Word: occuring
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...passage into a new millennium will occur this time in the global electronic village. It will be the first (obviously, given the state of technology in the year 1000) to be observed simultaneously worldwide, with one rotation of the planet. Almost every human intelligence will be focused for an instant in a solidarity of collective wonder and vulnerability -- Mystery in the Age of Information...
Purists like to point out that, technically speaking, the beginning of the new millennium does not really occur on Jan. 1, 2000, but on Jan. 1, 2001. This is because there is no year zero in the Christian era, on which historical calendars are calculated. The first year of the era is called A.D. 1, and the one immediately preceding is 1 B.C. Therefore, by the time the calendar reaches Jan. 1, 2000, only 1,999 years will have elapsed since A.D.'s starting point. The same phenomenon occurs as each new century is recorded. In popular observance, however...
...world's population is likely to have surged from the present 5.5 billion to 11 billion, and its production of goods and services will have quadrupled. But almost all the population increase is projected for the less-developed countries, while most of the increased output will occur in the industrial democracies...
...underlying drive of all this change is increased human control: over the environment, over other living organisms, over mountains of data, above all over one's psychology and genetics and destiny. The biggest intellectual battle of the future is likely to occur between those who believe that this drive can be governed by humankind alone and those who contend that it must be subject to the restraints of nature and the divine. The shape of things to $ come will depend heavily on who prevails in this debate...
Once everyone accepts that we're speaking different languages, a computer system will be developed that allows instantaneous intersexual communication to occur. For the first time, certain simple but formerly bewildering transactions will become clear. At the end of an evening out, when the single man of the future says to his date, "I had a nice time. I'll call you" (I predict that men will still be using this line), the woman to whom he is speaking will immediately hear in her headset: "What he means is that while he thinks you are attractive, he's concerned that...