Talk:21st century/Archive 1

Archive 1

Does the 21st century exist in only the USA or what?

Honestly, the western bias in this article is making me choke. 24.149.197.53

Good point, 24.149.197.53. However, it is the English version of Wikipedia, so some bias or slant may be evident throughout, not just with this article. The emphasis on The West may not be so pronounced in the other-language versions of Wikipedia.Que-Can 03:43, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Itself

I think that under Science / Technology Wikipedia itself should be included. It is a new type of encyclopedia and I believe it to be one of mankind's greatest collective achievements of the 21st century. Cockers 14:32, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

You're probably right (wikipedia should be mentioned) but take a step back. "Mankind's greatest...achievements?" It's an innovative and incredibly usefull website, but you're just being silly now. --Stevekl 19:22, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Older comments

I'm going to add India to the countries affected by the tsunami. I'm surprised you ignored India, which more have died than in Thailand. I'll arrange it in this order: Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, and other countries. This is the order by largest number of deaths.

[1] explains how each millenium began in the "0" year "0, 1000, 2000..." rather than the "1" year (1, 1001, 2001...). Surely this means all the "Centuries" pages will need to be updated now a mathematical proof has been shown? --XinuX

I'm not sure if you are joking or not, but "Sorry, Sparky, but there are 11 patterns. You can't ignore the 0. It's always the first value in any number system. So a number system based on finger counting would be Base 11" is clearly wrong since 10 goes to the 2nd place. Therefore, everything he writes is of course, WRONG. Sorry couldn't resist. -Hmib 00:04, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, Hmib, but you can create 11 symbols with your fingers. You have two symbols in base 2 (0-1), ten in base 10 (0-9), eleven in base 11 (0-10). Another way to look at it is that since by using your hands you can express the number ten with one show of hands, ten goes to the first place. I think you may have forgotten that "Everything You Know Is Wrong." 203.206.15.101 07:49, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

The problem with that website is that it is, to use a strictly technical term, bollocks. When the Christian calendar was created, 1 AD immediately followed 1 BC. There was no zero. And when counting was invented, it started with 1, and the concept of zero came along much later. Js farrar 22:49, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Mass Killings

Should 9/11 really be listed as one of the mass killings? Honestly, it just pales in comparison to the others. Maybe list it in INFLUENTIAL EVENTS or something, but not mass killings, it puny. CJWilly

But it is one of the largest mass killings so far. The mass killings are ranked by total number of victims, 9/11 ranks 5th there. --Mixcoatl 13:44, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Would natural disasters go under biggest killings? i started a new stub section for natural disasters just in case not--Thewayforward 17:42, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Does anybody notice that we now seem to have six "mass killings" in the list of the five biggest mass killings? And does the tsunami/earthquake really count as a "mass killing" when it's a natural disaster? Dtobias 14:42, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It should be relabeled as "Mass Deaths" to include situations in which people died but were not killed. Lue3378 06:29, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Predictions

Does anyone mind if I remove Mr. Kurzweil's predictions? As someone who did AI-related research, I know his predictions in that area are totally bogus (as indeed any prediction for "real AI" arriving at any time more precise than "not soon, but beyond that no idea"), which doesn't give me any confidence in more of his prognostications. --Robert Merkel

I put them in as a curiosity, so that in the future we can check against his predictions. I hate it when people come up with all sorts of crappy predictions and later nobody takes them up on it. In fact, I would really like to add Moravecz's robot predictions as well (robots take over around 2050 if I remember correctly). Maybe we should somehow emphasize that they are just opinions, not generally shared. Other than random predictions, there's not much we can put into future timline articles anyway. AxelBoldt

Would it be better to start a page predictions for the 21st century? AxelBoldt

Yes, that would be an excellent idea. Sorry I didn't see this before. One thing that might be worth putting in is some of the climate change predictions, for instance. The more the merrier (provided they're from significant people or attract attention for some other reason). --Robert Merkel

I must say, the list of predictions is certainly interesting, and should be kept somewhere. -- Sam

Put your money where your mouth is. Visit longbets.org, a clever way to engage in futurism. Also useful for gathering controversial predictions for the 21st Century page. <>< tbc

I believe there should also be a page on fictional views of the 21st Century. The way the future used to be. How about 21st Century in fiction? --Lee M

There is Timeline of the future in forecasts. Welcome there, but please remember to tread lightly. Add the author, the year when the prediction was made and, if necessary, comment on the trustworthyness of the author. Paranoid 10:23, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Future events in fiction are not necessarily forecasts; I agree that an article like 21st Century in fiction should be made. Also, Lee M, did you mean could be for "The way the future used to be," as it has not yet happened? Lue3378 07:18, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Try timeline of fictional future events. 70.129.35.107 23:11, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I object to Elizabeth II and Mahmoud Abbas being listed as "Influential people in politics" of the 21st century. Granted that this list is highly subjective, but still. Elizabeth II is the queen of a democratic, constitutional monarchy/monarchies, and as such does not exercise any political authority, being more of a symbolic head of state. While not only de jure heads of government are listed (Osama bin Laden), it contains mainly people whose political opinions has some sort of aspect of changing the world, for better or for worse. Elizabeth II does not fit into this. Crown Prince Abdullah does. As for Mr. Abbas, he was the prime minister for a little more than six months of the Palestinian authority, and resigned partly due to his lack of influence. In this case, Yassir Arafat is sufficient. I vote to remove these two. --Gabbe 13:01, May 28, 2004 (UTC)

I vote to remove Aznar. He didn't anything really influential, all he did was give some help to America. That doesn't make you influential, and he is irrelevent now. I don't think his term in office was that outstanding or influential. CJWilly

I don't think the predictions section belongs here at all, at least not in its current form. The predictions aren't sourced, and even if they were, unless they came from a particularly notable source (e.g. a UN commission studying the phenomenon in question) I don't see how they qualify as encyclopedic. --Soultaco 20:11, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Influential Scientists/Mathematicians?

Stephen Hawking and Brian Greene as influential scientists of the 21st century? Why don't we start by looking at some Nobel laureates before we randomly promote two physicists and science writers as extremely influential scientists? Compare these with the scientists listed in the 20th century. There we find Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Max Planck, Enrico Fermi, James Watson.... Does either Hawking or Greene even come remotely close to these people? I think no. I'll look into this further, but if someone else could, I'd appreciate it too. -SocratesJedi 07:56, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Indeed, it seems as though they've been included largely because they're bestselling authors and therefore prominent in the minds of whoever stuck them in. It'd be interesting to see some actual scientists' lists of influential scientists. Mr. Billion 08:45, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The lists of influential scientists and mathematicians are both extremely poor, but at the same time, it's difficult to simply pick off Nobel Prize winners. The Nobel is generally awarded when the person is quite old and is no longer really doing research; Ray Davis, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2002, for example, is retired and no longer really doing research. However, one could pick off Fields Medal winners, since they're generally quite young and still have many years of research left in them. That said, I think people like Edward Witten, Andrew Wiles, Nicholas Katz, Manjul Bhargava, Richard Taylor, Chandrasekhar Khare, Vladimir Voevodsky, Richard Borcherds, William Gowers, William Thurston, S-T Yau, Michael Freedman, Maxim Kontsevich, Curtis McMullen, etc, are worth considering for the mathematics list. (Witten for the science list as well.) nparikh

Influential people in politics as of 2005

Would Michael Moore warrant inclusion here? –– Constafrequent ^{(talk page)} 23:46, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think that people are placing down whoever the heck they want to in this section, probably due to national pride. Though I don't doubt that the Finnish, Italian, and Maletese Prime Ministers and Presidents are important to the people of the said countries, they do NOT deserve to be listed with people like George W. Bush, Hu Jintao, Saddam Hussein and others whose impact and importance so far in this century is actually worth it. Wurkwurk - November 2

I agree with Wurkwurk above. Latvia's prime minister is simply not an influential figure in politics, and about half of the present list join him. That's my view. The trouble is, everyone has a different view. "Influential" is a relative term, and I would argue in favour of scrapping this section completely. How do we go about doing this? Mikedaventry - 17.44, 22 Jan 2006 (GMT)

Influential People in Technology

Is it fair to say that the Google guys, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, can be included on this list? Google has changed the face of the internet and the way that people access information (i.e. linking to Wikipedia). Riffsyphon1024 02:47, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Influential People in Entertainment

