Famine around the world. Global political instability + climate change + economic downturn = food scarcity.
A high profile political assassination in the US or Europe.
The first time a ceo or politician gets assassinated by drone-strike will cause some severe lockdown on those things.
No matter what country it happens in.
~the very last part at least~
Trump will die and a new religious movement declaring him to be divine will gain a significant foothold among people who call themselves Christians in the US.
Evangelicals will decide that, despite being nominally Protestant, they’re suddenly OK with sainthood again.
Okay, I could see this one happening.
There is already a religious following in his noxious wake. They literally think he’s heaven sent.
I think Trump’s loyalists are more after what he pretends to offer. As one uncle said, “He made me rich!” If you take away the potential earnings, there’s not much to the guy but bullshit. Like, he’s not even good looking enough to hang his portrait on a wall without getting tired of his face.
Google goes offline for plebs, billionaires go mask off and start discussing population control via drones.
What do you mean by the first part?
Drone attacks and drone based spying will be huge and hobby drones will be highly restricted.
As a casual drone enthusiast I’m already filling in all of my flying now because the free flying days seem to be numbered.
I saw an anti-drone fear article just today, actually. I hope this doesn’t happen, though.
It already feels overdue considering drones are quite popular for drug drops, even directly to prisons. Once some big events happen like high profile assassination, terrorist attack ir even something menial it’ll be game over for free flying.
Having a drone is such an eye opener tho and I really recommend getting one before it becomes too complicated to own one. Seeing your environment from 100 meters up is such a perspective change. Taking a drone on a road trip and thinking “I wonder what’s behind that boulder there” and actually being able to find out is a very grounding experience :)
I’ll go by (very broad) regions:
The United States experiences a brain drain and Trump’s death (all but inevitable in 10 years, whether by natural causes or other means), will cause a major rift in the Republican Party. Democrats will somehow fail to capitalize on it and then blame online leftists, famously the kingmakers of American politics.
Canada will become a de facto part of Europe. Bike lanes will be added.
Europe will experience an economic boom as it’s basically forced to develop new industries, becomes the default destination for scientific research, and the Euro begins to replace the dollar as the currency of choice for international trade contracts. France, especially, will benefit as it isn’t reliant on the U.S. for military support, space launch capabilities, etc. and will become the default NATO weapons supplier.
Russia will have a deep post-war depression even if it takes Kyiv due to brain drain and sending so many young men into a meat grinder.
China will have a medium-sized economic crisis but ultimately (after Xi) enact long needed reforms (kind of like when Mao died and Deng Xiaoping enacted reforms).
India will have a major crisis as Hindu Nationalism goes too far and people begin to revolt.
Central Asia will keep on keeping on. (I don’t know a lot about Central Asia.)
Latin America will increase trade with China and Europe at the expense of the United States. Bolsonaro will go to the hospital 50 more times and be bit by an even more exotic bird. Argentina will benefit most from the decline of the U.S. as a reliable trading partner.
Israel will annex the West Bank and Arab countries will isolate it. Saudi Arabia’s line city will still be in the planning stages. Iran will develop a nuclear deterrent but the power of the Supreme Leader will be weakened and shift to the elected officials because of economic problems.
The Maghreb will benefit from Europe’s rise and increased trade. West Africa will experience an economic and population boom and become an inexpensive manufacturing hub. The Horn of Africa will probably remain a shitshow (but hopefully I’m wrong about that). Central and Southern Africa will also experience significant growth but at a slower pace than West Africa.
Australia will lose another war with emus as New Zealand wisely allies with the Emus. They will force Australia into a humiliating peace deal that ultimately leads to a third Emu War, much like WWI’s onerous peace terms led to WWII.
Ocean acidification and rising sea levels will begin to fuck everyone and scientists will scream about it but it’ll be the following decades when that sort of thing really wrecks the world economy.
Nintendo will somehow sell me the same games for the 5th time.
All of this is entirely too possible….
Who are you future man?
As an Australian I will welcome our new emu overlords. I presume this will lead to some major social changes where men take on the primary role in childcare and where feather dusters become a status symbol.
This was such a nice read, thank you Mr. Shit the beetles
Wow, as someone who is very knowledgeable on past and current affairs this prediction/analysis is very accurate and funny
and be bit by an even more exotic bird.
Australia will lose another war with emus as New Zealand wisely allies with the Emus.
Makes note: @ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world is our resident Ornithologist.
Nintendo will somehow sell me the same games for the 5th time.
Canada will add bike lines Not in Ontario while Doug Ford is in power (at least 4 more years).
Major roadblocks to piracy and porn in the US. Piracy will never be eliminated, but the barrier to entry will become too difficult for most folks. I’ve subsequently been hoarding all of the media I can get my hands on in case this happens - I refuse to pay for 20 streaming services just to watch movies and TV.
something I don’t understand about piracy is,
if you torrent to get rid of centralization, why have all the torrents saved on one website that can be taken down? Wouldn’t it be better to have them all on a torrented .html file or sthm?I imagine discoverability and avoiding forks or just stale copies would become a big issue.
Conservatives who are getting their face eaten will not learn a single thing from anything
I’ll adopt a cat. 🤞
EDIT: I read the question wrong, but I’m keeping it up.
Your answer is my favorite.
I also choose this guys’ yet nonexistent cat.
Join the queue!
I didn’t read the question wrong, but I’m more concerned about how cute the panda doodle is. Bet your adopted cat will be precious too 😍
A war will happen.
It will either be a civil war within the US but involving all of North America.
