The world fragments into a working pandemonium of individuals, organized by jobs rather than geography. Communication is pervasive and focuses on personal empowerment. The Net becomes the chief exchange medium for decentralized work, personal gratification, and global commerce. Physical infrastructure in North America stagnates, while personal spaces thrive. Art and attention are turned inward, as personal expression flourishes in new media and old public spaces crumble.
Technology is the global culture.
Ethnic or group differences give way to a homogenized patchwork of unbridled individual variety. Europe is wracked with civil strife as its socialistic civilization unravels. China and the developing countries become huge flea markets where just about anything goes. Scenario planning derives from the observation that, given the impossibility of knowing precisely how the future will play out, a good decision or strategy to adopt is one that plays out well across several possible futures. These sets of scenarios are, essentially, specially constructed stories about the future, each one modeling a distinct, plausible world in which we might someday have to live and work.