I think the obvious one would be the EV wars. Also the delayed shipping dates for those vehicles. IE: If you order an EV truck now you wont get it until 2024.
Hopefully staying remote and rent not going up, but one can only hope...
- The fed will have no choice but to keep interest rates low. This means we will have another year of rapidly rising asset prices.
- Supply chain issues will get worse throughout 2022, massively fueled by US-China tensions and COVID related shifts in demand. Major inflation like we haven't seen since the 1970s.
- Crypto will undergo a major crash in 2022. It follows predictable, cyclical patterns, and we are nearing the end of the classic boom/bust cycle. It is unclear whether this will cause the Tether situation to blow up.
- Mainly due to supply issues, we won't get a taste of any AR/VR metaverse type stuff next year. There will be a lot of hype-laden news articles about it, but nobody will actually live this future yet.
- Nothing will happen in China with Evergrande or any of these other companies. Nor will China invade Taiwan (yet).
- The "lie-flat" movement massively picks up. People don't realize how widespread this sentiment is in Gen Z, which doesn't need excessive consumerism to be happy, all they need is a computer. It is unclear what effects this will have on the economy.
- Supply chain issues will get worse throughout 2022, massively fueled by US-China tensions and COVID related shifts in demand. Major inflation like we haven't seen since the 1970s.
- Crypto will undergo a major crash in 2022. It follows predictable, cyclical patterns, and we are nearing the end of the classic boom/bust cycle. It is unclear whether this will cause the Tether situation to blow up.
If the first 2 happen, then I do not think crypto will crash. I'm fairly sure the reason it blew up this year was a combination of people being bored at home because of lockdown and people trying to protect against inflation.
That's what the U.S. government needs. $29 trillion in debt paying $417 billion in interest per year = average interest of 1.43%.
Now imagine average interest rate across the curve goes to 2.86% and now we're paying $834 billion in interest per year.
Then it goes to 5% and we're paying $1.45 trillion in interest payments per year. That's over a third of the total tax revenue of the Federal government! More than we spend on defense!
The U.S. government is so far in debt that it needs inflation to erase it. Nothing else will.
So no surprise, the Federal Reserve balance sheet has grown to $8.5 trillion:
https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttren...
The Fed continues to buy $120 billion in bonds per month, interest rates are close to zero, we're mailing checks out to people each month, we just approved $1 trillion in stimulus a few weeks ago and on the cusp of approving almost $2 trillion more.
Congress has 1 job to balance the budget…and they have fucked it up since WW2, yet the still get unlimited terms, full pay, full benefits and full pensions.
Just googling I found floating rate notes, which seem to respond like an adjustable mortgage would. But they seem small and short term.
But I do understand we have a deficit and have to sell more treasuries every year.
Maybe that would be a driver to have a more even budget.
But from my perspective Dems pass policy that a large % of the country likes. Raise taxes to pay for it. Republicans then win election and repeal and cut taxes but leave said popular policy. next Dem majority raises taxes but probably not even above the baseline before Rs cut it (e.g. the current draft reconciliation bill doesn't actually raise taxes much at all. it's crazy to me how cheap some of this stuff is when you take legit CBO scored credit for instance not handing out billions to pharma)
The actual addition to the federal budget isn’t that dramatic.
Crypto and stocks seem to be correlated at this point. Both are considered risk on assets by institutional buyers. I don't anticipate crypto to crash unless stocks start to crash. If the Fed keeps interest rates low and assets continue to rise, I think it's likely that crypto continues to rise as well. From what I've heard, there is likely to be heavy institutional buying in Q1 2022 as hedge funds and others who like to take risk will add risky assets at the start of the year.
A bunch of folks from the Man Group and Campbell Harvey published a paper saying that Bitcoin specifically seems to have a positive beta with the US market:
> Finally, we are in the midst of another technological disruption in the form of the cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin. Some have advocated the inclusion of bitcoin into a diversified portfolio as an inflation protection asset. However, caution is warranted given that bitcoin is untested with only eight years of quality data – that lack a single inflation regime. Moreover, bitcoin is more than five times more volatile than the S&P 500 or gold. This high volatility could lead to bitcoin being an unreliable hedge. In addition, there is increasing evidence that bitcoin is a speculative asset and it has a positive beta against the US market.
* https://www.man.com/maninstitute/when-inflation-hits
* https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3813202
It's still early days, so more evidence certainly needs to be gathered, but so far as a hedge against inflation crypto doesn't look too good (especially because of volatility).
And Campbell published a pro-DeFi book recently, so it's not like he's against crypto generally:
* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57720429-defi-and-the-fu...
* https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3711777
1 crypto crash, stocks rise
2 crypto rise, stocks rise
3 crypto crash, stocks fall
4 crypto rise, stocks fall
I think #4 is least likely
This is a serious symptom that is being swept under the rug. Efforts needs to be put in to better understand the issue and enforce steps to resolve it.
I lack the basic training in trying to understand the issue - sociology, psychology or whatever is the relevant field. But I feel that "lie-flat" is just an acute variant of the general issue - "checking out of reality". The other versions are "staying in echo chambers" and being incapable of even listening to different views. "Getting lost in other worlds" - the gamers that spend whole day in games like Fortnite or always flipping through videos in tik tok.
The lie-flat movement came about in response to the 996. Workers realized they were being worked to death in factories for little pay and opportunities to climb up society's ladder dried up. The older generation sees it as laziness but if you look at it from their perspective, its a natural conclusion. The only people that benefits from being overworked, little pay, and few opportunities are the owners (i.e. the older generation and their offspring). Both the lie-flat and 996 are two extreme ends of the same spectrum.
