The United States is no longer a superpower.
Chain-writing is an asynchronous, crowd-sourced experiment that starts with boundary conditions and allows participants to identify potential events and trends that may lead to a certain future.
The Andrew W. Marshall Foundation’s (AWMF) inaugural chain-writing experiment explores the topic of collapse. For the purpose of this experiment, consider a collapse to be a sociopolitical matter, where a society, country, or organization displays rapid, severe, and significant loss (this should not be confused with a slow decline over an extended period of time). It could be caused by one central or many related factors, including but not limited to:
- Resource depletion
- Economic decline
- Ecological crises
- War (nuclear or otherwise)
- Sociopolitical disintegration
- Organizational dysfunction
In considering these or other factors, AWMF is looking for interesting ideas about collapse and its implications. Participants should describe the realm of the possible and not the probable.
Mechanics
In each phase, AWMF will call for submissions that what could happen in a specified 10-year increment leading to a “Future State 2053.” Subsequent phases will build on the previous phase, thus creating a chain. The first submission phase will last for approximately 4 weeks. The remaining submission periods will be approximately two weeks. Each submission period will be followed by a 10-day review period and a 10-day voting period.
In each phase, a panel of AWMF reviewers will select the 3 submissions with what they consider to be the most interesting ideas.
These submissions will then be posted anonymously on AWMF’s website and voted on over a period of 10 days; voters will use the rank choice voting method to rate which submissions they find the most compelling.* The submission with the highest ranking will be chosen as the prompt for the next phase of the exercise.
The winner of each phase will be awarded $500. Second and third place authors will be awarded $250 and $125 respectively. At the conclusion of all three phases, winners and runners-up will be invited to participate in a virtual session. The discussion will ask the participants to consider how the events that play out in the chain could impact U.S. national interests. AWMF will produce an executive summary of the experiment and the ensuing discussion.
*Voters will be asked to provide their name and email address in order to eliminate duplicate or spam votes. Contact information will not be released publicly.
Future State 2053
The United States is no longer a superpower. What specifically collapsed or failed? What trends and events led to this? What are the implications for U.S. national interests?
Phase Prompts and Deadlines
Phase 1 (2024-2033)
Posit what could happen from 2024-2033 to lead to the “Future State 2053.” What trends reveal themselves or what events might occur? A major collapse or failure does not necessarily need to happen in this period.
Submission Deadline: June 20, 2023
Voting Period: July 1-10, 2023
Phase 2 (2034-2043)
Building on the winning submission in Phase 1, posit what could happen from 2034-2043 to lead to the “Future State 2053.” A major collapse or failure does not necessarily need to happen in this period.
Submission Deadline: July 24, 2023
Voting Period: August 4-13, 2023
Phase 3 (2044-2053)
Building on the winning submissions in Phase 1 and Phase 2, posit what could happen from 2044-2053 to lead to the “Future State 2053.” Submissions must identify how trends and events that occurred in phases 1 and 2 could result in this failure. They must also specify how the United States is no longer a superpower, and what has collapsed or failed.
Submission Deadline: August 27, 2023
Voting Period: September 7-17,2023
Submission Requirements
Submissions to each phase must be written in a narrative style. You may include some data points as references, but they are not required. We are looking for your ideas – presentations of research or literature are discouraged. Participants should describe the realm of the possible and not the probable .
Submissions must include:
- No more than 500 words (inclusive of endnotes/references)
- Attestation of eligibility and anonymity (located on the submission form)
- Contact information*
- Optional: demographic information*
Submissions will be reviewed and voted on anonymously; personal information is collected for contact and internal evaluation purposes only. Submitters will remain anonymous until the conclusion of the exercise. While we encourage submitters to share the link to vote with their network, we ask that they do not disclose their submission in order to maintain as much anonymity as possible.
Submissions must be written by one author; multi-author teams are not allowed.
Multiple submissions by the same author are accepted. Please number your submissions when completing the entry form, otherwise they may get flagged as duplicates.
Awards
First place for each phase will be awarded:
- $500
- Opportunity to meet reviewers and other winners and discuss submissions at the conclusion of the exercise
- Opportunity to present one’s ideas at meetings and events hosted by AWMF
- Publication of the submission by AWMF as part of executive summary of the experiment
Second place for each phase will be awarded:
- $250
- Opportunity to meet reviewers and other winners and discuss submissions at the conclusion of the exercise
Third place for each phase will be awarded:
- $125
- Opportunity to meet reviewers and other winners and discuss submissions at the conclusion of the exercise
Authors may seek publication elsewhere once the competition is completed as long as AWMF’s award is acknowledged in writing.
AWMF will publicly announce the winners once the competition is completed. Awards of monetary value are prizes and are subject to income tax. If an individual wins more than $500 across the experiment, they will receive a 1099 from AWMF at the end of the year for taxation purposes. Awards are required to be paid via check in USD. We cannot issue prizes in other currencies or via wire, money order, or other means. AWMF reserves the right to refrain from awarding prizes.