• I think Britney Spears has been added and dropped more than once already. Is there any coherent criterion for who should be included or excluded other than people adding in whatever singers / actors / etc. they like and deleting the ones they don't?
• The 'Boston Redsox'??? Who the hell put that there. Could someone please explain how some American baseball team has been influential to the world. --Jquarry 23:00, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
  • I saw that. I have to note that I am a huge Red Sox fan. When I saw it, I laughed and thought that someone probably wrote on the talk page that it didn't belong there. I was right, and I think that you're right. D. Wo. 06:20, 2005 Jun 15 (UTC)
• Peterpan the Indonesian Musical Group has influenced who? Dorsh 06:49, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Triple Conjunctions

Are all of these triple conjunctions posted by 85.74.7.23 really necessary? I believe because they happen so frequently, that they are usually not regarded as major astronomical events. -- Riffsyphon1024 03:39, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Entertainment

I think we need to distinguish between influential and significant... Britney Spears and the Simpson girls may be significant in terms of sales and popularity, but I hardly think they (especially Ashlee Simpson) are influential... pomegranate 13:50, Feb 25, 2005 (UTC)

• Let us hope that Everyking does not try to argue with this. -- Riffsyphon1024 06:22, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI)

Should he be considered for Influential People in Religion yet, or is it too early? -- Riffsyphon1024 19:02, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)

I think it's too early. He hasn't accomplished anything yet other than don the papal crown. Mr. Billion 05:38, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Looks like somebody's stuck him in anyway. Are we going to include every pope this century? If so, he warrants inclusion here simply by virtue of being Pope. If not, he will only warrant inclusion if he does something outstanding.

I think that over time we're probably going to see a lot of non-influential people inserted here, simply because immediacy makes things seem more important. If somebody reads the current version of the article at the end of this century, they may not have ever even heard of pope Benedict XVI because his reign will likely be relatively short, and there isn't any reason to expect him to do anything particularly remarkable. Whoever replaces George W. Bush will also almost certainly be placed here by someone, regardless of how active a president his replacement actually is. Mr. Billion 23:24, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

I think it is appropriate to place Pope Adol... I mean Pope Benedict XVI here. He has already stirred up quite a buzz, his reign is likely to determine the future of Catholicism, so on. It is not fair to compare this page with the 20th century, since this century has had only 5 years and the last century 100. We can delete stuff as they become less important. -Hmib 23:56, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

If the Dalai Lama and Falung Gong's founder are included, I see no reason not to include Ratzinger. John Paul II was far more influential in the 20th Century, while his reign in the 21st was not only short but also less important, compared to what he did in the 1980s and 1990s. As for Ratzinger, I would think that he should be included simply by virtue of being pope. If in, say, 20 or so years, his papacy turns out to be rather unimportant, we can delete him. The "too early" argument applies to the whole article. saturnight 23:30, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

All right, then. I've got no more objections. Mr. Billion 17:32, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Science fiction set in the 21st century

There's got to be countless thousands of science fiction stories set in the 21st century. Maybe the section "Science fiction set in the 21st century" should instead be its own article or category? Either way, we'll eventually need some criteria for inclusion. Mr. Billion 05:57, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Current Issues

A. Overpopulation bias?

The list of issues and concerns seems to be NPOV except for the section on overpopulation. It seems that the issue is biased to the supposition that overpopulation is evil. I believe the contrary. Densly populated nations like Luxembourg and Switzerland have higer quality-of-life indicies than sparsely populated nations like Mongolia and Angola. D. Wo. 06:29, 2005 Jun 15 (UTC)

I tried to NPOV it. -- Beland 00:12, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Then again countries like India, Bangladesh, Rwanda, Indonesia and many others are overpopulated any paying the price. Canada has very very few people for its landmass - even its populated regions are not that dense - and its quality of life is very good. When it comes down to it, overpopulation is a threat that is harming the world and mankind itself. No benefit will come when all of nature is torn down for skyscrapers, that is self evident. Wurkwurk, November 2 I agree that concentrating on overpopulation not only is NPOV, but is also irrelevant for this timeframe. Overpopulation was an issue in the 1970s, and it lead to the instigation of birth control in the developing world. By all means, talk about food scarcity, environmental degradation or poverty, but other factors like civil disturbances and corruption are greater culprits than population size. If anything, ageing has emerged as a twentieth century issue as baby boom cohorts in rich countries begin to retire. Even in the developing world birth rates are falling.

B. Abortion is a major current issue

It is insufficient to list abortion merely as word in a one sentence blurb on morality, while "overpopulation alarms" (which promotes total access to abortion) gets a paragraph. To maintain balance here, it needs to be stated that millions of preborn babies are destroyed yearly in all major western countries, and many of these countries are pushing this upon third world countries as a solution to their problems of poverty. rjp2006 Jul 12

Alphabetical Order

In the Influential people in politics as of 2005 section, a note says the names are in alphabetical order. They are not. For instance, George Bush is right above Vladimir Putin while Jean Chretien is somewhere below both of them. It is probably easier to remove the note than to reorder them all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alex Klotz (talk • contribs) 01:11, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Issues and concerns

Should there be an item added about morality (sexuality, media content, etc.)? Religion (clashes of civilizations, cultural integration, adapting to the 21st Century, secularity, recruitment, etc.)? Democracy? Human rights? Anything else of major global importance? -- Beland 01:21, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Facts about the 21st century?

Unsubstantiated content removed:

"The 21st Century is probably the last century without space travel being available to the masses"

"First century wherein the Internet has been essential"

"Increased technologies may eventually affect freedom and privacy"

"First century completely into the Digital Age"

None of these "facts" seem encyclopedic. Dev1n 20:58, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree. I saw that added and intended to remove it, but got sidetracked by other tasks. Thanks. --Mr. Billion 00:55, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Deaths in War (Iraq)

Should we really have that "Lancet study" in there? Although it was definitely widely-disseminated and is notable for maybe affecting people's views on the war, it's margin of error is absolutely enormous. Although, the mean amount of deaths they predicted was 102000, the 95% confidence interval is plus or minus 94000. The study really isn't worth that much. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.50.91.70 (talk) 18:31, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Science and technology

This section is terribly overrepresented by space missions. Surely there must be other major discoveries on other scientific disciplines too!--Jyril 19:35, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

A Common Misconception

The link to the year 2091, doesn't work and instead re-directs you to the main article, the 21st century....

shouldn't the twenty-first century be from 2000-2099 after all the first two digits should never match the century their in. Tell me what year was it 2,006 years before the year 2006.

1 BC. bob rulz 09:08, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

(There was no year 0, hence the first century goes to Dec. 31 1000 (et.c)) MotherFunctor 04:27, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Archbishop of Canterbury?

Should he be under 'influential people in relgiion'? He is the head of the Anglican Church, and his opinions are considered important when it comes to international events... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.105.210.117 (talk) 09:19, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Neuromancer

Why is Neuromancer by William Gibson listed under Television and film when it's a novel? And I don't think any date was given in the book. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.214.143.84 (talk) 13:16, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm deleting it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.214.143.84 (talk) 13:37, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Astronomical Events: Eclipses?

Should we include eclipses in the Astronomical Events section or would that be too excessive? Valley2city 22:23, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Fred Espenak at NASA predicts the longest solar eclipse of this century in 2009. Could this be added? Eclipse predictions exist in the wiki article '22nd_century' so why not? Longest Total Solar Eclipse: 2009 Jul 22 Duration = 06m39s Reference: http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/SEcat/SE2001-2100.html hrf 22:41, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Update on Saddam Hussein

It says Saddam Hussein is "currently held by US forces," when he was recently executed. 68.227.203.150 01:30, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Problem with "Gregorian calendar"

At the very beginning of this article where it is stated that the 21st century is the current century of the "Gregorian calendar", this is somewhat incorrect or misleading. Since the Julian calendar was used right up until the 16th century reformation by Pope Gregory, the 21st century can also be applied to this calendar. But it would be much easier to make reference to the Anno Domini (AD) era, since this is the abbreviation applied to all years post-1 BC. Would anyone disagree with this? If so, what would be better?. — RunningAway 21:29, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Sports re: TdF & Floyd Landis

NPOV issue? "2006- Floyd Landis wins the Tour De France, but later, it would be known that he was indeed doped. Óscar Pereiro Sio is not yet, but will be crowned as Tour De France champion, later this year." As of today 20070103, Floyd Landis' victory has not yet been stripped, as the court case is still on going, it is too early to say that Oscar Pereiro will be awarded the win, as Floyd could be acquited or the case could be dropped. more info: cyclingnews.com coverage --Skyleth 22:04, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Anna Nicole Smith