I disagree that they are checking out of reality. I think they are looking at the reality of their economic situation and making a logical conclusion. They realized they could earn more per hour basis by working less and being more happy.
It is very much the same situation happening right now in the US. Blue collar workers realize they no longer want to work as waiters, and rather spend time leveling up and becoming white collar. You have all these restaurant owners calling these people lazy while ignoring the fact they hardly pay a living wage.
It isn't a problem until there aren't enough people working, and too many people are 'lying flat', so much so that there's not enough food or necessities being produced and you get mass starvation.
If we lock down in 2022, what's to stop another lockdown in 2024 and in 2026 etc.? Imagine the mental health implications, especially on children and teenagers, whose entire childhood would be altered by covid. Imagine "who knows if we're going to have Christmas this year? We have to see the forecast for cases and hospitalizations", every year for every special event. People will celebrate Christmas and hang out and go to huge events or they will literally go insane.
Also, there would be massive supply chain issues like you said. Possibly big enough to actually kill people. So now we have to actually weigh the casualties of lockdown vs the casualties of a virus.
It was different in 2020. The lockdown in 2020 was designed to be short-term. It was also much more serious, because we had no idea just how dangerous covid was, and we actually had a chance of eradicating the disease entirely. That's why we could shut-down schools, cancel events planned years in advance, make court appointments virtual, and otherwise significantly alter critical parts of society.
And even then, even in early 2020, there was a not-so-small vocal minority of people (idiots) who refused to believe covid existed.
That's not to say we'll do nothing and assume covid is over. I do believe society can adjust to "stay safe" in the long-term with routine vaccination, mask-wearing in public spaces, and just being aware that covid exists. Also things like WVH and online classes (for those who want to take online) are here to stay. But people are not going to follow a "new normal" where every social interaction is weighed against the virus.
I want to believe that the pandemic will move some health systems away from almost just-in-time lean resourcing towards having more unused capacity to soak up shocks without being overwhelmed. I predict a single step in that direction for 2022.
I wish that were true. But I live in Austria (Europe) and there is a full lockdown starting tomorrow (Monday). Officially it's just going to be for a few weeks, but that's what they said every time before, and it always got extended before, so I don't have any reason to suspect this time will be different. I imagine (but I could be wrong) that it'll extend into 2022.
Perhaps it'll just be limited to Austria, but generally in the past when one country went into a lockdown other countries were in a lockdown a few weeks or a month later...
At this point covid is a manufactured crisis used by governments as a power grab over citizens freedom, and pharmaceutical groups to get magic money. This has to stop. The lives of young people, who need to study, socialize, meet a partner, start a career are heavily negatively impacted by all those measures taken to save a few retired people that already did all those things. This is profoundly injust. Scared of covid? Then fine, do a personal lockdown but don't ask for the whole society and human interactions to stop for this. People would barely notice it's existence (like in Africa) if the media weren't speaking about it.
Over time mask wearing will fade away. With luck the annual covid vaccination will be be free (and mandatory for many occupations) and it will be combined with an annual flu shot, and under-12s will get it also.
(Super cynical remark: for a decade or more policy wonks have been agonising about the coming "tsunami" of healthcare needs as the Boomers age, and the political pressure to provide that care--Boomers know how to vote! I think that government planners secretly won't be too unhappy that covid takes out some of the sickest, most high-need elders.)
Due to this, GOP is probably going to retake the house largely because people won't realize that the inflation has little to do with Democrats policies but is entirely because of COVID fucking everything.
I digress, I don't like either party's policies because every law enacted is a little bit more of your freedom taken away and the crazy printing of money is just another tax on the American people. States and cities are making out like bandits with this inflation.
This is a pretty standard cycle in American politics. One party wins the presidency and the house, then the house flips in the midterm. The senate doesn't follows these trends because of how their terms work.
[Edit] I found the 40% number in a news article but it didn't have sources. You can view the M1 money supply chart here, https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?id=M1SL. This chart shows why we are seeing higher levels of inflation.
The (demand-pull) inflation of the 1970s started because there was many years of war spending because of the Vietnam War. Once that wound down, then there was (supply-push) inflation of OPEC's oil embargo.
What we're seeing now is a sudden spike because of concentrated spending, much like happened due to the Korea War, where inflation lasted between 12-18 months:
* https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economic-issues-watch/in...
When I moved, someone at my old office said, "How can you stand to live in a state represented by Senator X?" I told him, "When Senator X picks up my dry cleaning or valets my car, I'll care. Until then, Senator X has zero bearing on my everyday life."
I think people overestimate the weight that politics plays in selecting a place to live.
- COVID will continue to be a thing. Some new variant will come along and booster vaccines will follow. Most countries will restrict lockdowns only for the unvaccinated, as everyone accepts the “new normal”
- The fed will keep interest rates low, but it won’t matter, as inflation picks up, earnings get slammed and stocks will either crash or trend completely sideways.
- Supply chain issues will get worse throughout 2022, massively fueled by China economy deceleration. Inflation will remain higher than we’ve seen in the past decade, but with a slowdown in consumption, will not go into hyperinflation levels.
