The future of WHF

The bad news is that I lost momentum over time and wrote very little near the end of the 60 days. It's hard to maintain yet another blog while juggling everything else including my original blog.

The good news is that I received some very positive feedback and enjoyed writing outside the box sorts of posts. Readers encouraged me to continue writing.

Where does that leave Western Hemisphere Futures?

I have to suspend this blog for now. I have too much going on over the next few weeks to pretend I can continue at the rate that I'd like to. That said, I hope to relaunch at some point in the future. 

I created a Western Hemisphere Futures Page on Google+. The goal is to talk about future issues like those discussed on this blog and share articles. It may take off or it may sit in silence. Part of that depends on me and part of it depends on the community of those interested in the topic.

Thanks to everyone for reading over the last 60 days and for all the feedback.

Abundance vs Scarcity

Much of what's been written on this blog over the past 60 days has dealt with two visions of the future. In one, there is abundance with new sources of energy, food and clean water. In the other, there is scarcity creating competition for a dwindling supply of resources. 

The abundance vs scarcity question is a fairly common issue when looking at future scenarios and many others have written on it. What I would like to stress is that the hemisphere shouldn't view either vision as being imposed on it by some outside force. It should be investing in science, technology and education to try to build that future of abundance. It should be looking at government policies and private sector investments that can help eliminate problems of scarcity. We should plan for the worse of the two scenarios. I wouldn't want to avoid planning for potential scarcity in the future. But we should be working and investing to build the better of the two, because if we have a choice, it's certainly the better future to live in.

Nanotech diplomacy

The building blocks for cooperation between the US and Latin America on nanotechnology are being put in place.

From the US-Brazil meeting fact sheets:

Representatives from the Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation; Brazilian National Institute of Metrology, Quality and Technology; and the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative met on March 30, 2012, to discuss national strategies, research programs, and shared access to user facilities. Significant opportunities for collaboration, including undergraduate and graduate student exchanges, were identified between the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Nanoscale Science and Engineering Centers and the Brazilian Nanotechnology Centers. The two countries have launched workshops on Converging Technologies, with the first held in São Paulo in October 2011 and a second to be held in Arlington, Virginia, in June 2012. 

Also, the recent North American leaders meeting promised "aligning principles of our regulatory approaches to nanomaterials."

The US appears to be positioning itself on this issue before most people even notice the discussion is occurring.

Water sanitation innovation

WashPost:

Last year, Ugarte’s team partnered with Alfredo Zolezzi, Chief Innovation Officer of Chile Advanced Innovation Center, to test a revolutionary pint-sized Plasma Water Sanitation System that his company was developing. This can purify 35 liters of water in five minutes using only the power required to light a 100 watt bulb. If the system can be mass produced for less than $100, as Zolezzi believes, and the output passes the lab tests to which it is being subjected, it has the potential to provide clean, safe water to billions in the developing world. 

There are several projects similar to this being tested right now around the world. Once cheap enough, they have the potential to be a game changing technology to help improve the health of people around the hemisphere.

Teachers need to adapt to computers

The Economist reports on the apparent failure of One Laptop Per Child in Peru, not the first media outlet to notice the problem. In spite of a large investment in laptops, children's test scores have not improved, nor have other measures like attendance and participation.

The article says that Peru has failed to invest in educating teachers and improving curriculum to best utilize the new technologies. It makes some sense.

I don't believe children have not gotten any benefits from the new laptops. There must be some advantages to kids having these new tools and learning how to use them. But if the basic reading and math scores are not improving, there is only so far they can go.

Decentralize access to robots

This very cool project from MIT will allow for customized robots to be designed and printed within a matter of hours. With designs and raw materials, Latin American citizens (and governments, companies, NGOs, criminals) will have access to robotics technology without the need for large local factories or importation of finished products.

Build some batteries

Well over a majority of the world's known lithium reserves are in South America, centered in Chile, Bolivia and Argentina. If the future of batteries is lithium, then those countries are sitting on a big pile of money. If the future of batteries goes in another direction, then few are going to invest in the process of extracting it and it's going to get a low price.

Understanding the lithium extraction can be a difficult and expensive process, it's still disappointing that none of these countries has decided to build the battery technology on their own. Waiting for outside firms to enter the market simply continues the cycle of dependency that exists in much of the region. This is a rare opportunity to build an industry in the region that uses local resources to manufacture a well developed product to world markets.

Bolivia has tried to find a middle route, insisting that any outside firm investing in local lithium must build a battery plant in the country and transfer the technological knowledge. It's a reasonable condition, but it's still waiting on someone else to help.

Take the risk, spend government R&D funds, build some batteries, create the domestic industry now rather than wait on some other country or corporation to come create it and profit from it. Outside firms should be allowed to invest in the industry, but waiting on them to do so shows a lack of initiative.

Let's be honest, the first batteries are likely to be bad. It's unlikely Chile or Argentina or Bolivia is going to match current technology in their first attempt. It's going to take years of developing the science and technology skills to bring the batteries to a level that they can be exported. However, it will be a worthwhile process to create the skills in the country. The risk is that the country will lose financially if they cannot pull it off. The potential gains are quite high if they do manage it.

Nature moving borders

Last year, as Costa Rica and Nicaragua fought over a small piece of land, one of the issues was over how the Rio San Juan has moved over the past 100-150 years. If the river moves, does the border move too?

Rivers move a great deal over the course of decades, more than most other natural boundaries (like mountains). When boundaries are set by natural geography at a certain moment in time, the risk is that they will move in the future.

The river moving in Central America was one factor setting off a dispute. Are there other border disputes that could arise over similar natural events in the coming century?

While I don't think many mountains will be moving much (the Chile/Argentine border is defined by mountain peaks), it may be maritime boundaries are the big issue. Rising sea levels are likely to change shape of borders as they hit the sea, which can affect rights on fishing and deepsea oil drilling.

Criminal innovation

Over at my other blog, I ask whether the region's criminals are being out-innovated by the Chinese. There are Chinese companies manufacturing complex counterfeit electronic parts, something not done in this region.

That said, we shouldn't look down on the criminal innovation in this region. They build submarines, from scratch, in the jungle! That's pretty impressive. It's worth asking whether it's possible to turn that technical knowledge into a more legitimate and yet still profitable business.

Innovation is often done in a grey market with a hacking and DIY mentality. It's the sort of thing that should be encouraged in Latin America, if only it could be directed away from groups that illegally traffic, kidnap and extort. Experts want to see more innovation in the region? Part of it is happening in the black market. They should be thinking about how to legalize criminal innovations so they become a benefit for the region instead of a drawback.

Repairs

Throughout Latin America, infrastructure is aging in a way that billions must be spent in the coming decade just to maintain or replace what is there, never mind upgrading. Roads, bridges, dams and ports in nearly every country require significant repairs just to keep running.

If you're looking for things that may hold the region back, this is one of them. There are a number of brand new infrastructure projects from the Baluarte Bicentennial Bridge in Mexico to Brazil's transcontinental highways that capture the imagination, but keeping up with repairs on some of the more mundane bridges and highways that are decades old is going to drain public resources and hold back new projects.

We should be looking for ways to turn this negative into a positive. What innovation, either materials or techniques, can be brought by paving a road? What smart technology can be included while we're working on the old infrastructure? How do we make the decisions whether to repair or to tear down and build new?

Vigilantism, bounties and super-empowered individuals

What if one of Latin America's billionaires offered a $10,000 reward to any person or organization who could provide proof (defined specifically) that a politician, government official or police officer is corrupt.

It would create a rush of private investigators trying to find evidence to win the money. It would put fear in some government officials. At its best, it would be pressure for transparency. At its worst, it would be a sort of vigilantism that unfairly hounded the many officials trying to do good work.