Important developments, events, achievements - Other - Anna Nicole Smith dies, and that's important news?! Out of all the people who have DIED in the 21st century, she's the one you'd put in wikipedia as influential death?. Dale Earnhardt was a sports hero to millions, I could MAYBE see why that made it, but her death was huge media circus, and end to a tragically comic life that makes the real world really seem like fiction. I deleted it. Cryptik 05:59, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Solar Eclipse

I don't wish to sound anti-American here or anything, but why does America's first total solar eclipse of the 21st century count as being more important than any other country's? China, Japan, Australia, Southern Africa, Brazil, Russia, Spain, etc. have all had or will have their "first total solar eclipse", as will many other countries. Is the USA really this much more important? --El Pollo Diablo (Talk) 10:16, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Page needs trimming

This page needs to have 30% of it pruned. The speculation of 20-11 for example. Who won what cup when for example. A lot of the entertainers. This is the 21st century remember, and it is going to be 100 years. No point in putting in everyone who was notable in the first seven years, and not leaving room for the remaining 93. Will anyone remember Britney Spears in 80 years? Not likely. Get the page down to 32K and keep it there. 199.125.109.82 13:47, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

This may be nit-picking, but...

The article says, It began on January 1, 2001 and will end December 31, 2100. Technically, it won't end on December 31 2100, but at 12:00:00 AM January 1, 2101. As long as it's still December 31, it's still the 21st century. It won't not be the 21st century until it's January 1, 2101. Blackworm (talk) 06:54, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, that would be an "exclusive" end, but for an "inclusive" end, the article is correct. Groupthink (talk) 22:14, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Locking article?

This might seem stupid, but this article is like a warzone. Some put the Finnish head of State, while others remove it. And its never really ending. So a lock might be plausible until the article is 100 % trimmed and such. 193.183.253.33 (talk) 10:19, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Dominant themes?

2nd paragraph: While the 20th century was marked by the rapid development of travel fueled mostly by petroleum, the 21st century is marked by concern over how to cope with consequences of pollution and resource depletion.

erhaps it's a bit early in the 21st century to write about what it's 'marked' by? We're not even 10% through it yet . . Maybe this just needs to be reworded.

Also, after reading the previous entries on this talk page, I propose that we form a mob and tar & feather Kurzweil, hog tie him, and throw him on a barge bound for Shanghi —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.77.128.175 (talk) 06:18, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Significant people section

Folx, I don't know about you, but I'm tired of the constant adds and deletes to the various subsects of this sect. Frankly, this sect seems silly, arbitrary, and blatantly in violation of WP:NPOV. We the editors are NOT supposed to be determining who is and is not significant: Verifiable sources are. Now I know that a counter-argument could be made along the lines of "US President G.W. Bush is obviously a significant 21st century figure" but on WP, even "obvious" content is supposed to be backed by citations of reliable sources.

So forgive me if I do offend, but I'm being bold and removing the whole danged section. Groupthink (talk) 08:04, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

This is a tad irrelevant but i think we should wait some more years to accuratly determined who is significant to be part into the article. Pathfinder2006 (talk) 10:40, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

As you can see from my restoration of the section, I think there's some people we can immediately say are significant: Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize winners. To that list one might add winners of awards such as the Turing Prize, the Von Neumann medal, the Kennedy Center Honors, various sports' Halls of Fame, the Oscars, the Grammys, the Tonys, and the Emmys, et al. Groupthink (talk) 19:55, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

if you are going to include al gore you should defnatly include obama and mccain —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.32.159.25 (talk) 01:44, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

The difference is that Vice-President Gore won a Nobel Prize. Notice that President Bush is in the list for being named Time's Person-of-the-Year. Groupthink (talk) 13:03, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and would you PLEASE quit adding Richard Stallman to the list without a source indicating that he is a significant person for the entire 21st century? I love the guy, too, but we're trying to be objective here. Groupthink (talk) 13:06, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Other

can someone add the year of discovery for this sentence, "Discovery of four chemical elements, of atomic number 113, 115, 116 and 118." Pro66 (talk) 10:45, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

21st century doing a loop with the decades

Starting from the year 2020 (after the 10s come to an end), would the decades from the 2020s to the 2090s ever be called "New"? Thus the 2020s the being "New 20s", 2030s the "New 30s", 2040s the "New 40s", the 2050s the "New 50s", the 2060s the "New 60s", the 2070s the "New 70s", the 2080s the "New 80s" and finally the 2090s the "New 90s". EmperorofFatalism 6:54 P.M 01/09/08 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.7.151.45 (talk) 10:54, 1 September 2008 (UTC) I'd say so. [dean mullen] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Deanolympics010 (talk • contribs) 21:41, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

The 21st Century began in the 1990s?

Who keeps sticking this in here? It doesn't make sense. If the 21st century began in 1991, then "century" doesn't mean anything. It's an issue of semantics: To accept this, you'd have to redefine "century" to replace "100-year timespan" with something fuzzy like "social era" or "zeitgeist." You could certainly argue that "the modern age" began in 1991, but it does not make sense to twist the calendar for this purpose.

The "some historians" who supposedly think that the 21st century began in 1991 aren't referenced, and I've never heard of them except from the anonymous user who keeps sticking this in. Wikipedia shouldn't give undue space to fringe views, and this sounds particularly fringe and nonsensical. It's somebody's arbitrary division and personal terminology. --Mr. Billion 18:34, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

REPLY:

That would be me. True that, being I was born in 1990 I like to think of the '90s as part of the 20th Century, but they seem so 21st to me. I wrote instead that "many 21st Century trends began in the 1990s and one may say the 1990s are in the same social era as the 2000s and a different one from the 1980s and earlier decades". Many, if not most people would agree with that.

That's a bit POV, isn't it? ;) But I agree, the first decade of a certain century is always affected by the last decade of the preceding century. --TonyM ^{ｷﾀ━( °∀° )━ｯ!!} 18:59, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

The 90s seem 21st century because the 21st century hasn't really begun yet. the 00s have, but,culturally and technologically, we're still in the 20th century.Bob bobato (talk) 19:38, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

To Thorri: Just because the 1990s seem so 21st century doesn't mean it's the 21st century. The 1990s seem like they are 21st century because of the Internet used more commonplace and the digital revolution in place. The 20th century had to include the 1990s as well. It had to be the 20th century until December 31, 2000, at 23:59:59. The 21st century began on January 1, 2001, at 00:00:00, although some people consider the start of the 21st century in 2000 due to being the millennium year. 207.114.192.12 (talk) 23:52, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

New, encyclopedic & cited "pronunciation" section

I have added a new (rather lengthy) section on the pronunciation issues with 21st century years to this article, and would appreciate comments on it here. Any fixes you feel are needed, feel free to change them in the article. But please, do join me in conversation here prior to fully reverting. Thank you for co-operation. -- Sarcha 45 19:35, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

• just one comment ... surely the reason people are using the two-thousand-and-'n' system is because you HAD to say 'year 2000'... 'twenty-hundred' just sounds daft. Once it started, enertia set in & we just got used to saying two-thousand. (There was also all that silly talk about what to call the first decade, e.g., "the noughties". What was that all about?) Back to the point, aren't the BBC officially using the twenty-oh system now? I'll try and find out & report back. Aelfgifu 16:45, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Language should by definition be efficient, yet complete. Calling it "twenty oh five" because we called 1905 "nineteen oh five" is utterly ridiculous. They called it "nineteen oh five" because that is shorter and more efficient than the alternative "nineteen hundred five." Along the same vein, "two-thousand five" is shorter and therefore more efficient than "twenty oh five." I don't know why newsreaders have to make it overly complicated. 71.113.148.6 03:03, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Bullspit. They called 1905 "nineteen hundred and five" during the actual time period, and we've come to call it "nineteen oh five" today. Just like people in the future will refer to the "September eleven, twenty oh one attacks".—142.176.111.5 (talk) 17:52, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

The "pronunciation" section is definitely justified. As an outside user of English I looked for an analogy on 11th century but found nothing. How would you say 1066? Scandinavian languages have some spill over from English and we blame it the annoying but rather widespread use of two-thousand instead of twenty-hundred, which is the correct way of referring to the century. One-thousands and two-thousands are reserved for millennia. So I have already joined the twenty twelve-people when using English ...:) Kurtan (talk) 10:12, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Global Warming

