In an essay titled “The Future of Mankind,” British philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) laid out three possibilities: “The end of human life,” “a reversion to barbarism” or “unification of the world under a single government.” He saw the third as the only alternative to either of the first two. For better or worse, our fate would be settled, he said, “before the end of the present (20th) century” — within 50 years of the time of writing.