It's worth debating whether it's a good or bad idea. It's also worth thinking about the fact that few laws would prevent a super-empowered rich individual from offering such a set of prizes and starting this cycle.

30 days left

30 days down and 30 to go with stage one of this experiment. How do I think it's going?

• I appreciate all the feedback, much of it positive.
• I've liked having a place to think and write about topics that seem to fall outside my usual blogging.
• I've written less than I've wanted to. Time to write is always a challenge and I've spent more time on my usual blogging than here.
• That countdown clock looms over me every day. Whatever direction I take this, I need to write more.
• I've enjoyed the freeform write about anything, but I may need to give this blog a bit more direction if I hope to get some useful longer essays out of it in the end.

So, it's not going quite as well as I had thought at my most optimistic, but I'm still finding it to be useful and entertaining.

Biotech to fight dengue

La Prensa:

During the event, it was reported that the British firm Oxitec plans to release thousands of mosquitoes that have been genetically modified to fight dengue in Panama and Costa Rica, as well as in the Florida Keys.

I think this is probably a good thing, but it's amazing that it's being done almost completely without government regulation. It's another example where Latin America and its political leaders need to catch up to modern technology or risk having things happen in the region without any debate. Where are the politicians in the region who are interested in regulating and encouraging/discouraging biotechnology and genetically modified insects to combat disease?

Bringing biotechnology to mining

A few days ago, I offered brief speculation on robotics being used in Latin American mining projects. The BBC highlights a potentially different trend with a Chilean firm using bacteria to extract copper. The microbes break down the various minerals in the rocks until only copper remains. It concludes:

If it works, one day it might be possible to get mine for copper without digging huge pit mines. Instead, miners would simply drill two holes to introduce a solution full or with microbes, and then collect it once it contains copper.

It sounds like the technology may be closer in some ways than the robotics.

Drones to fight deforestation

Conversationists are building drones that can monitor deforestation rates and capture evidence of illegal logging (Mashable, Tree Hugger). It moves the problem of deforestation from one of too little information (we used to have no idea what occurred in the remote regions of the Amazon) to one where people almost have too much information. How do they track all of the videos and info that they will collect?

Solving power outages

Last year, a power outage struck the entire country of Nicaragua and I had to go to the bank. So, I decided to call the bank to see if they were open on generator power. Conversation:

Me: Hey, are you open?
Bank: Of course. Why wouldn't we be?
Me: Well, the power is out in the entire country.
Bank: Oh, I didn't know that.
Me: So are you running on generator power?
Bank: Must be, I don't really know. 

I'm fortunate enough to have a backup generator, as are most banks, hospitals and major businesses. I was still struck by the fact that the bank tellers didn't even know that there was a nationwide power outage or that they were running on generator power right at that moment.

The poor and businesses without much capital just have to suffer through the constant power outages. They certainly know when the power is off for hours at a time.

There are two ways to solve this problem. The first is to build a better national power system including generators and grids. It's a big investment that requires national political will. It would help productivity nationally and reduce costs lost to power outages and gas-fuel generators.

Alternatively, we can wait for generator and battery technology to drop in price and move more towards solar and other renewables so that far more people can afford backup power when the national grid goes offline. This is a decentralized solution that doesn't require the same big political effort and would produce a more resilient system.

I'm not sure which solution is better. Both come with benefits and drawbacks.

An X prize for security

Alejandro Hope suggests that Mexico should use a model like that of the X prize to reward better security in Mexico. The governor and top state officials who manage the best improvements on security would receive millions.

I'm not sure I agree fully with his methodology, but I like the general concept and I'd like to think about how to extend it to Central America. What sort of reward system could create the sorts of changes and individual accountability that could improve security?

Computers to replace journalists (and bloggers)

A computer with decent artificial intelligence should be able replace some of the most boring aspects of journalism (and blogging). There are already programs that put together sports stories based on the box scores. Computer programs have figured out how to search newspapers and aggregate the links that people will find most interesting.

Computers can't yet write a tough analysis lamenting the fact that the US isn't paying enough attention to Latin America and giving the most recent examples, but they might get there soon enough. Just program the computer to write and publish that story every six months with updated anecdotes.

One long-term question for the region should be whether computers may be able to replace the most dangerous aspects of journalism. With dozens of journalists killed over the past decade, the region could use some fearless AI reporters. Computers obviously would be harder to threaten or kill for reporting on the issue. They could be manipulated, but it would be different than bribing or threatening a human. I see some obvious limitations in how computers might be able to report on those issues, but it's worth asking what would it take for a computer to report on police corruption or drug violence? 

I don't think we'll get there soon and there will always be a role for human reporters on the ground. However, if there was a way for computers to track and report corruption of local officials based on data mining and other methods, it could change the nature of investigative reporting in the region.

Bringing robotics to mining

One of the most dangerous jobs in the hemisphere is mining. The rescue of the Chilean miners in 2010 was a very positive story, but usually those disasters end in tragedy. Dozens, perhaps even hundreds (statistics aren't formally kept at many mines) die every year in mining accidents around the region.

This sort of dangerous work is a prime area where robotics can help reduce the number of deaths. While there will always be a need for some humans, robots can take humans out of the most dangerous areas and do the hardest work.

Of course, in spite of the danger, I'm sure many miners are glad to have jobs and don't want to be replaced by robots. Additionally, in countries where labor costs are low, the technology must become much, much cheaper before it's cost effective to pay for a robot. That's a sad statement when talking about a human life, but it's the truth for mining companies worried about the bottom line.

Robotic drug subs

Wired's Danger Room blog covers the US Navy push to build robotic submarines. The current models aren't quite up to what the Navy needs. However, the technology is getting close to what is needed by illicit traffickers, who are only going to be a few steps behind anything done by military contractors.

Traffickers just need to get across the Caribbean or up the Pacific coast. Then they need to cross the Atlantic to Africa or Europe to get drugs or other contraband to those markets.

For the traffickers, it's an issue of technology and then scalability. They need the tech to be cheap enough so that the contraband pays for the transportation plus they can absorb some seizures and lost items. The technology and cost are not there yet. However, I bet we see the first robotic underwater drone used by a criminal group inside a decade, at least as a test run.

Urban farming in a breadbasket

I've been spending time reading about vertical farming in urban environments as a possible way to feed future populations and conserve water supplies.

The biggest megacity regions in South America - Rio, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires and Bogota - all exist right near some large agricultural areas that are fully capable of feeding them. Unlike other urban areas of the world, the need for vertical farming doesn't seem particularly urgent. It would help save water and it could help boost exports to regions like China where the demand for food continues to outstrip supply. However, those are secondary benefits not currently driven by local demand.

All this is to say that I think some form of vertical farming is likely in the future around the world, but without significant leadership or some economic incentive, South America may be one of the last regions to adopt it.

On the other hand, the Caribbean where land for agriculture and fresh water are at a premium could have the conditions to be an early adopter.

Drones going mainstream

Great article in today's Washington Times. Read it in full. Then think about the implications for Latin America when you know the following groups will have access to unmanned aerial vehicles in the coming decade:

• Militaries
• Police
• Private security contractors
• Organized criminal groups
• Gangs
• Human Rights NGOs
• Shipping companies
• Schools

I recently gave several talks on the implications of criminal groups and private security organizations getting drones in Latin America. It changes the security environment in ways that will be tough for the already overwhelmed governments to manage. 

At a more general level, in some places, the regulations aren't in place for anyone to be using these devices. Where there are regulations, they are often poorly enforced.

Should LatAm mandate Asimov's 3 laws?

A new paper suggests that the world is falling behind on debating how to make robots act ethically. Obviously, this is an issue in its infancy in most of the world and not even discussed in Latin America. What country will be the first to mandate some sort of ethical requirements in its robots?