“Most climate scientists concur that the earth is currently undergoing significant anthropogenic” This is bias. Where are the numbers of scientists who are in agreement or disagreement with these claims. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.83.104.254 (talk) 06:59, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

It's scientific consensus. --Josh Atkins ^{(talk - contribs)} 10:48, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Both of the things you cited were written by economists, not scientists: from Copenhagen Consensus: "Copenhagen Consensus is a project that seeks to establish priorities for advancing global welfare using methodologies based on the theory of welfare economics. It was conceived [1] and organized by Bjørn Lomborg... The participants were all economists, with the focus of the project being a rational prioritization based on economic analysis." And the article on Mr Lomborg himself, whom you cited externally, says this: "Lomborg campaigns for an unconventional position on climate change: he opposes the Kyoto Protocol and other measures to cut carbon emissions in the short-term, and argues that we should instead adapt to short-term temperature rises as they are inevitable" Your speculations about nanotechnology were just that- unscientific speculation, and unreferenced. I kept your addition of Abortion, but edited it to make it less biased ("so-called abortion rights", etc). I will revert any more biased edits you make to this page. Lithoderm 22:25, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Pop cultural references to the remaining years of the 21st century

Should this list include things that just happen to be set in present time (Stargate series, Metal Gear Solid to name a few). If we include these, I might as well add Grey's anatomy, Family Guy, and Degrassi because these are all set in the 21th century too. What is the cutoff point to be? I personnaly feel that if the setting is "the present" it shouldn't be included, but things set in the future (even if the future is the present) like 2001: A space oddesey and Duke Nukem should be. Anyone willing to enforce this rule? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Curtbash (talk • contribs) 17:28, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Democracies turning totalitarian

Some currently democratic states, such as The United Kingdom, are felt by some to be moving quickly in the direction of a police state,[13] with biometric identity cards,[14] continuous surveillance and long term detainment without trial all having been introduced by the government.

1. 42 days was rejected. Gitmo, on the other hand, keeps prisoners for almost a decade without trial
2. ID cards are only supported by one major political party, and a general election will happen no later than May 2010
3. Continuous surveillance exists in most, if not all, Western countries

So why the UK is singled out as a soon-to-become Orwellian state, I don't understand.

--Josh Atkins ^{(talk - contribs)} 12:18, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Sports section

As an article for the century, I think there is far too much 'minor' information in the listing of events, particularly in recent years. In year articles, a lot of it is relevant, but in this article I'm not too sure. I would say that events such as Schumacher's fifth Formula One title and Italy's World Cup win are of definite relevance, but Matt Kenseth winning the Daytona 500, Jenson Button winning this year's Monaco Grand Prix and the draft picks for NFL are of little relevance to fans outside of those sports. Perhaps there needs to be some sort of cleanup there, and some sort of agreed idea on what is and isn't important enough to list?

Personally I would say events which are significant to fans of all sports (and not just that one), gain significant international coverage, and will be relevant in several years time should be included only. This means, for example, that while a Champions League win for Barcelona this year is relevant, was there anything really important about it to say it'll be remembered as key in, say, 2015 or 2020? There isn't, so I would not list it, whereas Liverpool's win from three goals down on penalties should be as it was far more 'memorable' and significant historically. Thoughts? Esteffect (talk) 22:22, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

this should be in 2000's [decade]

once January 1st 2010 arrives, all the information on this page should be transfered to 2000's [decade] and only like 10% of it should remain. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Deanolympics010 (talk • contribs) 21:38, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

First Year

I'm sorry, but I really don't buy that 2001 was the first year of the 21st century, simply because that's not what people mean when they say 21st century - people celebrated the turn of the century on January 1st, 2000, and though that might not be entirely consistent, it's how it's used. It seems unnecessarily pedantic, and certainly counter to the most common use of the phrase, to claim that it started in 2001. BovineBeast 11:32, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

A century is 100 years. 20 centuries is 20 x 100 years = 2000 years. That last twentieth century 'included' the 2000th year. Thus the 20th century did not end and the 21st did not begin until we moved into the 2001st year of the calendar. For purposes of major socio-cultural-historical trends, one year doesn't really matter all that much. Ventifact63.226.230.76 (talk) 00:51, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Our calendar started at year 1 and not year zero. People celebrated the beginning of the 20th century on 1st Jan 1901! Why many people decided to celebrate the coming of the 21st century 1st Jan 2000 is beyond me! Do the maths. it is not pedantic to state the 21st century started in 2001, it is fact, people who don't realise this are plain ignorantDuarcain (talk) 10:44, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Since there's no year 0, let's just say that the 1st Century only had 99 years (1 CE - 99 CE) so that our belief is correct. The 3rd Millenium began in 2000, not 2001!!!!! --66.94.154.5 (talk) 00:33, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

if the 1st century has 99 years then its not a century at all, a century must be 100 years however the correct version of the 1st century being from 1 AD to 100AD is correct as it has the required 100 years for it to be called a century. if you want you can devise a new version of the gregorian (however u spell it) calendar that includes the year 0 :D. Pro66 (talk) 20:03, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

People can put the beginning of a millennium where they like. If they want the "third millennium", the "new millennium", the "21st century" to begin on 1 Jan 2000, they can. And they do. Why not get upset that 1BC is followed by 1AD with no O in between? Why not say the first century began 1BC then it has 100 years? 62.64.210.156 (talk) 12:14, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

This is ridiculous. Just about everyone considers years with the same first 2 digits to constitute a century. Can we not accept that the first century was an anomaly, 99 years long? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Irishrichy (talk • contribs) 22:39, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

I must agree on this being nonsense. With the introduction of the Julian calendar, the New Year was suddenly January 1st instead of March 1st, which causes a small problem with our way of counting years right there, we've been 2 months short of a full year ever since. What's the problem with being a year short in a decade? One is off by 1/6, the other is off by 1/100, yet people whine about the one that is merely off by 1/100? Doesn't make sense to me. It's only logical to count from 0-9. Decades are 0-9, centuries should be too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.11.218.215 (talk) 18:27, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't agree with the claims that "most people" or "everyone" considers the 21st century to begin with January 1, 2000. On the Russian Wikipedia, for example, there is absolutely no question that the 21st century began in 2001. I, for one, celebrated it as such. I do agree that in the USA, it would appear that 2000 marked the beginning of the 21st century culturally, but as long as we count our years from the beginning of 1 C.E. (as relative to our time now) and a century as 100 years (each year about 365 days or so), then the 21st century began in 2001. I doubt that the collective mind of Wikipedia has the right to change that convention. Polfbroekstraat (talk) 19:51, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the century started 1st January 2001. However, maybe it should be re-worded to help avoid confusion. 'The 20th century ended 31st December 2000 and the 21st century will end 31st December 2100'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.178.22.82 (talk) 11:52, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Influential people in Religion

I've removed Joel Osteen and Billy Graham, since their fame in the USA does not mean very much in the rest of the world. I've thought a bit about who should be included in this list, and I think it should suffice to list leaders of or very influential people in the largest world religions. Khamenei, Benedict XVI and the Dalai Lama should definitely be included. Now, I don't live in America so I don't know who are the main leaders in American Protestantism (maybe Graham should be included after all). I don't know much about Hinduism either. Can somebody help me here? --saturnight 12:18, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

Ok a hundred years is a century 22nd Cent in 2100?

Always confused the year2100 that will start 22nd Cent? Somone born in 1999,and lives to2100 would that make THREE cent.s. The person lived in 20th,21st,22?(Iwont live till 2100 but who knows with medical advances nanobots etc?MornSat.Oct.3rd200921stCentBornJan29th1945 20th Cent.Dr.Edson Andre' Johnson D.D.ULC)Edsonbrasil (talk) 18:09, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

No, the 22nd century begins on January 1, 2101. Someone who lived from 1999–2100 would only have lived in 2 centuries: the 20th and 21st. The decades, however, work differently. The current decade (2000s) began on January 1, 2000 and will end on December 31, 2009. — CIS ^(talk | stalk) 18:12, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

If the decades work differently, which decade has only 9 years? The Gregorian calendar has no year zero, so the first decade has no year zero. This means that the first decade comprised years 1 thru 10. The second decade comprised years 11 thru 20. No, the decades work exactly the same as the centuries, and the millenia. The current decade began on January 1, 2001, and will end on December 31, 2010. It's a matter of historical and mathematical accuracy.Kdietz (talk) 21:53, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

WP:CENTURY lays down the law eg the 17th century was 1601–1700. --Chuunen Baka (talk) 11:54, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

The Nobel Prize

How about a section comprised of Nobel laureates? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.167.44.65 (talk) 00:46, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

U.S. bias

Honestly, this article comes across as being very U.S.-centered. I know it's a superpower and all, and I don't necessarily challenge the importance of any specific event, but I get the strong feeling we're missing out on similarly important events from around the world. GreenReaper (talk) 18:05, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

• I agree. Wikipedia is an international site, and should represent the world - not just the United States. (Tigerghost (talk) 00:04, 18 July 2010 (UTC))

Common Era

I have changed the use of 'christian era' to 'common era' as it is the secular alternative, and is repeated as AD anyway. If someone wishes to remove the 'anno domini' they may, but can we please keep the 'common era' 86.178.194.6 (talk) 03:17, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

2001 or 2000?

