
What Will Happen in the 2020s - gz5
https://avc.com/2020/01/what-will-happen-in-the-2020s/
======
neonate
[https://web.archive.org/web/20200101163454/https://avc.com/2...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200101163454/https://avc.com/2020/01/what-
will-happen-in-the-2020s/)

~~~
throwaway5752
_Time is running out: please help the Internet Archive today. The average
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for servers and staff. If the Wayback Machine disappeared tomorrow, where
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librarians and creators to make sure there is enduring access to the world’s
most trustworthy knowledge. I know we could charge money, but then we couldn’t
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best information forever. The Internet Archive is a bargain, but we need your
help. If you find our site useful, we ask you humbly, please chip in. Help us
reach our goal today! Thank you._

Please consider this. They are a real bargain and provide a real service to
humanity. Instead of upvoting this comment, please give them $5 instead if you
can.

~~~
mekster
Why do they need 150 people to run a non interactive site?

I'm not against anything about them but if they want donations, their way of
expense should be clearer.

~~~
mattigames
"Non-interactive site" wtf, do you even know the trickery you have to do in
JavaScript files to remotely work outside their intended domains? Or how hard
was to create a working playable copy of hundreds of old games? Or how much
people you need to handle an ever-growing data storage (e.g everyday bigger
than the day before) while making it available over internet?

~~~
mekster
While the code needs maintenance to adapt to edge cases, it's build once and
maintain feature. It's not user registering site that needs support for
customers and no need to introduce new features to keep going.

Data storage is also single purpose job. While it needs technical capability
to store huge amount of data, I still don't see how 150 people are needed to
maintain the archive.

You say as if 150 is a small team but how are they used?

------
opportune
I don’t really buy into 4-6.

I don’t see any benefit for a country to turn its currency into a crypto
asset. Either they are relinquishing a great deal of control in democratizing
their financial system (also exposing themselves to attack), or it’s a crypto
in name only that doesn’t seem any better than digital cash through banks
except for a buzzword.

Decentralization is hit or miss. You get economies of scale with
centralization that are hard to beat. I only see decentralization being useful
for certain applications (namely, anything that needs to be censorship
resistant/ can’t rely on the centralized infra for some reason) like it
already is being used for.

Meat won’t be a delicacy unless we are not counting lab grown meat. Absolutely
no way. I would be willing to take a huge bet on this. People all over the
world love meat, it’s one of the first things people start spending on when
they hit middle income (globally speaking). Plant based alternatives will
become a lot more popular especially once they become cheaper, and we will
probably start eating mostly lab grown meat, but meat _will_ be consumed, at
least by stubborn, older red-blooded Americans wary of technology and set in
their ways that the author likely has little exposure to.

~~~
pascalxus
Yes, the only way #6 will come true is if the replacement for meat looks,
smells and tastes exactly like the real thing and it'll have to be cheaper
too.

People all over the world love meat, especially US, UK and the Chinese. I've
tried to convince some family members to reduce their meat consumption even a
tiniest amount gets a huge amount of resistance. People aren't going to give
up their meat: they may not even be willing to try alternatives.

Impossible meat has a great start and I think their market share will continue
to increase. But, there's an immense amount of variety in the meat market and
the alternative meat industry still has a huge amount of work to do to address
it.

~~~
6nf
Faced with a choice between beef or fake beef that tastes exactly the same,
most people will just go for the real beef. They don't want the highly
processed fake stuff that contains who knows what.

The only way beef loses is if the alternatives are significantly cheaper. If a
McBeef is $5 more than a McFakeBeef then you got a shot at converting people.

~~~
gordaco
You are being downvoted, but I think that you are totally right. For an awful
lot of people, eating meat is a matter of status; it's similar to why many
people prefer having big cars even if they are less environmentally friendly.

There is also the fact that plant based diets are still associated to certain
ideologies and because of that they will keep being scoffed at by people from
opposing ideologies. Sure, you don't have to lean left to be vegan, but the
vast majority of vegan people, or people seriously trying to reduce their meat
consumption, do lean left (continuing with the car analogy: remember the
rolling coal fad).

Dietary choices go way beyond their nutritional value. People feel attached to
what they eat, and they will resist change. So, yes, a strong economic
incentive is needed, and even worse, it might not be enough.

