It's likely too-long, but more legible sentences happen as a non-squeezed separate post. (Takes moi more words, trying to be neutral ... on an impossible scale.)
Stop at 2) if you see that already==probability 0, eh? I wish that 'neutral' seemed rosier, but.. we get daily doses of Pollyanna in every bloviation of a Politico. It's basic Stuart Chase.

Initially--and still--I too cannot see any slow.. rational.. Patient! route from this massive cluster-fuck--of virtually every aspect of the many systems--as magically overturning the incomparable-$$$-Power amassed by the Ruling Handful of über sociopaths. Zippo.. nada.. none comes to imagination (other than fantasy-Unicorn-grade.)
(My psyche prizes equanimity as the least-insane place to be--even at gunpoint--which remains to be determined, of course.) I deem it a Good Thing that the Futchah is completely un-Predictable.
But it's the grand-daddy of essay questions, innit? This, and then: OTOH That. Pity, unlike tortoises, our species gets so-soon old and so-very-late smart. There's! that Pit for the swinging-Pendulum. Guess I'll have to see if my imagination has caught up with the zeitgeist, but anyone who doesn't punt on any specific 'predictions', or who conceives of "algorithms for future-engineering?" should be placed under clinical observation.

Maybe all the cliche projections apply or none of them; none can be taken as inexorable: Cosmic humor exists or doesn't, but it's fun to blame.
The population-level Alone.. is a deal-breaker, if one ever wants to peer over the nearest horizon. And no-one Can peer into more than a few-massive-problems at-a-time; Homo-sap has grown massively in an instant of planetary-time. But only in numbers, not in smarts, except in only some.. persons' detailed factoids--solely in techno-understanding of the physical-Laws and their applications. To moi it seems that, relative to ruminations of many ancient Sages: our comprehension of the species' mental operations and their aberrations: we've learned little-more of psych or psyches and especially of inchoate mobs. That last is likely to negate efforts of even (almost-wise Pols..?) when next, unrest manifests itself in surprising, new modes.

These Ruling mofos were born ethics-free (from same school as that unter-mofo from Redmond, way-back maybe at IW still?) His quip: If it's legal it's ethical! Yup, he said that, exactly, after various snipings re M$ clear pact-with-Lucifer. These ~100 Rulers have no slightest interest in any of the base-mores of an actually-Livable Society of humans. (I don't think this is seriously arguable to moi, after eons of listening to BS-rationalizations of so many CIEIOs: to escape the Greed-tag or make it seem benevolent (after St. Ronnie re-defined it ..for a willing audience.) I can parse what I've deemed the main obstacles against Muricans acting wisely next and in time, but that won't be possible in sound-bites, because they are all about being cute. Or just cynical, which may be the same thing(?)

1) They. won't. change. 2) So the mass Must.
The hugely-Improbable must occur despite the facts: of the dis-USA tribe's addiction to fantastic-levels of personal comfort 24/7. The very many who have proven that they will Kill anything that moves! (forests, rivers, any humans not-them, animals of all species, mountain-tops-leveled, Mercury-tailings left to infiltrate water sources everywhere) ... all in pursuit of a 'Success' which always manifests in a cargo-cult-ship full of Stuff, piled higher and deeper. Carlin grokked this to Fullness, (amidst: the many Giants upon whose shoulders he stood, Defiantly.)

3) The coddled-many would have to divert their lusts: from infinite #Objects ... into a lust for an authentic Life (not their daily quiet desperation, within-the-cubicles for all-daylight-hours) thence, only to have to face the crumbling-Everything and the violent, insane ramblings on most Channels--face that-all, even after too-many hits of favorite winding-down substances? Maybe before dinner.
Could such ones vacate for a time, that comfy couch-with-attached-TV and begin to DO THINGS?
'Speak Truth to Power'? Sure. it's a start. But ACT, next? any next??

So then, back to you: what ARE the fucking-odds on (the first-ever) mass epiphanies??

[Except: "epiphanies in our dreams"]--so Murican: vicariously!--by reading (OK watching; we are nothing if not passive adsorbers) those histories which chronicle events wherein: many of The Masses coalesced, conflated discontents to a few stirring, inclusive-slogans and: DID THINGS (for many of them, too: for the first time in their miserable existences.)
There were quite fewer of us, then. Now, with sane limits not yet even discussable! re our current overpopulation: HS-math shows the inevitable geometric -vs- exponential divergence. And political-folk can't handle such inevitabilities as (say, Energy-costs in terms of individuals as a ƒ(Δaffluence?) ... across the Billions.) This one Will be Interesting, whenever ~faced. (I can see n plots for the Don't Care extrapolation. Our current Masters don't extrapolate well, at all: 'Power' is easy! if the only variable is money accumulation, in a kultur which worships Only-that.. as a plurality.

{{sigh}} 4) I'm open always to the Improbable, including many of Scott's oft insightful arguments for intelligent moderation. Were there more 'Scotts' in the tribe, the dis-USA couldn't have happened! But this tribe generates wasp-nests of (not just white-privilege) My Grammas. Their stentorian howlings are multiplexed and multiplied well-beyond their actual numbers. Techno has massively aggravated the matter, perhaps terminally. (And that magnifier/catalyst can only grow, in any next. We cannot un-Do that.)

I'm sure that no one here wants to see this dilemma deepened-unto-Ignition! as 5) I fear it Shall:
given the next two tenuous YEARS of unprecedented daily disinformation, funded by bottomless pockets. Perhaps.. as with the Cops-as-killers and the now widespread revelations of how absurdly-FEW are all the Plutocrats it takes to Buy-out most of the citizens' Reps via re-election handouts? Is that enough realization, yet? (in the collective ears of the masses, I mean.)

There's some reason for the popularity of various authors' takes on dystopias; is there wistfulness there, for replacing a/any present-one? or just more vicarious escapes to a Can't Ever Happen Here, fantasy?
(I was once decent at the art of grenade throwing (ain't no baseball, that iron-cased thing) but would now be little use in some forms of the DOINGS. But I can make phlogiston, that simple chemical combo which--fortunately, to-date--has escaped notice amongst the new legions of Disgruntled. So far..

6) Maybe.. the Web, if it can stay un-muzzleable for most-all: Can produce a sufficiency of Aha!!s thus enough individual epiphanies to reach critical-mass: to create for the First-time ever on these shores: a Clean-enough Map for authentic democracy to be sanely-introduced/also quickly-enough. Authentic? == sans gameable-Electoral Colleges, Money-as-speech and ... Biz-Corps as People! (partial list.)

But.. you know... (only very-approximate, mere probabilities--those are just 'maths' We Like; Reality: never.)
to reach:
7) Success! a new Democracy arises! from the ashes of the Failed-experiment … RIP 1776-2015, -2016? -2020? -Never? ;-/


: Format.