This article states that the 21st century began in 2001. I know that is technically correct, but most people and a lot of mainstream sources would put it as 2000. Here's one example: http://interactive.wsj.com/millennium/articles/SB944517534664949434.htm

Shouldn't this article at least mention there is a dispute (in common perception) about when the 21st century began? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.203.88.223 (talk) 05:17, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

• There's definitely a verifiability argument to be made here: http://www.nytimes.com/2000/01/01/us/1-1-00-technology-2000-momentous-relief-monitors-missiles-year-2000-note-relief.html -- The New York Times also lists 1/1/2000 as the turn of the century (see last sentence of first paragraph). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.203.88.223 (talk) 05:21, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps it's worth noting that the idea of starting a century in the year xx01 rather than xx00 became popular when Queen Victoria died in January of 1901, and people decided it would look nice if the 19th century ended with her. Other than that, this count makes no sense as it presumes that the number 1 is preceded by the number -1 rather than the number 0.-82.176.209.52 (talk) 06:08, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I still say 2000 was the start year of the 21st century. I mean just because there was no year 0 according to the Gregorian Calendar, doesn't make 2000 a part of the 20th century. I mean the year is called 2000. It has a 2 in front of it just like the rest of the years of the 21st century and 3rd millennium, it doesn't say 19-something. Also, most media outlets use 2000 as the start of the 21st century and 3rd millennium, all of the big new millennium celebrations took place on the night of December 31, 1999 into the early morning hours of January 1, 2000. There was none on the night of December 31, 2000 going into 2001. Bjoh249 (talk) 12:17, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

2009

2009 –Barack Obama became the first African-American president of the United States Should Be: 2009 –Barack Obama became the first bi-racial president of the United States (of African-American decent).72.187.152.15 (talk) 23:49, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Olympic's Games in Moscow 1980

Can anybody confirm or deny if the the Russians Authorities to make sure of good weather on the inauguration day of the Olympic Game 1980 in Moscow, did order to fly airplanes to clean the atmosphere of possbile clouds? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.85.12.211 (talk) 11:26, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Fix up the politics, wars & genoicide part?

There seems to be a lot of information on politics, wars & genocide. I think we should just have the title of the wars and not such a long description beside them to make it appear neater & cleaner. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Deanmullen09 (talk • contribs) 22:04, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Dead link

During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!

• http://stateoftheworld.reuters.com
  • In History of the world on 2011-04-01 02:14:12, 404 Not Found
  • In 21st century on 2011-06-19 05:29:57, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 05:30, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

United States as the sole superpower

Just reading through this article and the following section has no referencing at all. Im just curious as to what basis the US is deemed as the 'sole superpower'.

"In contemporary history, the 21st century began with the United States as the sole superpower in the absence of the Soviet Union. As the Cold War was over and terrorism on the rise exemplified by the September 11, 2001 attacks at the World Trade Center in New York City; the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia; followed by the 2001 anthrax attacks that commenced as letters containing anthrax spores were mailed from Princeton, New Jersey to several news media firms; the United States and its allies turned their attention to the Middle East."

Dan.nj72 (talk) 11:55, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

At this basis: it can bomb almost everyone with other counties leaders tongs in their asses! Fornitm (talk) 05:11, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Where's War in Libya???

It should be in primary list! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fornitm (talk • contribs) 05:03, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Incorrect info regarding 9/11 attacks

Only two planes were flown into the Trade Towers. Not three as it says here. Two in the towers, one in the Pentagon, a third in a field in Pennsylvania. 70.24.163.65 (talk) 18:12, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

The article is correct, it says two into the towers, one into the Pentagon and one missing its target. --Daniel 18:43, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Racism

Under the Society heading:

"By the beginning of the 21st century the social issue of racism was slowly concluding as rights of other nationalities in other nations increased and in 2008 this change in society was declared loudly as Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States."

While there's no question that the manifestation and prevalence of racism is changing, the claim that the issue is "slowly concluding" is pure conjecture, and stated from an extremely America-centric perspective. While overt racism has become effectively taboo in mainstream western culture, American society is still stratified along so-called "racial" lines, and racial prejudice, discrimination, and hatred is still clearly visible. Consider the recent Psychology Today article regarding the "objective" attractiveness of black women. The backlash against it was rapid and strong, but its mere appearance in such a mainstream publication (the fact that it got through the editor) indicates that the issue is far from concluded. Furthermore, anti-semitism is alive and well all over the globe, anti-Muslim sentiment is rampant across America and Europe, and it wasn't until 2010 that a ceasefire was called in the brutal oppression of non-Arabs in the Darfur region of the Sudan.

I suggest that this statement be removed, or changed to reflect a more accurate and global perspective of racism in the 21st century thus far. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.196.184.47 (talk) 03:44, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Removal of material

Attain consensus among editors before making drastic removals of information...Modernist (talk) 13:49, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

RE: Apologies those actions were mine, well some of them, I should have got permission first, but I wonder should we simplify this article more? the main reason behind this is because its easier on the reader and if the reader wants to read more information on lets say the War on Terrorism, all they have to do is click on it rather than having lines of information on the war beside it, I think it would be better to make this article a mere synopsis of the century rather than a full review. deanmullen09 (talk) 14:58, 2 October 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.255.160.198 (talk)

My suggestion is work section by section. Add what in your judgment needs adding and suggest removals on the talk page. If you need to expand sections try to work with what has already been added especially with referenced material. Do your best to try to include others input...Modernist (talk) 14:24, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Some of the material that you have introduced is really good, do your best...Modernist (talk) 14:26, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Royal weddings

Royal weddings should not be considered among the century's remarkable events in Politics and Wars. Royal weddings are significant in popular culture (mainly in the societies where they occur), but this importance is created artificially through large mediatization and space marketing. They do not have the same historical effect as other world events listed in this subtitle, such as the Birth of the Arab Spring and the shutdown of "News of the World" (just to mention events in 2011). Lamerica (talk) 08:31, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Technology Missing?

The article reads as if technological progress comes to an end, frozen in time, since 2005, for the remainder of the century.

It is extremely likely that we will have the technology to:

• record and communicate everything that we see and hear
• live our life in virtual reality, rending physical transportation near pointless
• augmented reality
• read the spoken voices of the people around us
• speak electronically without moving our mouths
• construct visual maps of knowledge, making it possible to learn much faster than today

It is possible (likely?) that we will see:

• human-level AI, and then post-human AI
• nanotech assemblers
• life extended to 150 (by isolating brain from body,) and then (within a few extra decades?) beyond (by siliconizing the brain)

I work on TaoRiver and [http://future.wikicities.com/wiki/Main_Page WikiCities] futures wiki.

LionKimbro — Preceding undated comment added 10:53, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a place for speculation or Sci-fi. If you know of reputable, source-able theories for future advancements, place them in an appropriate article. All that stuff may be cool, but this article is about history and event that can be forecast, like a comet.

Limton —Preceding undated comment added 17:03, 11 November 2011 (UTC).

File:Acer Aspire 8920 Gemstone by Georgy.JPG Nominated for Deletion

An image used in this article, File:Acer Aspire 8920 Gemstone by Georgy.JPG, has been nominated for deletion at Wikimedia Commons in the following category: Deletion requests December 2011 What should I do? Don't panic; a discussion will now take place over on Commons about whether to remove the file. This gives you an opportunity to contest the deletion, although please review Commons guidelines before doing so. If the image is non-free then you may need to upload it to Wikipedia (Commons does not allow fair use) If the image isn't freely licensed and there is no fair use rationale then it cannot be uploaded or used. This notification is provided by a Bot --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 16:14, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

The 14 Centuries

There are fourteen centuries: 2001 to 2100, 99 years, last century. In this last century, people are going to die and its going to be the end of the world. This article showed the correct information so 11 years passed. That also meant that 88 years left. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.251.38.37 (talk) 00:02, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Obama?

