>> We're living through the most anomalously prosperous period
This. It's hard to make predictions precisely because the rate of change has been so rapid.
What is interesting to note though is the varied societal responses to the changes over the last 70 years or so. The US embraced materialism with some reluctant social movement (womens rights, civil rights etc). Europe embraced Socialism (in the sense of Social support, not Communism), the Middle East embraced materialism, but eschewed any form of social development (eg women's rights et al).
Right now we're in a bit of a rebound phase. Change has come too quickly (especially the last 40 years) so we're seeing pushback on rights (in the US) on social support (in Europe) and a general political swing to the right in lots of places.
There's a "looking back" element which seeks to slow found societal change even as technology accelerates.
Predicting what comes next is, well, tricky. But I expect in my lifetime to see global population maximum. I expect to see significant climate change. Both of those will be huge disruptions, and the knock-on effects could be anything
> The US embraced materialism with some reluctant social movement (womens rights, civil rights etc). Europe embraced Socialism (in the sense of Social support, not Communism), the Middle East embraced materialism, but eschewed any form of social development (eg women's rights et al).
The US is the most fundamentalist Christian country in the world. There is also a large degree of materialism, but still, only a fraction of the population of the USA even accepts the idea that atheism (a hallmark of materialism) is a legitimate religious position. What the USA has embraced more than anything is consumerism, not materialism.
What most of Europe has is called social democracy, socialism is a completely different ideology (workers having majority control of enterprises).
The Middle East embraced Islamic fundamentalism, not materialism. You could say that they also embraced consumerism, like the USA. But hardcore Islamic fundamentalism as we see it today in Iran, Saudi Arabia, or Afghanistan is a very recent phenomenon, born of the last fifty years or less (at any wide scale), and it is at a level that consumes entire societies. These Middle East countries didn't eschew progress on women's rights, they actively regressed women's rights to pre-medieval levels. Iran and Afghanistan had the right to vote for women before the USA: they lost it as fundamentalist forces gained power (actually, they still have it in Iran, but it's significantly affected by other lack of freedom).
> The US is the most fundamentalist Christian country in the world.
Due to a large population it leads as the country with the largest absolute number of Christians, sure.
In terms of percentage of Christians in the population as a whole, it doesn't even make the top ten list.
Vatican City, Timor Leste, American Samoa, Romania, Armenia, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, Greenland, Haiti, and Paraguay all have greater than 95% christian populations.
The US has perhaps a 65% Christian population albeit many of whom are in name without being particularly devout.
I remember reading about some people joining ISIS for economic reasons, I cannot find the article, but this one makes the same point (that among the other reasons, unemployment is also a factor):
My point being: being a religious fundamentalist country doesn't require an almost totality of the population to be religious, but just the people who have power (weapons, money, etc.) to be fundamentalist... and the rest of the country to not violently oppose them.
I wasn't talking about percentages of the population, but about the impact that Christianity has in the public and legal spheres. Now, I may have exaggerated a little bit, as there are a few very small countries that are likely even more religious (the Vatican, Luxembourg), and perhaps one or two bigger ones (Poland does come to mind).
But overall, the prominence of Christianity in day to day American life and culture and the political sphere is off the charts. Things like saying Grace at family dinners as a common tradition, presidents and many other politicians ending their speeches with "God bless America", "In God we Trust" on dollar bills - these are virtually unheard of outside of the USA. Not to mention, the amount of times Biblical passages and teachings are brought up in political debates is staggering, even coming from a nominally "more Christian" country like Romania. Similarly, the amount of places and institutions named after religious figures or concepts is unprecedented.
But what about fundamentalist Christians? Watching from Europe I have a hard time picking the more fundamentalist country between the south of the US and the Vatican.
The US wins by weight of numbers, of course, but having the most tongue talking snake handlers doesn't make the entire country the poster child for revival tents.
The Vatican doesn't interpret the Bible literally, and accepts the Theory of Evolution. Heck, the guy who first proposed the Big Bang theory was a Catholic priest! (Georges Lemaître)
This. It's hard to make predictions precisely because the rate of change has been so rapid.
What is interesting to note though is the varied societal responses to the changes over the last 70 years or so. The US embraced materialism with some reluctant social movement (womens rights, civil rights etc). Europe embraced Socialism (in the sense of Social support, not Communism), the Middle East embraced materialism, but eschewed any form of social development (eg women's rights et al).
Right now we're in a bit of a rebound phase. Change has come too quickly (especially the last 40 years) so we're seeing pushback on rights (in the US) on social support (in Europe) and a general political swing to the right in lots of places.
There's a "looking back" element which seeks to slow found societal change even as technology accelerates.
Predicting what comes next is, well, tricky. But I expect in my lifetime to see global population maximum. I expect to see significant climate change. Both of those will be huge disruptions, and the knock-on effects could be anything