Brazil as the next space power

Good article from i09:

While lacking a manned shuttle initiative, Brazil is poised as a hotbed for space exploration along with private and joint government launches in the coming decades. Additionally, Brazil's Science without Borders programs aims to spend two billion dollars to educate 75,000 students pursuing advanced degrees in engineering and physical sciences at home and abroad, with hope that some of those students will return to work in Brazil. Yes, Brazil, thanks to its location and initiative, could very well become the planet's spaceport of choice in the late 21st Century.

It's infrastructure plus education plus location (being the the equator helps).

Solve murder cases

Currently, there are numerous countries in Latin America and the Caribbean with absurdly high impunity rates. Less than 10% of murders and other violent crimes are solved in some countries, and there are several countries where reaching a 90% impunity rate would be a significant improvement. Nearly every expert agrees that one key step to reducing the rates of violent crime is to reduce impunity.

This is an area where the region should aim big. There is no reason to believe that this problem is unsolvable. Let's flip the current number around and make the goal for every country in the region that 75% of new homicide cases are investigated and prosecuted. Set the timeline at 10 years. 

I'm tempted to say "solve every murder," because the thought of allowing one out of four killers go free is rather depressing. I also hate to say "new homicide cases" because that leaves a lot of cold cases open from the past. Still, I want to set something that is both ambitious and yet still achievable if a significant effort is taken.

Even in the US today, only about 60% of murders are solved according to national police statistics, and in some urban areas that number is under 30%. The US should be a part of this program and would be measured against whether they could reach the goal as well.

Beyond political will, what would it take to get 75% of all new homicide cases solved and prosecuted? I think some of the basics are recommendations that most analysts already know:

1) More and better police

2) More and better prosecutors and judges

3) Improved witness protection programs

4) Improved statistics on violent crime

5) Information sharing within countries and across countries

6) Forensics labs

7) Better technology

8) Etc. I'm sure I'm missing several items

Many of those recommendations are already being nominally implemented by countries, at times with the help of the US and other international donors. I'm sure the first criticism some will have of this post is that "We're already doing x!" One problem here is of scale and ambition. Sure, Mexico (with its impunity rate around 97% according to independent analysts) just funded a new forensics lab and has new police training programs, but does anyone think the resources currently being spent by Mexico and the US will help the country reach 75% of murders solved within 10 years? No. I think setting the ambitious goal should help us realize that the current level of resources spent on these recommendations is nowhere near enough. More needs to be done in all of these areas.

Additionally, the challenge is making these recommendations effective in an environment where corruption is an ever-present problem. To counter this, I'm going to make a more unorthodox recommendation: The hemisphere needs a regional crime-solving unit working in parallel with national authorities. While others have recommended a group similar to the CICIG for Honduras, El Salvador or for the Central American Northern Triangle, I'm recommending setting up a region-wide group that any country can work with. This regional group should include police, investigators, prosecutors, scientists, IT people and some very gutsy leadership. Rather than wait for approval of one or more countries, the hemisphere's leaders (specifically, the US, Mexico and Brazil) should build the group first and give it the resources to start investigations, which should encourage countries to join in.

To summarize:

1) We need to set the ambitious goal to end impunity. My suggestion is 75% of all new homicide cases solved within ten years.

2) We need to collect and allocate the resources to match the goal.

3) We need to organize and fund a regional organization that can investigate violent crimes, preferably in coordination with other governments.

Swarm robot trafficker

If the hemisphere's criminal groups had long term plans and major R&D investments, they'd be looking at the field of swarm robotics right now.

As the US and allies have gotten better at seizing large shipments of cocaine and other trafficked items, criminal groups have moved towards more numerous, smaller shipments. Add another 50 (or 20?) years of technology and take that logic to an extreme, and the criminal groups could consider sending small shipments inside of thousands of robotic boats that swarm towards the coast of the US. That sort of move would overwhelm the current maritime defenses that the US has in place and guarantee that a certain amount reaches shore.

For that to be economical, the robots must be cheap, scalable and available for purchase or building by criminal groups in the region. That's not going to happen in the next decade, but will almost certainly occur this century.

Thinking long on China's economic impact

Useful stats on the regional economic projections over the next 20-40 years.

Mexico will join the Big 7 by 2030 and Indonesia by 2050. By then, the United States will be the only advanced country to rank among the world’s seven largest economies. At the same time, China will become the center of world trade, representing by far the largest trading partner for most countries. Its share of world trade will reach 24 percent by 2050, up from about 10 percent today.

The rise of emerging economies other than China will create major opportunities for Latin American countries. Today, about 40 percent of Latin America’s exports go to other developing countries, including China; this figure will surge as developing countries’ share of world exports will more than double from 30 percent in 2006 to 69 percent in 2050. 

Beyond the China angle, a few other things stand out. First, Mexico and Brazil will be increasingly important markets for the hemisphere and the US will remain one of the top trading partners, even looking 40 or 50 years into the future.

Second, watch out for Indonesia. Most regional analysts are watching China. Some are watching India and expect that to be one of the next big things in the coming decade. If Indonesia is going to be one of the world's top seven economies in forty years, then they are going to be one of the top economies for trade with Latin America and the Caribbean. I don't think many Latin American countries are thinking through their Indonesia relations, but perhaps they should start.

Cash and crime

Slate tackles a topic I was considering writing on: would eliminating physical money change or reduce crime?

While saying that electronic funds would simplify tracking and auditing certain crimes for government authorities, the article offers this anecdote from the region:

Latin America already offers a glimpse of one such substitute mechanism in action. As its economy grows ever more fluid (most South and Central Americans bank on their phones, using mobile apps that offer accounting and brokerage services), people have turned to “stored value cards,” which hold a fixed amount of money and can be bought or sold like any other good. Since they don’t draw from a bank account—funds and data are maintained by the card issuers and accessed by scanning a magnetic stripe—these cards are much harder to track. In a cashless world, SVCs might join precious metals and gems as currencies favored for illegal transactions.

There are still too many people in Latin America lacking access to basic identity documents much less bank accounts to make a cashless society possible. But the presence of bank accounts and credit cards has reduced the amount of hard currency. 

There is probably a middle ground on this question that Latin America is approaching. For example, Mexico has banned large cash purchases to avoid drug money being used to buy cars, yachts and property. It's far from the cashless society and every cup of coffee being tracked electronically, but it's a reasonable policy given today's technology and the access the average citizen has to it.

Teaching Languages

Education systems in Latin America get to make a choice on teaching second languages at a young age:
1) Teach English as it's the key global language and will assist in interactions with the US.
2) Teach Portuguese (or in Brazil, Spanish) as it will help integrate the region.
3) Teach Chinese (or Hindi or....) because it's the global language of the future
4) Teach the local indigenous language to preserve cultural heritage.

I can see a case for all four, but in an environment where there are limited resources, particularly time, education systems will only get one (if that). I don't know that any of those choices is necessarily right or wrong, but it does say something about how a country views their future in 10-20 years.

A LatAm Silicon Valley needs risk-takers

Lots of countries in the hemisphere want to create their own version of Silicon Valley, including Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Brazil, Costa Rica and even Guatemala. Doing so requires people, education and infrastructure. All of these countries are looking for the right mix on those fronts.

It needs the right government incentives and investments as well as the willingness of governments to step back and reduce red tape and bureaucracy for these companies. Most startups fail and no investor or entrepreneur wants to spend 3-6 months doing paperwork to create a company that may or may not last a year.