Why is Obama pictured and included on this list? The article needs to be neutral and not American-centric. Other countries have had their first of something so why not show their pictures too? Delete the picture. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Collingwood26 (talk • contribs) 08:02, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Removed Outer Space

Outer space uninhabited for the last time (this moment may have already passed) Since the above makes no sense, I removed it. .

The ISS has always had humans in it since late the year 2000, orbiting the Earth. So there is a possibility that the 21st century may be last without a person always in space, though the parethetical remark suggests the writer may have been misguided as to which century late 2000 is in. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 22:07, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Length

This article is already longer than that for the 20th century, you'd be hard pressed to convince anyone that more notable stuff has happened in the past 10 years than the entire 100 before that. The article should really be a tenth of its current length. --130.130.37.85 (talk) 00:36, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Its extraneous content can be slowly moved to articles on decades as more pass. Abyssal (talk) 01:07, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. There is far too much trivia already, much of which belongs in sub-articles (by topic, country). This should not be done "slowly" but ASAP. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 03:08, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Why don't we remove the transits of Mercury and the triple conjunctions and add the transits of Venus?

Transits of Mercury: 13 or 14 a century. Transits of Venus: 0 to 2. And much more impressive. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:03, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Disaster guidelines

I think that we have to have more clear disaster guidelines: size cutoff for inclusion on the list (and potential social implications for exception, if any). This includes both man-made and artificial disaster.

For example, there were a number of air crushes with greater amount of casualties than on Kaczinsky's plane. If we start including them, we will run out of space; if we start excluding them, we need to have more clear guidelines about what is appropriate and what isn't.

Same, probably, applies to Christchurch earthquake: it was a relatively minor one, in terms of casualties; a typical cyclone that hits Central America instead of USA can kill more. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.239.86.243 (talk) 03:29, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

The science fiction sections need links to the main decade articals

it would be very constuctive if the decade articals based on the future are incerted into the decades for the science fiction sections. at least for the motion picture area becasue that science fiction section comes first and its the most detailed one primarily becasue science fiction is more widely availible in visual format rather then books or other media.so id like thos main articals of future decades get links as soon as possible.76.244.151.164 (talk) 13:59, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

The artical keeps being reverted to a inferior version

Can someone find exactly where there is a vandalized place in here as of right now going back to my recent revert. this offending part needs to be found so that all my Progress on this artical Counts for something 76.244.151.164 (talk) 22:50, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Is the Effective Date Necessary in the Main Intro?

Right now it reads: "As of now, 11 years and 310 days of the 21st century have passed."

Since this will continue to change daily is it needed as part of Wikipedia? How relevant is it really? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.206.42.19 (talk) 16:49, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

comepletly unnessesary we should get rid of it i do not want this artical to be considered a current events artical. 76.244.151.164 (talk) 14:01, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Predictions for the 21st century as of 2003

Please note that these predictions are controversial, and disputed by many other observers: they are listed here to show some late 20th century futurists' predictions of the events of the 21st century so that they may be compared with real events as they happen.

• 2003: The last birth year of the Millennial Generation. (William Strauss and Neil Howe, 1991)
• 2005: Third turning (Unraveling, which began with 1984's "Morning in America") over; Fourth turning (Crisis era) begins (William Strauss and Neil Howe, 1997)
• 2006: GNU/Linux becomes the dominant operating system on the desktop (it became the dominant server OS at the end of the 20th century).
• 2006: Chinese passes English as the most prevalent language on the Internet
• 2007: Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania join the European Union
• 2009: Majority of text is created by continuous speech recognition (predicted by Ray Kurzweil 1999)
• 2010: Robots appear with the processing power of lizard brains, capable of autonomously cleaning houses (predicted by Hans Moravec 1998)
• 2010: The audio CD is no longer the format of first choice
• 2011: The Kepler space mission, a space-based search for terrestrial planets around 100,000 stars, finishes.
• 2012: The great cycle of the Maya calendar rolls over
• 2014: Fish farming, or aquaculture, provides a majority of seafood in the United States
• 2019: Computers pass limited forms of the Turing test; people begin to have relationships with computers; visual, auditory and tactile virtual reality enables people to realistically interact with physically distant partners; automatically driving systems installed in most roads (predicted by Ray Kurzweil 1999)
• 2020: Peak year of the "Crisis of 2020" (Strauss and Howe, 1991)
• 2027: Crisis of 2020 over; First Turning (New High) begins (Strauss and Howe, 1997)
• 2029: Human - computer communication via direct neural connections; humans do not work in production, agriculture and transport anymore; computers claim to be conscious and these claims are generally accepted (predicted by Ray Kurzweil 1999)
• 2030: Robots with monkey-like thinking capabilities, able to imitate tasks and solve simple problems, appear (predicted by Hans Moravec 1998)
• 2038: Unix time_t overflow: The number of seconds since January 1, 1970 will no longer be storable as a 32-bit signed integer. Some expect this will be a second Y2K.
• 2040: Robots comparable in ability to humans appear; soon thereafter, they surpass humans in most abilities (predicted by Hans Moravec 1998)
• 2045: The world remembers the 100th anniversary of the end of the Second World War
• 2047: High over; Awakening begins (Strauss and Howe, 1997) India celebrates 100 years of independence 1947
• 2049: Nanotechnology produces food without agriculture; nanobot swarms create tactile-realistic projections of people and objects (predicted by Ray Kurzweil 1999)
• 2050: The biggest war the world has ever seen is over, and rebuilding is ongoing (predicted by John Archibald Wheeler in 2002)
• 2067: Canada celebrates 200 years of independence 1867
• 2069: Awakening over; Unraveling begins (Strauss and Howe, 1997)
• 2099: Humans and computers merge; most human consciousnesses do not employ carbon based hardware anymore (predicted by Ray Kurzweil 1999)

your predictions began not making any logical sense. 2003 cant be considered the last year of the birth of the millenials generation . it makes no sense becasue the millenials were the generation that came after the ecco boomers and the parents of the ecco boomers were the baby boomers. the ecco boomers are still having children even now in there 30's and generation x came inbetween the baby and ecco boomers. generation y was born between 1990 and 2000 and there children would be generation z born between 2010 and 2020. so the first prediction is unlogical millenial generation will continue to be born even till 2015. Some of your predictions are true such as the world will hold a rememberance in 2045 in honor of world war 2. that war killed atleast 50 million people in 6 years that was 25% of all people who died in the 20th century from wars and atrocities. 76.244.151.164 (talk) 14:08, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Split fiction/Non

It seems like this article has the Fiction and Non-Fiction melded together. Could we split them to make them less confusing? Cbrittain10 (talk|contribs) 17:27, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

"Domestic" sport

The very first competition listed under the "domestic" trophies is the FIFA Club World Cup, a competition that is in no way domestic and has no pretensions of being so. And most of the other leagues listed are, in fact, international, since they have teams in multiple countries; only the AFL and NFL are entirely confined to a single country. I recommend renaming the section either to "Club sports" or "Annual competitions", since that's what really seems to be distinguishing the competitions listed here from the competitions in the preceding section. Binabik80 (talk) 01:02, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Because doing it yourself is too mainstream. Nonetheless I have made the changes you requested. SteelIron^Talk 18:50, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Sport

I removed the lists of every year's winner of the AFL, NBA, World Series, NRL, Super Bowl and Stanley Cup. First off, these are not of global significance and, if the Australian rules football league and Australian Rugby League are important enough to list, so are the top-flight football leagues of Argentina, Brazil, England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. That extends the list to thirteen leagues and we should add some rugby leagues, too, the Indian cricket leagues and probably other sports. Each of these lists will be 100 items long by the end of the century, leading to an article of unmanageable length. Further, on the scale of the century, each of these leagues and cups is an entirely routine event: they happen every year and, guess what?, some team always wins it. Taking the long view, it just isn't significant to the century as a whole that some particular team won some particular league in 2032. The significant events are periods of dominance: for example, it would be appropriate to say that Manchester United won the English Premier League seven times and came second three times in the first thirteen seasons of the century. Likewise, some of the international sporting entries are overly detailed. Dricherby (talk) 09:48, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Agree and support the "cleaning", if somebody like more details they can read 2000s (decade) and 2000s in sports --Feroang (talk) 23:21, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Exactly. To be honest, if they want more details about, say, the Super Bowl, they're probably just going to go to Super Bowl or List of Super Bowl champions, anyway. Dricherby (talk) 08:09, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Pronunciation

The blurb: ".. .while 2011 and 2013 are popular as well. The latest timeframes for change are usually placed at 2020" doesn't seem to make any sense. Does anyone know what idea is being expressed? 68.98.129.253 (talk) 10:04, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

• Hard to say, without access to the paywalled source. I'm guessing the "latest timeframes" thing is trying to say that, for years 2020 and later, almost everyone says/will say "twenty-thirty-seven" rather than "two thousand and thirty-seven"; the references to 2011 and 2013 are incomprehensible so I've deleted them. (For context, the text elided in the op is "The Vancouver Olympics, which took place in 2010, was being officially referred to by Vancouver 2010 as 'the twenty-ten olympics', while 2011 and 2013 are popular as well.") Dricherby (talk) 10:33, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Add Fukishima to man made disasters?