- Crypto will NOT undergo a major crash in 2022, contradicting the consensus it’s crashing any minute now. The large volume of “staked” coins and the Futurization of Bitcoin will prevent a full on crash, but will also prevent further 100x runs (at least for next year)
- AR/VR metaverse type stuff will go big next year, from Apple to multiple Chinese brands launching their products. No megahit product will be announced though, and Apple’s entrant will get the same muted initial adoption the Apple Watch did (and be equally prototype-y)
- China will officially start its perma-recession era, just like Japan in the 80s. China won’t invade Taiwan (yet).
- GenZ digital consumerism remains on the rise, with the first series of Fortnite-exclusive Yeezys selling millions of copies. Robux credit cards get introduced, becoming one of the main forms of “banking” for many teens. The Digital Objects economy will start to get mainstream hype
I'm quite happy to bet that inflation over the next year will be no more than 10%. I'd even take 5% at good odds. If it does hit that, it will do incredible things for my fixed-rate mortgage as well as my portfolio. No, I do not have significant "cash" savings.
Otherwise I agree with your predictions. There may well be a crypto boom or two to go with the busts.
The Chinese economy is deeply dependent on real estate for GDP and tax revenue growth and appetite and liquidity is at an all time low.
My layman's understanding is that these companies are going to go bankrupt. The Chinese govt could easily solve the problem by simply bailing them out, but they haven't yet. But I think in the end China will just bail the companies out, and nothing will come of it.
Remote work is here to stay.
Rents go up as over-leveraged landlords will have to pay back rising interest rates (QE is tapering already now).
Climate issues, real and not so real, will be used to achieve the control agenda of established power in the same way the pandemic was.
The culture wars will continue humming away in the foreground, distracting us from our declining quality of life and the transfer of wealth from the lower and middle classes taking place before our eyes.
Overall, it will get worse as our current predicament perhaps needs to.
Are people currently not living in this housing? How much un-lived in property is there? I don't see much, if any, in Houston. But house purchase prices here still doubled in the past few years.
There is going to be an excess supply shock in first quarter of q4. Most of the suppliers are over stocked up to such an extent and most 3PLs are over capacity and unable to take up any new clients.
And not sure how "fake" the inflation is. The cost of container from china was $1k before pandemic. Now its $10k-$20k. Though rates are falling back its not enough https://www.statista.com/statistics/1250636/global-container...
The inflation is not fake. It is being caused the but incredible amount of dollars that have been created in the last 2 years. There were $12 trillion added to the money supply in May 2020 alone, https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1SL. Before May 2020 There were only $4.7 trillion in circulation in April 2020. This the text book case of inflation.
> Rents go up as over-leveraged landlords will have to pay back rising interest rates (QE is tapering already now).
I think these two contradict each other. Inflation is fake, but interest rates rise?
> Climate issues, real and not so real, will be used to achieve the control agenda of established power in the same way the pandemic was.
Yup.
The rest of the galaxy scratches their...whatevers...wondering why the humans throw down their tools and rush to work for the invaders.
Alternatively you could choose to lie in an hospital bed with a plastic tube raping you orally non-stop 24/7 for four entire months as somebody that I know, but I would humbly suggest you to take any necessary measure so this never, ever, happens to you (or to one of your beloved ones). Don't be another stupid victim.
Sorry for your friend.
FWIW I know more people with adverse effects from the vaccine than of COVID, see my other response below.
If they're so safe, why big pharma and my government aren't liable?
Why all the censorship about adverse effects?
I know one man with thrombosis and another one with Guillain Barré syndrome. My sister lost conscientiousness after the second shot. One of my cousin has extraordinary abundant periods. A colleague told me that his running times were much lower than before, he feels always tired since he got vaccinated.
Given that HN doesn't make money, I doubt that any alternative would either.
* A large earthquake (>6) in the SF Bay Area.
* COVID cases will reduce but not enough to rescind mask-wearing rules.
* A large "stablecoin" will crash but the crypto market will (unfortunately, probably) recover reasonably quickly.
* The NFT craze will not persist.
* In the US, the GOP will make significant political gains primarily through gerrymandering.
It will be impossible to not talk about the future of the monarchy when she dies, next year or in 2028. It would be BBC's duty to report extensively on it.
In a lot of the US there aren't really mask requirements anymore outside of maybe hospitals. I moved to Seattle from Utah recently and the change in attitudes is pretty astonishing.
Could you be more specific here? What's the difference in attitudes between Seattle and Utah?
Fed will raise rates after mid-term only.
Stock market will not crash until after Fed raises rates
Supply chain bottlenecks will continue into 2023
FAANG will continue to grow bigger. Regulation will not be finalized.
SaaS book will falter as FAANG make SaaS business models a feature.
M&A of SaaS companies being absorbed into FAANGs will happen
Cloud will move to the Edge. 5G enabled devices will gather traction.
CRIPSR related news will make more headlines
People will get bored of Metaverse related news
Roblox will become bigger
Infrastructure and Manufacturing in US will become cool again
Internet will become more balkanized globally
People will come back to offices. Remote workers will be disadvantaged
COVID will die out before Q2 2022
Perhaps I am interpreting this sentence incorrectly and you meant the "economic effects of COVID will die out in Q2 2022"?
Can you expand on this? It seems as if even DTC businesses are being consolidated as well
I often watch videos of people who drive with FSD for the first time. Those are the most intense reactions to a product I can remember.
If one day we wake up and see self driving cars all around us, we will start thinking about how the world will look like when everything is automated. This will be a huge challenge and adventure.