However, it also takes a culture of risk-taking, and that is something that Latin America needs to accept and build. Many of the people in the region who went to the best universities or come from the wealthy families don't want to start something that might fail. What's seen as a mark of experience in the US Silicon Valley is seen as a terrible black spot on the resume of a Latin American 20 or 30-something who is applying for a job.

Even more than the US, it's also a paperwork heavy culture, in which the degree is more important than the experience. While many programmers dream of building the next Apple, Microsoft or Facebook, an anecdotal survey from a Latin American university suggests that no student would consider leaving to start his or her own business. What is a risky proposition in the US, but one that someone can bounce back from, is truly career suicide in this region.

The infrastructure, education and government incentives are important and governments must invest in those areas to succeed if they dream of creating a technology hub. However countries in this hemisphere also need to address the culture issue. How do they make failure acceptable? How do they students who dream bigger than the degree? How do they encourage the best people and those with the best ideas to take that risk?

Will 3d printers beat the illegal organ trafficking market?

Organ trafficking isn't as big of a problem in the Western Hemisphere as it is in parts of Asia, but it still does happen. It's an awful illicit market. Some victims have their organs forcibly removed. Others choose to sell their organs due to dire poverty, but that doesn't necessarily make it an ethical or medically sound thing to occur.

This could change with scientists working to print synthetic organs on 3d printers. Having a an ethical alternative that is eventually the same cost or even cheaper than the illegal market should destroy trafficking in illegal organs. It's one victory in the fight against organized crime that we should be able to thank technology for in the next 20 years.

A virtual Summit of the Americas 2

When I wrote the previous post on using video teleconferencing for presidential meetings, I didn't realize that one was already planned. Oppenheimer reports that the presidents of Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Chile recently held a virtual summit over video teleconference.

That's a great start and more can be done. These don't just have to be private discussions among president. Public events and participation by civil society and the business community are possible as well.

Economic warfare vs food speculators

Recent food price spikes were largely driven by speculators. Another spike is expected in 2013 and there are fears that a food price bubble could impact the entire global supply chain.

Could a Latin American country use deception and economic warfare to fight back? Regulating the speculation market, one of the leading and more sensible recommendations, is playing defense. It will take significant resources while speculators work to get around regulations.

All it takes is a few vindictive leaders with resources and motivation to finally break the speculator's economic games for that war to begin. One leader of a major economy or a few key countries from smaller economies could coordinate to distribute misleading information and try to force speculators into making mistakes. A country attempting to manipulate the market prices to throw off speculators and harm their businesses would be criticized by most major economies, but it's likely they would have reached a point where they don't care.

This sort of deception and economic warfare would be difficult, but not impossible. More troubling, like real wars, the ongoing dispute if done correctly would likely cause world markets to shake violently, leading to a number of second and third order consequences that would likely hurt everyone.

It's best if we don't get to that sort of economic war moment that impacts the food everyone needs. However, the food price speculation debate is usually put in terms of regulate or not regulate. If a group of countries force that debate into terms of regulate or economic warfare, it would draw attention to the issue and create a more likely environment for regulation.

Like most things on this blog, I'm not recommending any country go down this route, just speculating on an out of the box scenario.

Private sector drones are coming

In Central America, there are currently at least five private security guards for every one police officer, possibly more depending on the statistics you use. What happens when there are five private security drones for every one that is used by police and military?

The cost for unmanned aerial vehicles has dropped rapidly in recent years. For less than $500, a person or company can obtain a drone capable of flying a preprogrammed track and taking video or photos. More money brings longer flying time, better imagery and other capabilities. While UAVs are currently only used by government forces, given the current costs, I think this trend will be visible in Latin America and the Caribbean within five years and considered a normal operation by some private firms within ten.

Private security companies will find numerous uses for drones. The first is imagery and video surveillance. They are going to use UAVs to monitor the areas they are protecting. They may also use them for mobile protection, following the vehicles of people they are guarding. They may also use them to track shipments in cargo trucks and ships in high crime areas.

The next step will be using UAVs for gathering intelligence on potential threats. That will be more controversial. They may also build UAVs with the potential to eavesdrop on conversations, break into wifi networks or jam the communications systems of bad guys.

The final and most controversial step would be any sort of weaponization of UAVs. I imagine that many countries will write laws to prohibit that sort of use, even if they allow companies to use them for video and photos.

Countries will also need to think through the monitoring and control of their airspace to prevent crashes or hazards above key locations.

100 year view on climate change in CentAm

A new study providing the 100 year view on climate change in Central America is rather grim. Temperatures will rise by over 2 degree Celsius in most of the region. This will reshape agriculture, reduce biodiversity and could cause diseases to spread, such as dengue reaching San Jose, Costa Rica.

Most importantly, there will be less water in key agricultural areas. Countries, if they keep the same borders, will likely fight over fresh water supplies, river flows and watersheds. Countries need to think through and prepare water management plans if they hope to provide for their entire populations in the coming decades. When the water does arrive, it will often be in the form of devastating floods and hurricanes, requiring better resilience and responses by regional authorities.

Water vs Internet

It's easier to bring internet connections to slums than water, sewage or garbage removal services. That will be even more true ten years from now, when it's likely that well over 50% of populations in slums will have access to internet, television and phone communications. That is a big quality of life improvement and opens up new opportunities for businesses and education. It will happen whether or not cities and countries invest because that is the way technology is moving.

The ability to move high speed data connections wirelessly means there is less need to solve the problem of the last mile or last 100 feet. Cities can't move water, sewage or garbage wirelessly. The basic questions about infrastructure aren't going away.

Whether those slums can access clean water or decent sewage removal depends almost entirely on government investments. That's not to say that the 19th and 20th century models of delivering those services is the only way. There may be some innovative solutions. However, the free market and advancing technology are much less likely solve those problems without some government investment.

Rio's control room and others

Today's NYT highlights Rio de Janiero's high tech control room. It's the first of its kind in the world to help manage issues from traffic to natural disasters within the giant city.

Obviously, IBM believes this is part of the future of cities and wants every city to have one at some point in the future. The article cites several examples where the system helped the city respond in a more effective manner including the recent building collapse. Given the major events coming up in Rio, it seems like a smart investment for the city.

But should every big city in the region get one of these control rooms? There are questions about how cost-effective these systems are and whether they are really necessary, especially when you consider other programs that could be purchased with the money. Centralizing crisis management at the megalopolis level may be less effective than building small systems at the neighborhood level. It's easy to be wowed by the screens and maps in a control room without really knowing how useful they are.

I think a lot of city managers will be traveling to Rio in the coming five years to see this system and determine whether they need one.

City-state secession

In one of this blog's first posts, I said one possible long-term (100 year) future for the region would be for some countries to split apart with city-states taking a role.

To build on that: What is the first city to secede from its national government in Latin America or the Caribbean?

Here are a few criteria that I think would make it more likely. It would need to be a city that is not the capital or center of national politics. It would probably need to be a city with access to a coastline or at least a border, because being landlocked and surrounded would not be helpful. It would probably also need to be a city that has a different political, economic or social makeup from the capital or the national demographics.

In the context of modern Latin America, there is one city that fits all of those criteria: Guayaquil, Ecuador.  I could easily imagine a narrative that leads to it calling for separation from the national government in Quito in the coming decades.

There are a few other possibilities if you look 50 years out. There are some towns on the Caribbean coast of Central America, particularly in Honduras and Nicaragua, that could hypothetically call for full separation from the national government as they've been generally ignored throughout their history anyway. Rio or Sao Paulo or some cities in Northern Brazil (Recife?) could hypothetically make the attempt, though it's hard to imagine a political future today in which they do. I could also imagine an outlier scenario in which the Yucatan or Baja California areas of Mexico could make that attempt.