First nuclear disaster of the 21st century, seems relevant enough. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.144.45.142 (talk) 04:58, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Dates

For issues about when the century began, visit Talk:20th century#Dates first. Evensteven (talk) 00:42, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

21st Century

The watch for the beginning of the 21st century was held on 1999.12.31:23:59 to 2000.01.01:00:00.

Seriously, if you are going to count that there was 'no year zero', you might as well count in the correction of 10 days in 1752. The gregorian and julian calendars align from 1 Mar 200 to 28 Mar 300. The old style has 29 Mar 300, the new style is 1 Mar 300. The Julian calendar has 29 Feb 100 and 29 Feb 200, which are missing in the new calendar. So the date 1/1/1 OS is properly 30 Dec 1 BC, and 2000 years thereafter is 30 Dec 2000.

In reality, this is not what is going on. No one really cares if there were no year 0 or 10 days were dropped from the 18th century, or that the 15th century had one too many days. A century is a period of date-names, from which dates are allocated. When we stop using a particular century of date-names, and select a new one, the new century begins.

The real issue is whether the year is cardinal or ordinal.

Ordinal numbers are used for days and months. 1/1 means that 0 months and 0 days have passed, and the first of each is current. When Christ rose on the third day, he was not dead for three days, but cruxified on friday (afternoon), taken down on saturday, and was risen on sunday morning when they romped down after the sabbath, in short one and a bit days. Saying that one is in seventh grade at school, means six have been passed, and the seventh is current. It ends at 7.00000

The series of years is too much for a person to have observed the first, so it is taken as a cardinal, and that a date 2000 means that all numbers less than 2000 are no longer open for dates, and that dates begin 2000.xx.xx, (ie 2000.07.01 is 2000.5 years). The watch was for the closure of years 19xx.xx.xx (ie 20th century), and the opening of 20xx.xx.xx, (ie the 21st). Wendy.krieger (talk) 10:19, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

See discussion at Talk:20th century#Dates. Yes there is a year zero: see 0 (year). The number 2000 is a cardinal number. The number 21st is an ordinal number. The century of the 2000s did indeed begin on 1 Jan 2000, while the 21st century did indeed begin on 1 Jan 2001. That is a convention, not a denial of year 0. The meanings of ordinals and cardinals are not an issue, nor are their application to how years and centuries are numbered. Read a little history to find out why the convention developed the way it did. There is more than one logical way to work it (now), but that is because we have developed additional logical ways over time. It couldn't be done before the number zero existed, and zero couldn't be applied to numbering years before the idea of doing that was developed (relatively recently). And even then it was only for astronomy. It's computers entering the social mainstream (only 30-40 years' time) that have made year 0 enter mainstream awareness. But the older convention is still logical, and it will remain in use for independent reasons. Evensteven (talk) 18:46, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

21st Century Disney films

The first Disney animated film to be first theatrical release in the 21st century was Fantasia 2000 (1999), the sequel to the 1940 classic Fantasia and the first Disney live-action film to be first theatrical release in the 21st century was the smash hit Remember the Titans (2000). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.147.198.171 (talk) 00:38, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Bush was appointed, not 'became'

As outlined in Bush v. Gore, Bush was effectively _appointed_ president by the supreme court, rather than democratically elected by a majority vote. However, the article dodges this distinction (in the second bullet of 3.2) with the phrasing "Bush became president". 'Became' is much more vague/obfuscating than either 'was elected' (the 'laymans' expectation) or 'was appointed' (the realists/fact). 'Became' is the neutral/vague option, although the more specific term, 'appointed', happens to be more politically charged despite the higher accuracy. To be mroe accurate to the controversy, without the intentionally masking language, 'Bush became the second president' should be changed to 'Bush was appointed', with a suitable link to the aformentioned court case. Even if 'appointed' is judged by _whoever_ to be too partisan, at the very least 'became' should link to the B v. G article for clarity of a potential controversy. This page is currently 'hot' due to reddit, so I won't touch it. Said bullet was added to the article by user User:Austin Tsar444 on October 7, 2009. Ghostwo 05:32, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Short 20th century?

That shouldn't be on here sorry. I think that should be deleted. 21st century is from 2001-2100. Woodworker87rrrrty54 (talk) 03:46, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

The dates 2001-2100 are in the article, and clearly labelled. The reference to the short twentieth century is an appropriate mention to allow for a full understanding of the subject - leaving it out would provide an incomplete description of cultural overlaps to the historical dates. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 03:53, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

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Large portions of the world have current population deficits..

Some areas have populations that are shrinking, not growing. Take Europe for example. If this trend has changed in the last 2-3 years, it hasn't changed much. The global population could easily double without becoming a major global problem.

Also, I always see some remark of "The War on Terror" on any political or social article even remotely related. I always see the criticisms of the 'war' but I never see the rebuttal as to why it might just be fighting the greater of two evils. Terrorist attacks involving islamic fundamentalists have been occuring since WW2. North Korea, for example, is an immediate threat to two U.S. allies, Japan and South Korea. Immediately after 9/11, the DOW industrial average dropped over 7% to around 8950, the largest decline ever in a single day. If you are referring to the Patriot Act, the slight majority think that the Patriot act doesn't go far enough. Note that only 13% know much about the Patriot Act. 60% know little or nothing about the Patriot act.

Just try to keep it objective for all readers. If you are going to start by listing criticisms, link the rebuttals as well. IMHO, McCarthyism and Nixon's strong arm tactics were more of a threat to civil liberties than the "War on Terror". Some would agree that the "War on Drugs" impedes on civil liberty more than the "War on Terror". Speaking of which, that page could use a Pro and Con list.

These are clearly your opinions, and whether or not I share them is not the point. You are clearly capable of expressing yourself and those opinions in an articulate way. But why would anyone here want to address them if you don't even sign your name? Evensteven (talk) 19:41, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

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President Trump's "travel ban"

(At least) two problems:

• Description of the countries:
  1. Muslim-majority

     Indisputably accurate, used by opponents, courts, and the President's tweets, but not in the official documents. Seems stable in Wikipedia, until recently.

  2. ... with no firm government structure

     Not necessarily accurate or sourced. Used only in government documents not signed by the President. Apparently not used in the (2nd) executive order, itself.

  3. ... (blank)

     seems a reasonable choice

• Also, somehow, we need to make it clear that all the court orders are temporary restraining orders or preliminary injunctions, and permanent orders could be issued by lower courts, and might be expected to be issued by the (US) Supreme Court.

— Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:51, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Declining religion

The source is a blog hosted at HuffPo. It may be accurate, but we would need to establish the author is a published expert on religion. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:24, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Not at all. The Huffington Post article itself is better referenced than most Wikipedia articles. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:36, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

So, we report what is actually in the reliable sources, not (re)introduce "facts" which are not in the sources. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:04, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

The facts were there, and were correct, and Huffington Post is just fine, and if not you could easily see them rather than act in such a deletionist fashion claiming "unreliable source". No harm done, I fixed your edits. The Rambling Man (talk) 15:28, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

No, you didn't fix it. I had to find the real source for your chart (still, with no evidence that the chart was legitimate.) But, it's good, now, in spite of HuffPo. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:05, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Yes I fixed your rush to delete things with reliable sources which were already in the article, what a waste of time! The Rambling Man (talk) 04:44, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Recent edits to the lead

1. Course notes are generally not a reliable source. I don't see evidence that this is an exception.
2. There is a century consisting of the years from 2000 through 2099.

— Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:53, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Merge with Timeline of the 21st century

There's no point in having two 21st century timelines. Serendi^podous 15:51, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose if anything, the timeline should be removed from this article. power~enwiki (π, ν) 23:53, 6 February 2018 (UTC)
• Support The timeline is alot better than this article. Iamthemostwanted2015 (talk) 15:25, 15 April 2018 (UTC)Iamthemostwanted2015
• Oppose merge. The articles are functionally different. The one is a timeline while the other is an outline; both are separately needed.--John Cline (talk) 01:25, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose merge, per John Cline above. Luftfall (talk) 01:37, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

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2100

Thinking about it, I should have summarily restored the redirect from 2100 to 21st century, as there was a prior strong consensus, as noted by User:Fish and karate; however, I'm willing to open it to discussion, if necessary. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 20:51, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

• Merge now Since it was done by a logged in editor this time I didn't do it myself but I think the historical consensus remains that this future event is not ready for its own page. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:37, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
• don't merge The year is important enough for a page now. – BrandonXLF ^(t@lk) 00:37, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
• don't merge When there can be 2099, 2100 is only +1 year. --Patriccck (talk) 10:57, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
• comment I'd like to redirect all of (2090 to 2099) to 2090s; unfortunately we can't redirect 2100 there. power~enwiki (π, ν) 22:43, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
• comment. IMHO, 2030 through 2099 should be merged to their respective decades. Unfortunately, in spite of the apparent consensus that solar eclipses are not sufficiently notable for past year articles, they are considered sufficiently notable for future year articles, thereby making sure almost all years have a predicted event. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 06:20, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
• Don't merge Since there are already articles for all years before 2100 and 2100 has a "greater importance" due to it being the last year of the century, it should be kept as a standalone article. - WolreChris (talk) 22:09, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

Please keep the article the way it is for the year 2100. I like that much better than it showing the entire 21st century when we just wanna look at events for the year 2100 only. Also, for many years following, I would like to also have articles for 2101, 2102, 2103, 2104, 2105, 2106, 2107, 2108, 2109, 2110, 2111, 2112, 2113, 2114, 2115, 2116, 2117, 2118, and 2119. Even years after that would also be nice as well! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.3.163.23 (talk) 04:31, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

Mass removal of material by Ourvo

Can we please talk about why those specific sections were removed? [2] -- Tobby72 (talk) 10:44, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Democratization

Not in source, and I don't believe I see a 21st century trend in favor of democratization, unless you include Putin-style democracies. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:43, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

"Unconnected Tribes" Map

If I may ask, what precisely is the reasoning behind the "unconnected tribes" map in the "Population and Urbanization" section? Normally this would make sense, but the article does not mention unconnected tribes whatsoever in that section--instead, it describes population growth, the decrease of child mortality, and climate change.

I think the photo should either be moved somewhere else, or the subsection should be rewritten to include a mention of connectedness in the 21st century, because currently the photo doesn't relate to the text in the slightest. At the same time, though, I might simply be mistaken. What do you all think?

TheHardestAspectOfCreatingAnAccountIsAlwaysTheUsername (talk) 02:39, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Recent contributions

User:Deacon Vorbis. Let's start. What should be kept and removed?--79.75.42.90 (talk) 13:43, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Nothing should be kept; the changes were riddled with grammatical errors and nothing useful was added. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 13:44, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Then why are you not mentioning one by one?--79.75.42.90 (talk) 13:45, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Because that would be a waste of effort. There was nothing worth keeping. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 13:49, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Then don't waste your precious time on reverting edits.--79.75.42.90 (talk) 13:52, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Removed and made few changes.--79.75.42.90 (talk) 14:07, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

I don't think that such sentence UK decided to leave blah blah is appropriate in such article.--92.3.87.223 (talk) 19:43, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

21st century in film

I'm not sure the following in animated films are notable:

• Highest-grossing
  • stop-motion
  • anime
  • non-Disney
• first
  • directly produced in a stereoscopic 3-D format
  • major animated superhero film to be told inside a comic book.
  • photorealistic computer-animated
  • first Disney animated film to be released on Disney Digital 3-D.

And I'm sure the following is not notable:

• first major Marvel Cinematic Universe entry with a superhero character which never appeared before in previous MCU films before

— Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:40, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

I'm sure quite a lot of this material is not notable, and would easily get excluded by the end of the century. Compared to the one-sentence music section, we could remove all of these. (also sports: Do we need every Ryder Cup and Youth Olympics?) power~enwiki (π, ν) 00:58, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

Request change article name to History of the World 2000-present; every country has an article like this, so the world should have one too

I would like to change this article's name to History of the world 2000-present; every country has an article like this, so the world should have one too.

in other words, there needs to be an entry where new historical events could potentially be added on an ongoing basis, as they occur. Please feel free to comment. --Sm8900 (talk) 14:38, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

• Two main problems with this idea, I feel, are that 1. Wikipedia is not a news ticker, and if anything, that's what Wikinews and the Main Page "In the News" section is for (and even the latter has an extremely high bar for an event to be listed, from what I've seen). Essentially, if we were to have a simple news ticker for various events in this article, then A. the article would swell to eclipse even the article on Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, which has been on the Special:Longpages list for months, and B. we would need to determine at whether any given event groundbreaking enough for inclusion, which is nearly impossible without hindsight. (An event that we're sure will shake the world today might be completely forgotten twenty years from now.)
  ...and 2. changing the name would mean we would no longer have an entry on the 21st century, which would break the continuity with 20th century, 19th century, etc. As for changing all of the names... the articles are supposed to be about the centuries themselves, not be a indiscriminate list of recent events. TheHardestAspectOfCreatingAnAccountIsAlwaysTheUsername 15:01, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Distinguishing from 2000s

Is the sentence It is distinct from the century known as the 2000s, which began on January 1, 2000, and will end on December 31, 2099 really necessary in the lead here (and in other century / millenium articles)? It seems that it is both obvious, due to the definition of the century being given clearly in the lead as It began on January 1, 2001, and will end on December 31, 2100, and unnecessary (Is this a common mistake? Is the 2000-2099 century even used that often in literature?). Is there any significant need for this clarification in the first paragraph of the lead? — MarkH₂₁^talk 05:58, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm making the changes, here and across other century/millenium articles. Let me know if there is an objection a posteriori. — MarkH₂₁^talk 03:28, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

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Miss Universe doesn’t belong in “politics and war”

@58.71.120.251: Stop reintroducing the Miss Universe results and television network closure into the Politics and war section. Those aren’t world political events like major elections and outbreaks of war. — MarkH₂₁^talk 06:52, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

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George W. Bush?

Seems a bit odd not to have a picture of George W. Bush, or at least acknowledge his historical significance and contribution to the 21st century. He is after all, perhaps the most pivotal (if not maligned) player of the 21st century to date. The Iraq War created entire new regions and destabilized many countries, leading to a refugee crisis, a humanitarian crisis, ongoing territorial disputes and much strife. The Patriot act, has been one of the most hotly contested political footballs of the last 20 years, leading to private citizens being arrested for leaking government documents, to the fallout over allied countries spying on each other.

Bush's presidency also lead to the TSA, which has impacted every country on the face of the earth, and completely changed the way people fly. Also the Bush presidency oversaw one of the worst financial crisises in US history. Not to mention many, many political leaders the world over have copied Bush's speeches and tactics when it came to Terrorism, like Blair, Sarkozy, Netanyahu, Cameroon, Macron, Obama, Salih.

Obama and Trump's presidency, while highly notable in the United States, did not have as many global connotations or set the stage for many of the issues regarding the early 21st century. Bush's presidency changed entire regions, created new countries, created several crisis, and destroyed the economy.

Bush is highly noteworthy, on a global level, even though most of his policies and character are viewed negatively ubiquitously. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.189.4.21 (talk) 06:46, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

Same old story

If you're going to link to Merriam Webster in your edit summary, you might want to read it properly. The relevant passage is Some people think the 22nd century will start January 1, 2100 and end December 31, 2199, with the 23rd century beginning on January 1, 2200. But there is a long history of people insisting that this is flat-out wrong for mathematical reasons: a century is by definition 100 years in length, and the first century started on January 1, 1, which means that when December 31, 99 rolled around only 99 years had passed; therefore, the first century of the current millennium didn't actually end until December 31, 100, and the second century didn't begin until January 1, 101. FDW777 (talk) 14:57, 21 May 2021 (UTC)