I think self driving cars only become safe when every vehicle is capable of self driving, and infrastructure is adapted accordingly.
happy to be proven wrong though!
And that is the feeling I get when I watch FSD videos these days.
5 years ago, people were celebrating lane changes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7jNHFwZ3Ec
Nowadays, FSD drives through all kinds of weird scenarios:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LISLFHCPWrw
And people complain about specific situations FSD can not handle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OT2H42k7Z1g
I'm pretty sure someone at Tesla sees this and thinks "Hmm.. we can solve this in a similar way we solved lane changes".
[0]2021: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25594068
2020: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21802596
2019: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18753859
2018: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16007988
2016: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10809767
2015: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8822723
2014: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6994370
2012: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3395201
2011: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1970023
2010: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1025681
And predictions for the decade:
"We will have driverless cars but not mainstream yet. Trucking jobs in the US won't go away as Andrew Yang is predicting them to be."
I'm guessing Andrew Yang wouldn't have expected an operational truck shortage like we have right now.
At least one company (probably Apple) will exceed $4T market cap, current >$1T companies will all pass at least one more trillion milestone. No new companies will break $1T besides those already there.
Tax rules will come into effect across Europe rendering crypto/NFTs unattractive. The market will crash then rebound, but coin values will end up roughly where they are right now.
Russian troops will be invited into Belarus to formally support defence efforts, increasing tension with the EU.
The Nord Stream 2 pipeline will become operational, but only after rocketing gas prices stir minor unrest in western Europe.
Chinese naval aggression will lead to a war of words with Japan but no direct conflict, but at least one weaker neighbour will lose fishermen or naval personnel in a small skirmish. The international community will continue to do nothing.
Taiwanese airspace will be entered by Chinese jets at least once a month, but no shots will be fired.
Genome sequencing will become an "optional" way to "reduce" health insurance premiums in the US. Sequencing of the wider population in Europe will be explored in more detail than previously, but not progress due to privacy debates.
Very interesting, transfer of such a financial liability as Scotland from UK to EU may even offset at least some of the Brexit damage! Followed by more Pikachu faces, but under different flags.
Some of the longevity trials will show significant reduction of epigenetic age in humans. I am almost sure that TRIIM-X will. That is pretty close to the first flight of the Wright brothers, only in the anti-aging field.
During the next 10 or so years, all the debt-fueled spending is going to bite us back hard.
We might have a new round of Yellow Vests in Europe if consumer prices of electricity and fuels go up again. If such protests really happen, governments will crack down on social networks heavy-handedly.
The digital giants will open up their app stores voluntarily to escape antitrust prosecution.
that's like saying it will happen eventually, which is not that helpful or useful of a prediction
I am afraid they won't, but even then the curve may vary a lot.
I know this isn't a very good prediction. The only thing that bothers me is that the contemporary ruling class seems to operate as if the borrowing could go on forever.
- A new social media company starts to gain traction. Because that's what happens every few years.
- People start unloading their streaming subscriptions when they realize that for many people, they cost more than cable or satellite. But rather than go back to the other delivery methods, they just consume less video. Streaming companies start to cannibalize one another, and set up for merging.
- My wife will continue to complain about her neck pain, but refuse to stop scrolling through Instagram hunched over on the toilet. She will continue to try to hide this from me.
Over the couple of years we lived there, we discovered they weren't even all that rich... but they sure will be. They own the house they live in, and rent out their other houses. It started with them renting out a house to help pay their mortgage, and then they found ways to accumulate mortgages for more homes.
Clever but I suspect they were stressed out pretty big time, too. If any one of them failed, it would collapse in full domino style. But if it works (and it surely will), they retire fully owning 11 properties in their name, for whatever they might want to do with them.
My grandmother’a brother bough 2 buildings in the same neighborhood in the early 90s for even less and had them fully paid off by 2000. Each one was making him 20k a month before he sold them for >3 million to developers who will come in and jack up rents by 50-100% on the old people that have been living there the past 15-20 years.
Higher stock market even though everyone keeps calling it a bubble
More inflation, but not as much gain in the CPI as 2021
Strong GDP growth, same for corporate profits
Big tech gets bigger; Facebook, Tesla , Amazon, Google Microsoft stock keep going up.
No anti-trust action against big tech companies
No bursting of 'higher ed bubble' despite Covid
US dollar continues to be strong
Bezos, Musk remain richest men alive
Biden wealth tax fails
Fed raises rates maybe twice; bond market and stock market unperturbed
Higher real estate prices in spite of insistence of it being a bubble
More political division and unrest online, people are angrier than ever at each other online
Covid never goes away although daily case counts will remain below 2021 highs
Do you mean students will keep taking on debt to go to school? Or tuition prices will keep going up? Or both?
A successful drone assassination of a world leader by terrorists.
Massive explosion in international tourism at some point.
Great leaps in biotechnology which has surprising implications.
Increasing geopolitical tensions due to a flexing China and insecure America.
On the other hand disillusionment in governments will be greater especially from the progressives because of Climate Change. The latter will probably be pivotal and if both governments and economies fail to deliver, this will lead to disrupting changes in the way politics is done. In France there are already citizen councils since the Yellow vest protests (sparked by increased fuel taxes) and in Germany they are also being evaluated. I expect those to grow much stronger already in the upcoming year.
the problem with conspiracies is that they don't require proof for their world-views!
GPT-4 or another huge language model like it will be released, and we will see diminishing returns continue to plateau.