None of these scenarios are likely. I don't intend to predict that any of this will occur. However, whatever happens in the next 50 years to the borders of the region, it will be something that is considered an "unlikely" scenario today. Only by looking at the current map and imagining various possible futures can we really think about how Latin America can change 50 or 100 years out.

Will there be caudillos in 100 years?

For almost the past 200 years, Latin America has transitioned through democracies, dictatorships and numerous points in between. Yet, the concept of caudillo, the charismatic leader, seems to have remained fairly constant throughout. It's a concept that is taught in every Latin American politics, history and literature course.

Is that still true in 2112? Will the region, or parts of it, still be cycling through charismatic populist leaders? This is, of course, an impossible question to answer, but it's fun to speculate. If you believe that progress on better governance can or will happen, then you probably think it is at least possible for the region to move past the caudillo mindset. If you believe that past trends do a pretty good job of predicting future trends, then there's probably more than a few leaders proclaiming themselves the next Simon Bolivar in the century ahead.

Then again, maybe the analytical concept of caudillismo is too simple to use. Today's populist leader isn't the same as the one in 1950 or 1850, but we throw them under the same broad historical framework of "caudillo" to give the analysis a bit of coherence over time. Historians and political scientists may very well use the term caudillo in 2112 to describe some charismatic leader, but it will look nothing like today, much less Facundo.

Can Brazil go supersonic?

When the Concorde was in style, it was used to make the US to Europe trip in less than half the time it takes normal planes. There were problems (economic, physical and other) with the plane, but the concept of it connecting the two continents and making trips fast and cheap was a good dream to have.

Given a rising Brazil with its own aviation industry, it's worth believing that they could want a supersonic plane to connect them to North America, Europe, Asia and Africa. It's a long flight to Rio from almost anywhere outside of South America and cutting down the time could help Brazil's general standing.

There are other companies in the world working on a new generation of supersonic passenger jets, and Brazil could always purchase them from elsewhere. Or, Brazil could try to do it on their own. It's a tough but possible technological push that would advance its industry and provide a boost to its reputation.

Tech changes to finding criminals

A shift in some urban crime will come via three technologies: gunfire locator, ubiquitous video, facial recognition.

Several Latin American cities have already invested in acoustic and other gunfire locator technology, which allows police to instantly identify the location of a gunshot to within a block or less of the shooting. This technology was intended for high crime areas so that police could be dispatched immediately.

However, the increasing presence of video cameras, both government and private run, means that the time of gunshots can be matched up to videos of the location. Add in facial recognition technology, and there should be a movement towards identifying all urban shooters.

Criminals can adapt by using silencers, wearing masks and moving their crimes indoors. However, that requires a level of planning that does not go into the indiscriminate or street violence that is a cause of a significant number of murders in many neighborhoods.

Legal systems will need to adapt to collect evidence and use it in court. Politicians will need some levels of control to avoid the big brother implications that will bother citizens about these technologies being used in combination. In spite of civil liberty concerns, citizens in many countries affected by high violence will likely be happy to have a new deterrent in place.

This technology doesn't solve all the violence nor does it attack the problem at its root causes. Still, most of it is possible today and Latin American countries are going to increasingly invest in these technologies as part of the anti-crime efforts.

Micro or macro power generation

The trend in Latin America has been towards large power generation projects including giant hyropower projects. Countries are working to improve cross-border energy transfers.

What if that's all wrong and the future of energy is a much smaller scale of power generation? It's possible that instead of generating power for regions and sharing power across borders, countries should be focused on developing the technology and infrastructure to manage power neighborhood by neighborhood. As new technology is more widely available, the smaller power generation projects should prove possible and economically viable.

At the same time, Latin America as a region may be economically locking itself into these larger infrastructure projects now in a way that will cause them to miss out on potential new technology a decade down the road.

Then again, is there another way? It would be difficult and probably even irresponsible for a country to say they will skip over large scale projects now in the hopes future technology will work out.

Partial legalization leads to privateering

One consequence of a single or small number of legalized drug economies in Latin America while the US remains with prohibition could be the rise of a form of privateering. 

Private security organizations or rival criminal groups could organize around the goal of seizing drugs, weapons and money from drug cartels and then delivering them to the legalized state. At that point, they could "launder" the drugs and move them into a semi-legal market. Then find a way to move them in to the US.

This would create a violent criminal and criminal warfare situation outside of the legalized state and potentially within it as well, neutralizing any advantages gained from removing prohibition.

The country that built prisons

The general recommendation by most analysts is that there is no way to build enough prisons and jail enough criminals to end the violent crime problem in Latin America. The issue must be resolved more strategically. That's my opinion too. However, that does not mean no country will attempt precisely that.

Picture a scenario in ten years in which a mano dura leader comes to power who believes that he can build enough prisons. He will not only imprison tens of thousands more people in his own country, every person who has committed a crime, but also take on some of the overrun from neighboring countries who face overcrowding in their prisons. What if that country can actually make a profit though the system by charging neighbors for using the prisons?

There are a lot of ugly human rights issues in doing this and it may be a huge strategic mistake. For me, this falls under the worst case scenarios heading. However, if it could be accomplished logistically and if the region cooperated to create this sort of country with a prison specialty, it certainly might be attempted. Mano dura has a cyclical appeal in parts of Latin America and this prison building would ease one of the major effects of such a policy.

Could a country's land be bought?

Investors including China and Saudi Arabia have made Latin America part of the global land grab. Plots of land have been purchased or leased directly and indirectly for agriculture and other development. In response, Brazil, Argentina and others have passed laws to restrict foreign ownership of land.

What if a country made the opposite policy, making its land easier to buy for foreigners? And what if there was a rich and willing investor? This creates a hypothetical scenario in which well over 50% of a country's land is purchased or leased by foreign investors. At an extreme, a foreign power or corporation could buy an entire state or province and gain almost full control over it.

Does the rest of the region get a say in this? This is a question that goes right to the heart of the sovereignty debate in Latin America. On one hand, a country should have a right to sell, lease or give its own land to whomever it wishes. On the other hand, the idea that a country could literally sell its own sovereign territory and leave its neighbors dealing with a foreign power controlling a border area impacts regional security.

Shrinking islands

50 years from now rising sea levels will likely start to eat away at a number of coastlines. This will be a problem throughout the hemisphere, but will be a particularly big hit to the islands in the Caribbean. Most are rather small and don't have much space to lose.

Do they accept the lost land? Do they build walls to try to keep out the rising ocean? Do the build platforms over the sea? Do they build floating portions to the island? Do they build skyscrapers upwards, regaining lost ground vertically that they lose horizontally? Do they build underneath the water?

Every country will likely approach the problem differently. For those islands that choose to use structures to maintain their lost land, I would be interested to know some of the international law questions that could be raised by them building on top of or under the waves. This could go to how we define maritime boundaries.

Fighting drugs with drugs

Reuters says Mexico is nearing a successful "vaccine" to undo heroin addiction. There is also a vaccine to halt cocaine addiction in the works.

If ten years from now there are working vaccines, it could make a major dent in the "war on drugs" that goes beyond the legalize-prohibition debate. Research suggests much of the money, violence, health problems and general negative effects of these drugs come from a small subset of hardcore users. If their addiction can be treated (or there will be a very controversial debate about forcing this sort of treatment), the problem of drug trafficking and related violence may become surprisingly more manageable.

Reversing urbanization 2

Reader AN comments that the potential for plagues could cause some reverse urbanization trend in the region. There are at least two possibilities here.

The first is that a single pandemic causes one or several cities to clear out as people try to escape the health problem. That would be a variation on the earthquake catastrophe, but very different in that most infrastructure would remain unharmed. These would also be isolated incidents and likely reversed once the health problem was fixed.

