How America Will End

A week-long thought experiment on the United States’ demise.

Slate‘s Josh Levin kicks off a series of articles on the possible future dissolution of the United States today with a piece about how a few different “futurologists” see the possibility. In “How Is America Going To End?”, he talks to Peter Schwartz, Stewart Brand, and me, discussing the Fifty Year Scenarios I did for the Institute for the Future.

Cascio clearly believes that humanity has the ingenuity and the smarts to beat back threats to its continued existence. He doesn’t, however, assume that the persistence of the United States is necessarily the most-desirable outcome. It’s possible America will collapse as we try desperately to save it—or perhaps the country will shrivel up and go away when its time has come and gone. “It’s not necessarily how America will survive,” Cascio says, “but how do the values we hold dear … survive even if some of the institutions don’t?”

Levin’s series also includes a make-your-own Apocalypse game!