Graph-based approaches in NLP will continue to grow in significance, with KGs, ontologies, and semantic graphs seeing growing adoption for their interpretability.
Model robustness in ML will probably remain a significant obstacle to productionization, holding back use-cases that need high reliability e.g. self-driving and front-facing chatbots.
Reinforcement Learning may see increased research focus for applications in NLP and user interaction.
It was my understanding that GPT-3 showed pretty well that the returns are not dimishing but rather surprisingly still scaling along with data rather nicely.
This will mark a turning point in the US-China tech war.
Eventually Bitcoin will be a lacklustre investment like gold. Essentially cash-like but deflationary at heart. That’s if it succeeds. Or it will implode to nothing!
Eventually it will happen, but I suspect that even before then, there will be some other added layer of plausible deniability come into existence.
Incidentally, I'm not sure why you provided that particular link. It's not very fashionable to post links on HN without first checking if they even work. Cryptome hasn't been around for more than a decade.
Your first part is spot on, though. Maybe not next year. But it will happen some time since all the technology is heading in a way that makes it quite possible.
- An NFT platform reinvents DRM
- Apple teases AR devices (Late 22, spring 23)
- Joe Biden will become unable to maintain office (due to age / health related issues) and his VP will become president; many will theorize this was the plan all along
- People will settle down about COVID regardless of what happens. There will be more backlash as we continue to learn more about the vaccines (and require boosters at some currently undetermined interval)
- $SPY will lose 100+ points but regain that. Prices of goods and services will continue to spiral out of control
Other people will make fun of weird Murrican date ordering and propose some other date.
Arguments will be had about which datetime(s) should be considered palindromic given the different orderings, or some such nonsense.
I don't even mean this pejoratively. 22/02/2022 will be a thing, and it will spark up the arguments in your prediction.
That war will be so major that its onset will completely change all sorts of other things like chip availability, metals availability, motor vehicle production, phone sales, computer sales, house prices, etc, etc, etc.
- Speculative Inlining Smalltalk Architecture (Sista) for the Cog VM gets finished. Squeak and Pharo become much faster;
- Existence of a massive 9th planet in the outer solar system is confirmed. Women go on demonstrations so the IAU gives it a female name. Name of African deity chosen, Yemọja, a major water spirit from the Yoruba religion;
- China announces deadlines for a manned mission to the Moon;
- Kamala Harris becomes first female US president, after Joe Biden passes away;
- WHO announces discovery of Covid-19 Omega strain;
- Whistleblower reveals NSA is collecting the bookmarks, passwords, ID numbers and passport numbers stolen by Microsoft Edge, as revealed in https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2021/11/is-microsoft-...
Prices and employment stabilize as the Fed tapers QE.
TikTok launches new Metaverse product.
Biden steps down to allow for Kamala to take over.
Lebron James wins one final NBA championship and retires. Patriots return to win the Super Bowl and Alabama wins another College football championship.
I second this. Although I wonder if it will be Biden stepping down or the 25th Amendment being enacted. I think Kamala takes over after the mid-term elections. Her current poll numbers would necessitate them waiting at least until then.
* 0% chance the rate will be lower
* 98% chance the rate will be the same
* 2% chance the rate will be higher
[1] https://kayce.basqu.es/bets/january-2022-fed-funds-rate/
Inconvenient behavioural changes like mask wearinng taper off. Proof of recent vaccination will still be required in public gathering places, and laws will be passed making vaccination mandatory in many occupations. Covid vaccination will be combined with influenza vaccination.
The realisation will become widespread that working age population in the developed world and East and South-east Asia is on a 20-year decline. (Government policy people already know this.) It won't change attitudes to immigration.
(Wishful thinking) The realisation will sink in that decarbonising electricity (and part of road transport) is only one-third of the job, and doing the other two-thirds will cost approximately 20 times as much, not twice as much. Everyone resolves to do it anyway.
The idea of global dimming (spraying sulphate aerosols into the stratosphere) to cool down the planet will go mainstream and be seriously planned.
Deep learning will be acknowledged as a dead end, but there will be no promising replacement.
Autonomous, low-speed road-going goods delivery vehicles will be trialed in an area being over 25% of the outer, suburban area of one major (top 150) North American city starting in or after '24.
Russia will continue its "North Korea" geo-political strategy (do crazy things, including actions that might harm its own interests. This is straight out of the game theory textbooks).
I don't disagree, but as soon as next year? Why do you think so?
- The first serious mass-market VR haptics glove will be announced. By the end of the decade, most newly purchased consumer VR headsets will use haptic gloves instead of controllers.
- At some point during the year, SpaceX's Starship will reach orbit and then land successfully, but SpaceX will not attempt to send anything to Mars yet.
- Another machine learning model will go viral, generating a similar amount of excitement as GPT-3.
- Most people will still be wearing masks in Bay Area grocery stores at the end of the year.
- In 2022 or 2023, a disease that is not Covid will sweep through the world. The phrase "twin pandemics" will emerge and become popular.
- Republicans will win big in U.S. midterm elections.
- US media outlets will identify a surge in far right, nationalist sentiment among young people, with Nick Fuentes being a central figure.
- Crypto will become politicized. By the end of the year, it will be universally felt that support for crypto suggests right-wing sentiment.
- US media outlets will identify a surge in far right, nationalist sentiment among young people, with Nick Fuentes being a central figure.
I agree with this first point for the same reason I disagree with the second. I think people are generally done with social media fueled extremes.
