Ask Lemmy

Donald Trump will either still be President, or be dead.

Conservatives who are getting their face eaten will not learn a single thing from anything

Famine will enter the American lexicon again.

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.

Google goes offline for plebs, billionaires go mask off and start discussing population control via drones.

Famine around the world. Global political instability + climate change + economic downturn = food scarcity.

A high profile political assassination in the US or Europe.

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.

-The internet will become something only old people use and will fill up with old people like radio and TV before it. Something new will be the hip new thing that kids use/consume, though it technically could be considered the internet

-Coal power plants will be phased out entirely in U.S.A. with some taking credit and others morning the loss of a purely economic conversion over to natural gas power. It will look like it is solar's time to shine, but a "new" way of generating power which is cheaper and slightly cleaner will take over and slowly convert natural gas plants to whatever it is.

-There will be a detracted argument over whether or not what comes after current gen-AI is considered sapient and worthy of rights. While the debate will be straightforward in a vacuum, other semi-related topics will mix in including: the rich wanting their AI doppelgangers to keep control of the money/power they earned during life; something to do with sex and/or relationships because of course there will be; religious opposition until the poll numbers swap, then there will be some regions that view AI rights a helping the disadvantaged

-A young politician from the democrats will get elected on the back of anti-Trump hate. They will have in their first two years theoretically enough support to pass substantial legislation, but will be stopped by a small number of conservative democrats from doing anything substantial save for maybe one big accomplishment. They will loose the 2030 midterms to a bunch of republicans and a "grass-roots" organization that is paid for by rich business owners, but will come back to win the 2032 election against a rich republican from New England. However, they won't have control over the congress and by 2035 will be a lame duck.

-Someone will scrap NASA's current human space flight plans to promote their own plan, which in itself will be scrapped when a new administration comes in. By 2035, articles will be printing "it is a shame that no real current alive human has stepped foot on the moon", taking a subtle dig at China's AI-human that is currently building structures on the moon.

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.

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.

Following the path of other regimes around the world, the USA builds their own "great firewall", segmenting most people here away from the global internet. At around the same time, personal VPNs become explicitly illegal. We might also see the government seize control of at least one certificate registrar, if they don't fire up their own, thereby "owning" TLS online.

On the upside, there's a chance we will see more grass-roots efforts to reboot a lot of institutions that were co-opted by the rich. You're just never going to hear about that through conventional channels. For instance: local newspapers with real journalism behind them. Or more small businesses with the intent to last, rather than sell. It's possible that more of those things will be co-ops, union shops, or even Mondragon inspired. Either way, there's a path forward for more community, real communication, and eventual prosperity, provided folks keep their heads and take things offline where necessary.

Nuclear war

We'll have reduced the human body to basically just another machine and will be in the process of reverse-engineering it. So many new techniques and sources of data have come online all at the same time in biology.

This is in contrast to the current situation where we know a few things about select parts of the body in isolation.

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.

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.

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...

It will take more than 10 yrs to repair the damage being done to our gov.

I wonder if we'll ever see amendments to the constitution, it has been a long time. I'd like to see corporations declared to not have rights as if they were citizens.

Significantly populated areas of the developed world are going to be deemed inhospitable due to climate change

GRRM isn't going to finish the books.

The gulf monarchies' oil will dry up, and they will collapse under their own weight.

... Probably not. But hey, a man can dream...

I'll adopt a cat. 🤞

EDIT: I read the question wrong, but I'm keeping it up.

One or more leading countries in the world to recognize some form of AI as sentient.

Humanity globally shifts to an economic system of guarantees instead of our current extortional approach as we aknowledge we are already in a post scarcity world and work to fix distribution chains of human needs.

Either that or the corporate elites start a literal apocalypse so they don't have to work a fucking job like the rest of us.

This year will be declared the year of the linux desktop.

And so will the year after, and the one after…

Since I'm not feeling very optimistic, and given that everything I predicted today was the exact opposite, I'll say this.

1. Campi Flegrei explodes, creating a noise louder than Krakatoa.
2. Santorini sinks into the ocean.
3. Nuclear war.
4. Groundwater runs out all over the world.
5. A massive solar emission hits earth, throwing us back into the Stone Age.

Doing my duty, to protect the world by predicting things, so the exact opposite happens 🍺.

Just to cover all the bases, some extra points.

1. AI superintelligence is evil.
2. A gamma-ray burst hits earth.
3. Aliens are evil.
4. Vacuum decay is possible and something accidentally triggers it.
5. Nobody likes me romantically.

2008 was known for the Great Bush recession.

2025 will be known for the Great MuskRat Depression that Trumped all other depressions.

This time though the U.S. will feel the brunt

GTA6 will almost be complete

Trump either dies suspiciously or gets openly assassinated.

California secedes from the union which starts off hopeful but ends in their own Calexit debacle.

The severing of intercontinental data cables leads to the isolation of formerly global communities.

Preperations for the 2038 bug (similar te the Y2K bug) start too late about 2035

Linux Desktop gets stronger, even if its slow

I may or may not manage to finish hosting Nextcloud mostly save on the internet

Rise in suicide rates

fall of fanservice isekai (pls)

Rise of the fediverse (could be slow)

Economical collapse in multiple countries, including the US. Like Great Depression II.

More floods, storms, droughts, extreme heats, fewer animal/plant species, more garbage everywhere

Wars over water in North America

By level of confidence, from top to bottom:

Bitcoin will dump soon and then raise up again around 2028

Trump will stay in power until next elections (and yes, elections will still take place)

Ukraine will have to surrender to Russia around late 2025-early 2026, boosting authoritarian regimes around the world

Linux desktop share will raise to 6% by 2027

America will suffer an economic depression and become more isolationist which will allow the depression to continue unabated. Millions die of starvation and exposure.

The today's "brave new world" will start turning into Orwellian Big Brother society. It's already happening. Of course neither option is great but I prefer drugs, orgies and idiots to surveillance, absolute police state and slaves/prisoners.