~~~
SllX
As someone who isn’t considering giving up my ways, red blooded meat eating
American that I am, I actually appreciate vegans to some degree.

As long as there are an appreciable number of them, I will enjoy a greater
variety of dishes and ingredients available to me, and oftentimes fresher
ingredients too.

Insofar as they are making choices that benefit them, they also make choices
that benefit me.

Where they lose me, and this isn’t all vegans, but the ones that lose me are
the ones that try to convince me that I am a bad person for the dietary
choices I make. Maybe I am, but I don’t think so. The ones that make me want
to go out and eat two steaks just to stick it to them are the ones that want
to take away my choices or introduce sin taxes onto meat. I’m cool with
carbon/GHG taxes that make no exceptions, if the cost of my choices goes up
because of a tax that applies to all levels of society in fair measure, I can
live with that. I would argue such a fair tax is entirely theoretical, but in
theory, it could work out. The ones that want to punish me specifically are
the ones I can’t abide.

When someone introduces me to an entirely vegetarian dish or vegan dish that I
like, I’ll probably add it to my menu and start making it myself, and I
usually don’t modify it to add any additional protein. Good food is good food
and I actually _like_ tofu and some of those veggie patties on the market. I
like them for that they are, not for what they pretend to be. It come down to
making a different choice as to what to eat for dinner, rather than making a
compromise.

Today, January 1st 2020, I’m not even thinking about lab grown meat. Maybe
I’ll prefer it on January 1st, 2030, or maybe I’ll be paying a premium for my
steak, or maybe the price of my premium cut steak will actually fall after
checking against inflation and I’ll be eating even more steak. Maybe I’ll even
lose my taste for meat, I mean I lost my taste for shrimp once upon a time,
and I gained a taste for eggs in my early twenties. Vegans that practice
veganism for dogmatic, ideological and religious reasons certainly aren’t
going to win me over in ten or a hundred years by preaching to me though.

I make choices. Vegans make choices. Everyone makes choices. I think that’s a
pretty good state of affairs.

~~~
ace_of_spades
As there seem to be very few comments actually defending the ethical vegan
standpoint here I go.

Vegans who ask for „sin taxes“ don‘t want to piss you off, they simply have
the belief (and actually quite well justifiable so) that meat consumption
leads to quite a lot of suffering in the world. You don’t seem to be opposed
to taxes on ghg emissions - presumably because you believe that they cause
suffering. Why is it not reasonable to also punish/tax other behavior that
causes suffering? Do you really believe that animal suffering doesn’t count?

I would really encourage you to reflect your position on this and maybe revise
towards being more forgiving towards people who simply care about the
suffering of animals.

~~~
SllX
Your assumption is wrong. The tax I would support is entirely theoretical and
would raise the prices of all industrial products on the market from all forms
of food to all forms of textiles and all forms of computers and machinery. I
suspect that if it were ever implemented properly to begin with, it would
become a target to steer into a kind of sin tax or luxury tax by doubling the
rate on this or that product or zero rating it for others, so I can’t say I
necessarily even would support it. Show me a policy proposal and I’ll say
“maybe”.

Suffering doesn’t enter into it, but I don’t like subsidies. If the problem
with climate change is that my lifestyle is being subsidized because the “true
cost” isn’t in the purchase price, I’ll pay it, but so should everyone. I’ll
be paying more for meat, but I’ll also be paying more for spinach, and coffee,
and spices, and salt, and clothes, and every single industrial good that I
buy. And so would everyone, because the net result would be to see the
purchasing power of everyone decrease. I can live with that if you can, even
factoring in my dietary preferences, I’m willing to bet money I have a lower
net contribution to climate change than most in my country.

~~~
rlue
Sure, parent comment made a faulty assumption about your policy preferences
and the reasons you have for them. In responding to this grievance, you've
entirely missed their point: the consumption of meat is above all else a moral
issue—yes, a sin—and making other lifestyle choices of below-average
ecological impact do not make up for it.

I could elaborate, but I don't expect to change your mind; you've already
stated outright that you're determined not to. In any case, I'm not here to
cast blame on you personally for eating meat. I still do it, too.

It's a shame about your stubbornness, though. You seem to be smart enough to
engage in careful, reasoned analysis about a complex issue. In fact, I'd wager
that you'd scoff at an anti-vaxxer or a Holocaust denier who shared the
strength of your convictions. Of course, scientific and historical truth are a
little more objective than basic moral principles—but when it comes to the way
animals are manufactured in America today, not by much.