I think the Trump brand is done and the progressive agenda will be voted into a minority. I think people will be voting for more Republicans than Democrats in 2022 but the real winners from either party will be centrists/moderates talking about budgets.
Graphics cards will return to msrp prices.
Government action to fix container pileup issues (incentives for hiring more workers, penalties for containers in stacks for longer than x weeks) (it's my understanding this a manufactured crisis to increase profits)
James Webb will observe proof of alien life nearby
Donbas will become part of Russia
North Korea will start modernizing and trying to rehab their image
Agree
- COVID will still be here but be thought of a little more like the flu.
- There will be some devastating natural disasters that induce more people into taking climate change seriously.
- AI will slowly cover more ground into people's lives.
- Cryptocurrencies will continue to be overhyped.
- US political tensions will continue to get worse.
- China will have domestic growing pains in the next few years, maybe cut back on growth or stir up some more regional tensions.
- Inflation will slowly give way to deflation and then the stock market is going to plateau or dip for some prolonged time.
- Conservatives will win control of congress in 2022 and the following 2 years will be a lame duck session.
- Trump or DeSantis is going to be the Republican presidential nominee for 2024.
- 2024 will be a really bad election for both parties
- Housing prices will continue to rise and not be affected by deflation and this will only get worse without significant and good government intervention.
- A black swan event or two mini black swan events that drastically affects a lot of other predictions.
- The orange guy from the US will say something stupid
- Bitcoin
- People will not start liking Zuck more
- The rich will get richer
- In a final implosion Elon will say something so incredibly stupid that he'll get canceled indefinitely
- Software devs become the new "bankers". Everyone hates them.
- China will go full nationalism. Further evidence of genocide will be discovered
- COVID
- Self-driving cars will become the new norm but nobody gives a shit.
- Bikes are the new cars. Bike innovation incoming.
- Food delivery startups will cease to exist. Only the few that pay their workers super badly will continue to exist
- It's getting hot in here.
- Rent and housing prices will rise far faster than inflation, leading to record numbers of both involuntary cohabitation and homelessness. Construction for affordable housing and non-luxury rent properties will not substantially increase, resulting in major economic upheaval in most metro areas, even relatively small ones.
- The Great Resignation and massive labor shortages will continue unabated, and will likely worsen sharply, driven by a pathological intransigence and outright delusional refusal to raise wages or improve working conditions. The lower middle class will be unable to afford the basic necessities of life - food and shelter - whether the work 80 hours or 2 hours a week, so why bother working at all?
- Congress will not raise the minimum wage. They might try to do something for the sake of optics, but everybody will already know it'll be bullshit.
- Hoarding of wealth will worsen, driving stock portfolios dangerously high. This will trigger a massive market correction in the following years of historic proportions, potentially rivaling the 2008 collapse. Probably won't be 1932 levels of bad, but might come close.
- Russia and China will put forward a geopolitical lie that the US is doomed and their economies are somehow oh so much better. Just look at our economic numbers! Yeah that's recent, we just published that yesterday! Huh? What do you mean "independent audit"? What's "credible source" mean? And don't you dare mention that pesky "free press" nonsense. We have...places...for people like you.
- Patient-facing healthcare staff demand will rise even more sharply, as will their pay, and their amount of overworked hours, even beyond 2021's hellscape of abuse. Record numbers of people in these roles will commit suicide, leading to fewer staff and further demoralizing an already exhausted staff in communities where this will happen.
- Government spending will drastically increase far beyond expectations as a necessary tourniquet for a hemmorhaging economy. The dollar's value will continue to fall, ultimately stabilizing by Q4 as the Fed finally makes the hard call on policy.
- Right-wing conspiracy theories will continue to gain followers and popularity, driven substantially by continued efforts from malicious global adversaries, most notably Russia, who will seek to invade Georgia and forcibly annex it again if that division is enough to keep us paralyzed, unable to drop the hammer on them after the deed is done. This will further stress similarly declining conditions in the EU as they try to stabilize the situation.
- Remote work will increase in popularity, as will competition for remote jobs across all relevant economic sectors and roles. This will keep job seekers unemployed longer in spite of the labor shortage. It will also increase discrimination and create a false sense of entitlement for employers, making them feel somewhat as if they once again have all the power. Expect pay and working conditions for professional roles to improve as employers try to compete for "the best" throughout the nation, not just their area(s).
- The catch for remote work? Your privacy - your dignity - will be the price you have to pay if you want that better job (now necessary just to survive since rent is so much higher). Employers will drastically increase workplace performance monitoring to the point of absurd, abusive, and even downright evil. Those who refuse to give in will be unemployed longer than those who capitulate, creating a strong preference for "easy to abuse" as a major, if not top, hiring criteria, above qualifications, especially among large corporations. Corporate so-called "values" will be increasingly viewed as outright lies.
- At least 10 people who read this comment will be dead inside of one year due to this economic upheaval. Many more will die nationwide, a frighteningly record number of them being children.
- Costs for healthcare, particularly mental health, will rise faster than inflation and faster than costs to provide. Antidepressants and other psychiatric medications will be prescribed in record numbers, even beyond 2021's standards. Prices for these medications, even old ones, will sharply increase as a result. Expect your co-pay and deductible to go up, and your available formulary to be heavily revised to your detriment. Insurers will not be held accountable.
- Antitrust and privacy protection efforts will universally stall, and most will die out. Google, Facebook, and their ilk won't face justice any time soon. This means their abuses of human rights and privacy will not only continue, but get worse. Much worse.