The second, which goes to the dengue comment, would be a trend against urbanization as certain persistant diseases hit urban environments hard. Rather than a single crisis causing a panicked fleeing, this would be more of a slow social change as people collectively decided that rural areas are healthier than urban areas. That may be hard to believe today as urban areas are generally healthier and less prone to certain diseases than rural areas, plus they have better medical infrastructure for treatment. However, imagining a scenario with some disease that creates that sort of social change over the next 20 years is possible.

Parallel networks to stop censorship

In several countries in the hemisphere, the basic internet architecture is mostly owned by a single state telecom or distributed across a small number of private companies. In many cases, there country's connection to the internet moves through one or two chokepoints, making the potential for censorship or a kill switch by the government quite possible.

Internet censorship has been limited so far in Latin America (at least compared to the Middle East or China), but these potential technical restrictions should be a concern to activists who worry that governments or corporations will censor their speech and activity.

It's quite possible that parallel networks will spring up in the coming five to ten years. Civil society groups and technology companies may look to satellite providers or, more controversially, try to bring internet across other borders outside the chokepoints to which governments have access. Being that telecom regulations are often behind the curve in many countries, governments may be caught off guard by the new internet access routes that citizens find and create.

The censorship battle used to be between big media outlets and governments. With citizens now key producers of their own content, the censorship battle is going to look quite different than it did ten years ago. It's nowhere near as simple for a government to block citizen media as it was to seize a television station or block a newspaper from printing.

UPDATE: To follow up on this, read Alison Powell's blog post on darknets and super-encryption.  The downside to activists creating the tools to escape government action is that it breaks apart some of the open communications of the internet. It also creates and enhances tools for criminals to operate online.

Today's memories in 20 years

The past decade has seen a surge of cases related to human rights abuses from the 70's, 80's and 90's. In many cases, the evidence is based on old paper documents from archives and witness testimony.

The human rights cases of 2032 that are filed against abuses of the 2000's and 2010's (assuming that occurs) will look very different. With increasingly ubiquitous cell phone cameras, video cameras and the ability for people to document their experiences through self-publishing, there should be more and better evidence. It will be more difficult (I think) for a government or military to simply lock up an archive and not allow access.

Beyond the evidence at a trial, it changes the nature of memory when it comes to these historical experiences. We're going to have far more photos and videos of events and more witness testimony documented near the time of the event rather than related decades later.

3d printing and copyrights

Combining ideas from two previous posts, one on 3d printing of weapons and the other on intellectual property, Slate has a useful article that says most physical objects would not fall under the same copyright law as IP.

I think this would be a fine line and I imagine several companies will try to change that law.

Specific to my previous post, I imagine many gun manufacturers such as Beretta would be mad if 3d printers were used to create spare parts or completely new replica guns, but perhaps I'm wrong. More broadly, while Slate only addresses US law, this is an interesting spot for Latin American copyright law. Are 3d objects covered? Does it vary country-by-country?

If this does become an issue, will the trade agreements between the US and Latin American countries require modifications to address copyright violations via 3d printers, or would it already be covered under existing agreements?

Do developing countries have an advantage in a robot uprising?

A few weeks ago I finished Robopocalypse by Daniel Wilson. It's an entertaining and dark book about how humans survive a robot uprising in which machines of all types turn against humanity and attempt to enslave or kill everyone.

One issue not addressed in the book is how developing countries survive or don't. The book focuses heavily on the US and Japan, with only a few international scenes and references to what happened in Russia and China.

I would think that a country like Nicaragua or Colombia or Cuba would have some major advantages in fighting a robot uprising. First, technology is not as advanced, meaning there would be fewer robots or machines that the evil robots could manipulate. Second, underdeveloped and undeveloped infrastructure mean there would be more places initially for humans to hide and wage guerrilla warfare against the robots and fewer resources for the robots to use in building newer models of themselves.

So while the book has its heroes coming mostly from the US, I think it would make more sense for the first significant victories against the robots coming from Latin America and Africa.

Augmented Magical Realism

Several media outlets report that Google will sell augmented reality glasses before the end of the year. The glasses will superimpose visuals and data on what the user sees. Several cell phones already do this, but placing it in the glasses could take the technology mainstream.

Using augmented reality technology in fiction is already a consideration, creating the possibility for augmented magical realism in the region. You could wear the glasses and see what appears to be magical effects from a Garcia Marquez story while experiencing reality. It creates a new potential genre or canvas for authors and artists.

Bill Gates on innovation in agriculture

Bill Gates speech at the FAO:

The digital revolution also provides opportunities to collect better data. In an age when a satellite can determine instantly how much wheat is in a field, it is a shame to ask countries to use limited resources to send enumerators around with pen, paper, and tape measure. What we get is a lot of wasted time and inaccurate or incomplete data. The digital revolution can improve the quality of critical data while freeing up people to do other high-impact work.

The problem is that the country programs, agencies, and research centers don’t have expertise in digital agriculture, and they don’t have the time to build it from scratch. The real expertise lies with private sector companies, and with rapidly growing countries like Brazil and China where the agricultural sector is booming.

Gates also spoke about using genome sequencing technology, which has rapidly declined in cost over the last decade, to improve yields and have plants resistance to drought and disease. While his remarks generally focused on sub-Saharan Africa, they certainly apply to the agricultural sector in Latin America.

A South American competitor to GPS

The United States maintains the Global Positioning System (GPS) of 32 satellites for anyone to use. How nice of us.

Still, some countries either don't trust the US or want their own systems for a variety of national and technical reasons. Russia has a system (GLONASS) that provides and alternative. China and Europe are launching their own systems as well, though they remain several years away.

Is there a reason for South America to launch its own system as well? It could be useful to have another alternative and one under the region's control. It would be a huge boost for R&D spending as well as science and engineering expertise in the region. At the same time, it could be seen as a big waste of time and money when there are other freely available platforms.

Brazil and others are discussing a South American space agency run through UNASUR. Brazil is also planning to launch new earth monitoring satellites, a priority that ranks much higher for the region than an alternative GPS system. Several countries have partnered with China to launch satellites in recent years, mostly for telecommunications.

This isn't something for the near future, but there is no reason to think the region couldn't be running its own limited constellation of satellites for global positioning at some point inside of fifty years.

Or, alternatively and perhaps more realistically, Latin America could partner with the US, China or someone else to own and operate a piece of the system. They could share the costs and the benefits.

Reversing urbanization

Latin America is one of the most urbanized regions on the planet, with over 80% of the population living in cities. Several megacities including Rio, Sao Paulo, Mexico City, Buenos Aires and Bogota are well over the five million mark and continue to grow.

Most planners see that trend continuing into the foreseeable future. What would it take for them to be wrong? What sort of crisis, trend or public policy could reverse urbanization in the next 20 or 50 years.

I think the Haiti earthquake shows one very horrific example. Port au Prince was urbanized and overcrowded, but the earthquake created a number of refugees who may never return to the city. That could happen somewhere else, but it's an isolated case that would not create a region-wide trend.

If it economically prospers, Latin America could become suburbanized with people moving just outside of the cities in order to find better housing conditions. A teleworking trend could add to that movement, allowing people freedom to leave urban centers.

On the opposite end, economic decline could cause some cities to decay and could force people to abandon them to find work elsewhere.

In many cases, many of the region's largest cities have old infrastructure that was never intended to support the high populations that exist today. A series of infrastructure failures or government programs to rebuild cities from the underground up could change population patterns.

Continued urbanization isn't a good or a bad thing in itself. It's also not the only possible future for Latin America, even if it's the most likely.

The next evolution of semi-submersibles

Many US analysts, particularly in the military, point to the evolution of semi-submersibles for cocaine trafficking as one of the important trends in the past decade. At this point, they are starting to see the beginnings of fully submersible and self-contained submarines. It's a statement for how much money the criminals can make if they can build and lose subs.

