, wearables. Co-veillent tracking (Transparent Society) ubiquitous. Quantified Self for personalized medicine. Techno-literacy (managing) skills mandatory.
  • Semi-related, a couple days later, he noted that it's not too late to Change The World via the Internet Start Up. The internet is still at the beginning of its beginning. If we could climb into a time machine and journey 30 years into the future, and from that vantage look back to today, we’d realize that most of the greatest products running the lives of citizens in 2044 were not invented until after 2014. People in the future will look at their holodecks, and wearable virtual reality contact lenses, and downloadable avatars, and AI interfaces, and say, oh, you didn’t really have the internet (or whatever they’ll call it) back then. (phases of Technological Revolution)

2015: History Of The 21st Century In 100 Objects qualifies.

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