- Violent crime will increase drastically. Upper-middle-class white families will feel fear for their safety and their lives for the first time, and not all of us will handle it well. Expect gun sales, particularly to those who shouldn't have them, to increase, and while most will eventually get it together, eventually somebody's going to get killed by an untrained gun owner who open-carries, now legally, purely out of fear. This will lead to further calls for gun control that will go without meaningful reform, yet again.
---
COVID didn't cause all this, it was just the catalyst, the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. This perfect storm has been brewing for decades in Washington's cesspool of greed, arrogance and sociopathic narcissism that only Ivy league, Wall Street, military-industrialist elitists could manage to foul up this badly. This has been a long time coming, and it's not your Trump-supporting neighbor's fault any more than it is the Black Lives Matter guy's across the street. We're all being used, abused and lied to, and without a way to enforce consequences for those who've put themselves above the welfare of this country that we've entrusted them with, it won't change. A violent revolution is doomed to failure - how can you bring freedom and hope with a blood-soaked sword? - but some form of non-violent, powerful action will happen by 2050, probably sooner.
---
America has been through worse and triumphed before. We can do it again! This is not the end at all, but the painful moment of change in an ongoing cycle of birth, death and rebirth. This is where the ascended phoenix catches fire and burns, falling to ash below. And it's going to be hard. Not everyone who reads this post will live to see 2023. But don't give up, because that phoenix will absolutely rise again, and we're going to need you - your help, your passion, your joy and heart - to make our mutual moment in the sun last longer this time 'round.
It's always darkest just before dawn.
...but there is always a dawn. Just make sure you're still around to see it. Because you damn well deserve it. And because future generations deserve it too.
I generally agree with these predictions. My sense is that our society has SERIOUSLY screwed up the natural balance of the economy in an unprecedented way. It's going to get a lot worse, and it's going to feed directly into the deepening political polarization we've all seen. Right now the most important questions are: how do I position myself so that I am maximally protected during this upheaval? And what does the end state look like?
There's bunch of foreclosures slated for 2022 that were put on hold due to covid. Something is going to pop, and it will pop hard.
The stars are gonna spell out the answers to tomorrow's crosswords And the Phillips Corporation will admit that they've made an awful mistake And Bill Gates will single-handedly spearhead the Heaven 17 revival And the Chicago Cubs will beat every team in the league And the Tampa Bay Bucs will take it all the way to the top
And I will love you again I will love you like I used to
- AR headsets will still to be too expensive for consumers, but Microsoft's Hololens 2 will continue to see adoption for high-end industrial applications.
- Society will continue transitioning toward living with Covid as an endemic disease, and as the severity of outbreaks decrease, life will continue its slow approach back to normalcy.
- The S&P 500 will see modest gains with the tech sector doing particularly well.
Governments will crack down on NFTs with new regulation.
Volatility in the financial markets.
Some type of reaction to price increases in the US.
New types of remote jobs will emerge as technology matures around remote learning. Think Mesh for MS teams
Return to office will tick up more than expected
City -> Suburbs/Rural will revert back to pre-covid trend of Suburbs/Rural -> City
- James Webb telescope will miss its desired orbit.
- Brain drain in Australia.
- EU will not figure out its daylight savings issue.
- Fields medal will award another woman maybe Maryna Viazovska or Kaisa Matomäki
-An explicit example will be found (e.g. Merten's or Skewes's)
- World cup will be one of the biggest sport disasters.
- A heat dome near the Baltic Sea.
- Seeing Jim Morrison's work is in public domain (2022) for Canada & NZ. Causes the UK to pressure these two to switch to +70 policy before J. R. R. Tolkien works become public (2024).
-Covid causes more places to consider "die with dignity" policies.
In American politics, the pendulum swings back the other way and 'red' politicians defeat 'blue' politicians.
Inflation continues. Interest rates rise.
The Great Resignation continues until cash reserves are dried up and rising prices mandate people have a source of income. At that point, jobs become a little harder to get. Generally tough economic times.
Containerization continues to dominate IT headlines. This results in a fertile job market for IT practitioners.
COVID: Governments will tighten the screws on unvaccinated people and nudge them agressively towards vaccination or isolation. It will make some people uneasy, and others will cheer for it.
Entertainment: Adam Driver will be cast in every blockbuster, sometimes more than once.
Technology: Big tech will build more of their own chips, mostly ARM chips. The Metaverse will fail to excite the crowd. The EU will isssue billion dollar antitrust fines.
Despite that, central banks won't meaningfully tapper or raise rates (some have already started, and more will try, but soon they will revert to low/current rates).
Inequality will continue to get worse.
Despite that, wealth will not get taxed.
The Great Resignation will not happen (even though we're told it already is/has happened).
Chris Pratt will be in the highest-grossing English-language film.
A novel virus worse than Covid will arise, and humanity will succeed in containing it, but at great cost.
Tampa Bay will lose in the Super Bowl.
- crypto crash of 2022. Ethereum will switch to PoS, leading to a global wide sale of GPUs and miners are no longer a thing.
- maybe the stock market will crash similarly to 2022.
Remote work will continue - maybe not as strong as during the lockdowns, but still much stronger than in 2019.
Covid will continue to be a problem. By the end of 2022, we won't be at a "new normal" that is any different from where we currently are. There will still be a war about mask mandates and vaccine mandates and vaccine booster mandates.
The 2022 elections will be very vicious, maybe even marked by violence, but in the end the Republicans will control at least one branch of Congress, most likely both.