So what's the next evolution? Asked that, my answer is weapons. I think in the next five years we will see some sort of weapons system on semi-subs and subs that are used by criminals. I don't think these will be highly technical torpedo systems, like exist on military subs. Rather, I think the criminal groups will start with some modification to a gun or grenade that allows the criminals to use them while inside the sub.

Could you imagine a system that allows them to float under a navy boat and release a grenade that rises to the surface and then explodes. Or one that allows them to fire guns at ships when they surface.

Right now, the crew of these vessels generally surrenders or runs as soon as they can, usually while simultaneously sinking the sub to lose the evidence. That's certainly a good problem to have compared to what may be next. If the criminals start innovating to fight back when they face capture, it create a new dynamic for the navies and coast guards of this hemisphere, one for which they are probably quite unprepared.

Throwing ideas against the wall....

To answer or perhaps preempt some early criticism of this blog, I'm not recommending everything I post. I don't know that my recent post on a parallel legislative OAS is a good idea. I don't want 3d printers to be used to make new weapons.

Rather, I'm throwing outside the box ideas against the wall to see what sticks. I'm trying to find upcoming issues, threats and opportunities in the hemisphere that move beyond the conventional wisdom. I want to know what resonates and I want to make people question some of the traditional Latin America analysis that is out there.

This blog is a space for the unconventional.

A parallel OAS, but no presidents allowed

One of the common complains about the OAS and the democracy charter is that it is an organization of presidents. They'll jump up and down if a president is threatened, but they generally ignore cases in which legislatures, judiciaries or civil society is threatened by the executive branch.

This has long been an area for potential reform, but never moves forward. Why? Presidents are the ones in charge and don't want to restrict their own power.

Instead of continuing to try and fail to reform, what if legislatures simply decided to create a separate and parallel organization to the OAS. The legislatures around the hemisphere that wanted to participate could send representatives to a big Summit that paralleled the Summit of the Americas. They could agree to hold meetings and to pass resolutions as a group.

There are numerous political and constitutional challenges to creating such an organization. The first challenge is that presidents wouldn't allow it. Across the hemisphere, presidents would veto or otherwise block any potential legislative agreements to join such an organization. In some places, the legislatures may have to join over the president's objection, which could create tensions.

If just a few countries' congresses could get together to begin the group, declaring it the co-equal branch of regionalism to the OAS and working to fill in the gaps where the OAS fails, it could gain some momentum. They could pressure the OAS to reform its policies or they could just start working on their own to improve hemispheric relations in areas where presidents can't.

At its strongest, it's a regional push against the presidentialism that dominates much of the Americas. Some particularly powerful presidents might even call it a type of regional coup or revolution. At its weakest, the organization fails. But it's not a particularly resource intensive initiative. Why not try to form it and fail rather than list reasons why it won't succeed and never try.

Open thread: What should I write about?

I'm very willing to take topic suggestions. The only requirement is that they are about the future of the hemisphere. This is not a blog to discuss current events and politics.

Feel free to comment.

Thinking beyond the university model

One common complaint about education systems in Latin America and the Caribbean is that the universities simply don't compete well against the best universities in the US, Europe or Asia. Some analysts believe that for the hemisphere to thrive in the 21st century, they need to build a better higher education system with universities on par with the best around the world.

That might be wrong. Universities in the US work for a few, but are overall failing to create a workforce for the 21st century. Many universities are starting to question their own models, but are stuck in their current state. Why should Latin America and the Caribbean try to catch up with a system that is itself in need of reform?

Let's turn that logic on its head. The region should not try to catch up to the best universities elsewhere in the world. Instead, it should rethink the whole model.

Let me start with two points, and hopefully add more in future posts:

1. The hemisphere's higher education should focus on research, development and actually building things rather than the production of academic papers. 
2. They should experiment with new structures for learning rather than mirroring what is done within US and European universities.

Few analysts criticize the fact that Latin America's telephone landline infrastructure never matched the US. Instead, the region is praised for leapfrogging technologies and getting cell phones and increasingly smart phones into the hands of many people who never had access to telecommunications 10 to 20 years ago. We should think of universities in a similar way. Rather than hoping Latin America and the Caribbean can catch up with universities in the US, Europe and Asia, we should ask how the region can leapfrog to the next version that is just now being considered in those regions.

This blog will end

This blog is an experiment. Given that I want to approach this with a "fail fast, fail cheap" mentality, I'm setting an end date for this blog right at the beginning.

In 60 days, on April 23, 2012, I will reevaluate the purpose for this blog. I will review the posts I've written. I'll solicit feedback from readers. Then I will decide if it should continue and get another 60 days of life, perhaps with a renewed or altered focus.

This blog will get at most two extensions. At the latest, it will end on August 23, 2012.

3d printers will change weapons trafficking

The technology behind 3d printing is becoming cheaper and more widely available. Within ten years, Latin American universities, businesses and governments should be able to have at least a basic 3d printer and those with money will get more advanced versions.

These printers will reshape manufacturing and medicine (a printer in Europe was recently used to create a new jaw for a patient; doctors are working on a printer that can print a new kidney). But, from the negative side, it's also going to completely reshape the weapons trafficking debate.

What happens when guns and gun parts can be printed locally rather than trafficked across borders? Certainly criminal groups will be able to afford printers that can manage metal or plastic objects that can serve as guns. While the cost will be quite expensive at first, eventually, it will be cheaper to print than smuggle.

For criminals, this could be a boom era. The parts of narcocultura that like to put designs and bling into their guns will get the opportunity to design their own. More seriously, they'll be able to manufacture parts that can easily convert semi-automatic weapons into automatic weapons, perhaps a economically feasible first step for the use of 3d printing for the bad guys. They can also work to design better (more deadly) weapons once they become proficient with the technology.

Governments will attempt restrictions. They'll try to restrict the flow of information including files with gun designs that can be used by the printers. However, that will be nearly impossible. They'll try to restrict the printers and the specific "ink", materials preferred for gun manufacturing. But those restrictions will inhibit innovation and the criminals will find ways around them. They'll try to block ammunition sales, and in this they will only be as successful as they are today.

Police will need some sort of ballistics or forensics mechanism to not just tell which gun fired a bullet but which printer created the gun. One comparison may be to the fight against counterfeit money given better color printers today. There will be questions on the criminal charges people supplying the printers, materials and designs will face.

Then again, this could significantly reduce the cross-border trade in illegal firearms, which is itself a very profitable industry. That loss of profit could hit some criminal group's bottom lines. Could we see criminals sabotaging each other's printers to keep market share?

Adopting someone else's currency

El Salvador and Ecuador chose to dollarize their economies about ten years ago (Panama has long used US currency). Going with the dollar gave the two countries a level of currency stability and trust that they did not have previously, but took away monetary policy control from the country and tied them to whatever the US is doing. Essentially, the move got rid of some problems and added some new ones. Debates still continue over whether it was a good move and whether the countries should consider going back to their own currencies.

In the next 10-20 years, could another Latin American or Caribbean country adopt a foreign currency? The Dollar is always possible (in fact, it's used as a de facto alternate currency in several countries), but so would be the Chinese Renminbi, the Brazilian Real, the Mexican Peso or, if they get their act back together, the Euro.

This is a different debate from the question of whether countries should create a unified currency. This is about a country completely surrendering monetary control and giving up managing its own currency supply.

What sort of political leadership would it take? What sort of crisis would drive Guatemala, Peru, Paraguay or Haiti to decide to sack their own currency and jump on with another country? Would the US, Brazil and Europe compete to be the new currency, would they push against it, or would they just ignore it as it happened?

Who will be back in 20 years?