Or the literal 3rd world war. With usa and Russia fighting against Europe, where Canada is one of the main battleground.
I really wish I’m wrong, but I predicted drump’s colonialist ambition over Canada years ago. I also remember being laugh at by everyone around the table at a diner for saying conservatives were making nazism acceptable again. Well guess what…
I’m no small-dicked overweight authoritarian dictator, but if I had to make guesses as to their thoughts, I’d say Putler was on the ropes last year, but since he managed to affect US elections enough that Trump won, Putler basically won.
Now unless Europe takes the agreession or at least strongly unifies behind Ukraine, Ukraine might be forced into some kind of deal. I don’t belive they will go for any, so that’s not gonna work from Putler, despite him making Trump push it.
But since Trump is actively burning down the US, I believe your assumption about a North-American war.
If that happens though, Europe will weaken, and Putler could decide to ally with Xi Pooh, and… I don’t know who the fuck would stop them at that point.
But… if world order is already a bit fucked at that point I propose legalising drugs to make it an actually usable market which will generate wealth (and we should already but no-one listens), because drug markets are global, so then South America might actually start straightening itself out if the cartels could see reason. (They’re brutal, but idk how many of them are actually ideologically fascist more than capitalist.)
I really wish I’m wrong, but I predicted drump’s colonialist ambition over Canada years ago. I also remember being laugh at by everyone around the table at a diner so saying conservatives were making nazism acceptable again. Well guess what.
Me too man. I read an NBCNews article today about Greenland and the way it was written, oh boy. Putler has given Trump a little bit of friendly advise on what sort of propaganda to start spreading. Or Putler is doing it for Trump idk.
But it’s clear they’re trying to influence Greenland and eventually will support independence for it, so it’ll become less stable and better to be annexed in some way or another, by either Putler or Trump.
I’m sure Putler would love a base on Greenland.
I’m sacred that your correct but dearly wish you aren’t.
Ditto
Or a revolutionary war. Less likely, maybe, but I think that’s what it’s down to. Will it be civil or revolutionary in nature?
Famine will enter the American lexicon again.
GRRM isn’t going to finish the books.
Nor is Patrick Rothfuss. I believe he probably outgrew the story he was telling.
Peak human population will occur within the next ten years. Previously this was driven by falling birth rates. Now it will be driven by rapidly rising death rates. Within the next ten years, I think 300 million - 1 billion dead from starvation due to bread basket collapse is a conservative estimate.
Significantly populated areas of the developed world are going to be deemed inhospitable due to climate change
Parts of the American South are getting close, but are holding on as long as their power grids do.
That said, a good chunk of Texas won’t remain that way forever.
but are holding on as long as their power grids do.
This is a big thing. Where I live, there’s long stretches of time where the temperature differential inside vs. out might average 50C. That might be hard to imagine if you’re not in a place like this, but it’s totally possible to live somewhere hostile to life with the right technology.
To be fair, the laws of thermodynamics are working against you if it’s hotter outside. Heat can’t really be destroyed very easily, only moved. AC units are universal in the US, but aren’t a good solution in the third world, and if something happens to them you’re in a much scarier situation than just having to bundle up and drain your pipes. Still, I expect the trend towards overly hot places like Arizona growing will continue.
And that’s the point, I reckon.
Heating a home is easy, we’ve done it forever and have some easy ways to do it without the government providing power (so long as you know how to use a wood stove).
Cooling one though? That’s not so easy without electricity.
I suppose. I’d be surprised if the US got poorer to the point they can’t provide electricity and maintain the units, though.
(so long as you know how to use a wood stove).
Fun fact, the Inuit made do with no wood or quality fuel of any kind, even. Just body heat and maybe a little whale oil and fur lantern. What they lacked in sources they made up with lots of insulation.
It depends on where in the US we’re talking about.
I mentioned Texas specifically because the power grid there has had some high profile failures and issues in the last 5 years. They’ve fixed some of it and embezzled money for other repairs. Now they’re farming crypto on it.
One or more leading countries in the world to recognize some form of AI as sentient.
WILL it be sentient? Or what do you suppose will be the development that causes us to go, “holy shit, it’s real this time!”?
I think they’re just saying they’ll incorrectly consider it sentient because we’re always lead by morons, it seems.
People are already pretending ChatGPT is their girlfriend.
People are already treating LLMs like omnipotent beings.
Marketing teams can get idiots to beleive anything.
The surveillance of chats and the prohibition of encryption in many Western countries must have a purpose. It mostly makes sense if democracy is dismantled.
Since the West doesn’t show signs of sharing resources voluntarily, my prediction is that the West is willing to fight a nuclear war to preserve its lead which cannot happen in a democracy.
Without that war, Asia will take over as the center of commerce and innovation. The brightest will move there, which means that the remaining people in the West have to be innovative without the main ingredience for innovation.
I’ll go with Hanlon’s razor there. The cops and politicians don’t really understand the magic boxes, let alone the game theory of adversarial uses layered on top of them. People use the boxes for bad things, they say just add a way to stop them, EZ. (Of course, we can’t and it’s not)
Since the West doesn’t show signs of sharing resources voluntarily
Which resources? The “only” tangible advantage the West actually has is strong institutions, and to a much lesser degree momentum. The science behind the technology is free for anyone to learn - even in excruciating detail if you go looking - and natural resources are actually less depleted in poor countries at this point.
If China escalates to cause war in Asia when other countries are sufficiently pissed off by them trying to steal territory and harass others non-stop, then that plus a potential Chinese real estate market collapse could cause pretty serious problems in the region.