There will be violence associated with the 2024 election cycle.
Oh, you wanted tech predictions?
GPT-3 continues to impress, but has a much harder time turning into something useful. The "doesn't actually understand what it's saying" problem is too big to fix. Systems that actually do understand and then generate appropriate text are stronger, but cannot be created by GPT-3-like methods.
We'll still mostly be on IPv4.
Nothing dramatic changes in chips or fabs. Nothing dramatic changes in self-driving vehicles. There will be some cool stuff in medical, though. Between Alzheimer's and cancer, there will be at least one major advance.
- Large scale ransoms and hacks will continue. Driving fear to take cybersecurity more seriously.
- Distrust in mainstream media outlets will push users to siloed echo chamber platforms. Lower barriers to entry to develop the tech behind the platforms will allow them to grow rapidly.
- The metaverse will not get adoption but the signs of being the future of entertainment will be there.
- A significant breakthrough for brain computer interfaces will be released for gaming. (See Gabe Newell interview) Every big company starts racing to research BCI tech.
- EV startups productionizing for the first time will experience reliability and scalability issues. Tesla’s lead in industry will be apparent but competitors will start closing the gap.
- Because of push-back on supply chain and other issues, Biden and Harris are massively unpopular for 2022, which causes a greater split among Dems (similar to Howard Dean in 2002, who broke with CW to become popular). Perhaps it's a young populist Dem who doesn't talk about "woke" stuff but squarely focuses on the unrest caused by bad cops, bad protestors (including on the right), and bad econ policy
- It's been predicted since forever, but a major revolution about Jan 6 and Trump, which the press won't care about
- Meta as the new 5G; whole lot of hype but too bulky to be useful
- Unionizing begins to impact professional sector, as employers want employees back in the office as the labor market tightens
- As disenchanted people are sick of online conspiracies, a reformist Social Contract-like movement takes hold
* Mandatory vaccination in the US will be struck down in the Supreme Court
* There will be increasing dissonance between people who think Covid is still a thing and people who stopped caring
* Gold will break $2000/oz
* Cryptocurrency will continue to appreciate in value. NFTs will also still be around.. both making a lot of people on HN lose their sanity.
* A second country will announce accepting BTC as legal tender, driving a breakout in price. Several people on HN will post in the comments about how all cryptocurrency is a scam and trad-fi is better
* Young people will continue to 'peace out' of the job market, viewing it as a game for suckers. Companies that can't raise wages will increasingly go out of business.
* College applications submitted will decrease substantially nationwide
* 'What happened in 1971?' will pop up even more on social media
* A hipster farming movement will gain nationwide attention
- Inflation is not transitory and the market will panic once the fed raises rates. They do not reverse their position like in 2018.
- Covid continues to be a thing. Stupid people who refuse vaccines and medicine continue to die in record numbers.
- China does not invade Taiwan and the China bubble does not pop. Everyone continues to be concerned.
- The metaverse will continue to not be a thing.
- A major breakthrough will happen in genomics, possibly related to aging.
- Elon Musk will commit 6 billion to end world hunger. Mostly for the lulz
- Significant legal troubles will arise for Facebook. Ultimately ending up splitting the company. This will make no difference to the social media issues.
- Thus, Rasberry Pi's based MUD's/clients and light text games over web/telnet/ssh get a reissanance.
- COVID get worse in North-Pyrenees Europe, Spain will be used as the "Gold standard" on how to do the things well.
- Vaccines will be mandatory in German speaking countries as the magufos/alt-medicine hipppies headed the then-current events really wrong.
- Network support will be flakey because of device/chips' shortage, so "offline first" will be the motto then.
- Said that, Usenet/Mail and similar asynchronous comms will come back soon.
- Covid will be the same as it is right now; basically a non-factor for a lot of people except that certain spaces require them to wear masks in what feels like a very perfunctory manner.
- Stephen Breyer will die in the middle of the 2024 election campaign and, for whatever reason, the Senate will not be able to confirm someone to fill the vacancy in time...
- house prices in the UK increase by 10%
- Crypto is banned in the EU (and other places?) for environmental reasons
- Jeff Bezos will surpass 300bn USD in net worth
- A billionaire tax will be introduced in the US (only to be cancelled by Trump when he gets back in in 2024)
Tether will implode at some point, taking Bitcoin down at least 95% for a few weeks or months, it eventually recovers and keeps rising.
A major cyberattack takes down the US power grid for a week in the Summer of 2023 in at least one major US city.
September 11, 2023, coordinated terrorist attacks on power substations disrupt the grid across the United States, millions lose power, and it becomes apparent that many won't have electricity for months, or years, as our supply chain can't make replacement gear fast enough.
Thanksgiving 2023, China takes back Formosa (previously known as Taiwan), and the US, still reeling from supply shortages, will have no choice but to accept this with only loud protests.
2024 - The US dollar loses its global reserve currency status. The standard of living in the United States precipitously falls. A new political party sweeps into power in the fall elections. This party promises to implement ranked choice voting, make lobbyists illegal, fully fund the IRS, and raise income taxes on the rich to their 1950 levels. A one time 33% tax/amnesty is offered to those are willing to bring their assets back into the US, a substantial savings from the new rates.
2025 - Because imports are suddenly expensive, the United States embarks on a reconstruction of its manufacturing sector. Tax incentives are given to small businesses, and there is a strong push to support maker spaces in public libraries.