A number of current and recent Latin American leaders were also in power in the 1980's: Alan Garcia, Oscar Arias, Daniel Ortega, Desi Bouterse.

So which of today's leaders have a shot of leaving power and being back around 2030 or so? Age plays an important role in this question, but political strength clearly doesn't. If anything, Alan Garcia and Daniel Ortega prove that a leader can leave in disgrace or face serious scandal and make a political comeback anyway.

Just based on age, top picks should be Mauricio Funes, Laura Chinchilla, Rafael Correa, Ollanta Humala, and Michel Martelly.

A virtual Summit of the Americas

Sure, there are benefits to in-person meetings. The presidents of the Americas should continue to meet every three years.

But with technology today, they could also hold public or private video chats as often as they want.

So, while maintaining the in-person Summit every three years, why not do a virtual Summit once every year? Get all the presidents in the hemisphere on to a Google Hangout. Have an agenda prepared. Have them talk publicly. Then have them do a few private meetings.

This certainly can apply to other multilateral or even bilateral events. The president of Brazil doesn't need to fly to Colombia to do a bilateral press conference. They could do a virtual one today. The presidents of ALBA don't all need to run to Caracas. They could just set up a multi-person conference.

As I said, I don't think we should replace all in-person meetings. But why aren't there more virtual meetings among high-level officials that include a public component like a press conference? It's completely possible today and should be done.

The country that legalized piracy

Legalize, regulate, create economic activity, tax the profits, reduce the black market and associated violent crime.

What if some country in Latin America or the Caribbean decided to legalize, not drugs, but the piracy of intellectual property. The government would allow for the legal stealing and creation of copies of music, movies, books, art, software, pharmaceuticals and patented inventions. It would create an entire industry on selling the IP online and manufacturing and shipping counterfeit items abroad.

Some may argue that this already exists in some countries (ahem, China). But that's a case of the government refusing to enforce regulations or lying about the issue. I'm talking about a country deciding that its official policy is that intellectual property rights don't exist there. They make the economic decision that they will earn more economic gains from the legalized piracy than they will lose in facing international sanctions from the rest of the world.

In fact, the government goes so far as to promote the industry, providing R&D funding to companies that set up shop and serving as a sort of pirate tourism or haven for foreigners. They could refuse to extradite criminals of intellectual property law and grant them all asylum.

It would almost certainly lead to a massive global trade battle. The country would face unprecedented trade sanctions. Its ships would be blocked from ports. Borders would get extra protection. New internet laws would be created to block that country's websites (and the country would find new ways to get around those blocks). Private companies would need to double down to separate real from counterfeit goods.


This could be a huge economic boom for some country that currently ranks low on the economic development scale. Would any country actually take the risk and consider the policy?

Latin America's self-driving cars

As a recent Wired article indicates, self-driving cars are a reality. Google has already logged 140,000 miles of driving by computer. Go read the article.

I was thinking about this article as I drove down the street here in Managua. Taxi drivers swerve and stop without signaling. At least twice I've seen drivers with bottles of rum in their hand. People blow through red lights when they can, in fact, there is a whole social norm as to when it is or isn't acceptable. Horse-drawn or ox-drawn carts are a regular feature. So are police checkpoints. Vendors stand in the middle of the road selling phone cases and trying to clean your windshield. The road conditions are terrible with potholes, unmarked speed bumps and, during rainy season, lots of standing water and mud.

Technologically, the software, hardware and computer systems to get self-driving cars in Latin America is at most two decades away and could be here as soon as the next ten years. From a social engineering standpoint, I'm not sure. Sure, Google's cars can drive the highways of California and the local streets of Nevada. But could they really handle Managua, Mexico City or rural Brazil?

Do self-driving cars adapt to the developing world or does the developing world adapt to self-driving cars?

Technologically, there will certainly be questions that passengers will want answered before the cars can drive down here. How does the car manage so many potholes, mud and obstacles on the ground? Can the car drive itself off the paved road and across 10 kilometers of bumps and rocks to get to a beach resort? How can the car differentiate between a windshield washer and a potential carjacker with a gun. Or, more extreme, between a military checkpoint and a criminal ambush?

I'm certain most Latin American policymakers have not thought through the sorts of regulations that will be necessary. Most importantly, does someone always have to be at the wheel to override the car, or can the car drive completely autonomously?

Then again, think optimistically about this. The number of deaths in vehicles in Latin America is very, very high, much worse than the US. Perhaps self-driving cars finally make a dent in the traffic deaths here by making better choices than humans. And perhaps some innovative Latin American country can serve as a test ground and get investments from car companies, improving the software for the cars by providing obstacles that most engineers in the US would never see or even imagine.

What will Latin America's borders look like in 100 years?

Though some borders are obvious due to natural formations (Chile-Argentina), most are simply lines on a map. They started with the Spanish and then were greatly reshaped in the 19th century after independence.

The 20th century was odd in that Latin America's borders barely moved. Sure, there were a few small shifts. There remain several border disputes over relatively small plots of territory. But nothing big.

To think that the borders will remain nearly the same in the coming hundred years is to embrace the 20th century and miss the rest of human history. We're more likely to see big and completely unexpected shifts than to see absolute stagnation for another century.

Here's a few possibilities. These are NOT meant as predictions, but rather to begin thinking about potential ways that borders could move, even if it seems very unlikely today:

• A larger regional structure will form as countries merge under a single federal government. Various countries in Central America may merge into a single unit. Hispañola seems like a likely candidate. Or Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador could combine back into a Bolivarian unit. Or perhaps UNASUR pulls off the big integration effort and we end up with a president of a United South America.
• Countries break apart and new countries or city-states emerge. Rio and Sao Paulo could become one or even two separate countries, completely split off from Brasilia. Bolivia and Peru could both break into two or three parts. Chile could divide itself into multiple long and skinny countries. Mexico could break up.
• Countries could forcibly take territory. Mexico could take over Guatemala. Venezuela could take over Guyana. Argentina could take over Uruguay and Paraguay. Or perhaps the US takes a new state. While violent armed conflict is off the table today, a worst case scenario in 50 years could have countries fighting each other again and taking territory from each other.
• Countries could cede territory, leaving lawless and (officially) ungoverned spaces or new countries. Brazil could decide it doesn't want all of the Amazon. Colombia could give up some of the states where violent actors remain present. A Central American country could decide a portion of the Caribbean coast is simply owned by the indigenous communities there and give up all claims on it.

As I said, I don't expect any of those predictions to happen, but I do expect some larger movement of borders in the coming hundred years. The map in 2112 will not look like the map in 2012. It's all a matter of how and when.

Introduction

Welcome to Western Hemisphere Futures. This blog is intended to think outside the box and do something different than the typical analysis of the region.

It's about future scenarios 5, 10, 25, 50 or even 100 years into the future. What's the worst case? What's the best case? And perhaps most importantly, how do we as a hemisphere build that better future.

I want to talk about moonshot style projects, not small gains. How do we get crime below 5 homicides per 100,000 in every country in the hemisphere? How can we get malnutrition rates down to zero? How can we create effective regional institutions? How can the hemisphere create an abundance of cheap and clean energy?  And the ultimate moonshot project, how will Latin America reach the moon?

I want to talk about debates that are barely present, but could soon matter to the region. How does Latin America deal with the infrastructure for self-driving cars and private sector drones? How should the region manage its own parallel internet? How will criminals profit from technologies not yet created? What sorts of regulations should governments pass for the ethical treatment of robots or to manage nanotechnology safely?

This blog is a risk. I'm going to try to put some difficult and challenging ideas out there. I'll be wrong a lot. I may decide to shut it down in a few weeks or months if I run out of energy. I make no promises.

This should be fun.