~~~
SllX
I didn’t engage his point because I’ve taken it as a given that we’ll have to
agree to disagree. There’s too much conviction on both sides to take that one
in any meaningful direction. To some, to you and to the one I replied to, it
is a moral issue. I’m not going to convince anyone that it isn’t a moral issue
anymore than they will convince me that it is.

There isn’t a lot that is objective, even scientific and historical truths are
often less scientific, less historic and less truthful than we think they are.
I take a live and let live approach to the voluntary choices of others
precisely because I’m not morally superior, nor do I endeavor to be. In
return, I don’t accept that the choices they have made _are_ morally superior
to my own. They’re just living their lives according to their beliefs and I
don’t want to take that away from them, nor do I want them to take away my
choices nor to be punished for them. Life is too short, fleeting and full of
suffering and choices to start making choices for other people. I do not, and
I would wager you do not, have the status, position or occupational license to
cast judgements upon others that aren’t our children, charges, employees or
elected representatives. Even these limited forms of subordination have their
limits.

~~~
ace_of_spades
The point that I was trying to make is to try to show you that I am pretty
sure that you actually do care about moral questions in the case of climate
change (on the surface you seem to argue it’s a matter of justice and paying
for the true cost of your actions but the very reason that carbon is being
priced in the first place (and you accept that price) is that it causes
suffering in the world, right? You wouldn‘t accept an arbitrary oxygen tax,
would you?) but somehow don’t extend that concern to the suffering of animals.
However, similar to how scientists have shown that ghg emissions cause human
suffering, scientists have shown that factory farming causes animal suffering.

Of course you can have reasons for denying the importance of animal suffering
but most of those accounts are easily shown to be inconsistent and simply
self-serving. People who accept animal suffering as real and probably a bad
thing tend to have a much easier time to articulate a consistent world view.
If you don’t agree with that claim show me how I am wrong and coherently
articulate why the suffering of animals doesn‘t matter... it’s really
surprisingly difficult to not reach for arbitrary distinctions like „they are
not human“ but have substantial arguments grounded in empirical evidence that
justify your opinion.

In the end my goal was not to convince you of becoming vegan (that’s generally
a quite difficult task due to current societal indoctrination) but to simply
make you reconsider how you view vegans who actually care about animal
suffering. It’s a totally reasonable position and it’s generally much more
coherent and aligned with evidence then other positions. Even if you don’t
care, you don‘t need to judge other people who do.

~~~
SllX
I won’t judge them for caring, I won’t even judge them, but I do find being
preached at to be generally unenjoyable and I don’t enjoy the company of
people who wish to preach to me rather than engage me. You’ve engaged me, but
that’s not what I have come to expect from vegans who are of an evangelical
type, and I say that without it meaning to be disparaging, merely descriptive.

For what it is worth to you, I purchase the best meat I can find and afford at
the local market. The more room to roam, the better. Absolutely no hormones,
pointless antibiotics, or other growth techniques that degrade the meat. I’m
under no illusions that what I purchase is cruelty free though, it’s livestock
which was raised for slaughter, from a species that was cultivated to be
raised as livestock, slaughtered and turned into various meat and leather
products.

I buy better meat because it tastes better, I don’t do it to spare the animal.
I advocate for better farming practices where possible because I want better
and more pervasive products to be available and at a lower cost and to more
people.

I do in fact care more for the lives of people than I do for most animals. I
don’t care for needless deaths, nor do I like unnecessary cruelty, but when I
eat an animal, it wasn’t needless or pointless. It lived until it died, and
was recycled into my body. I too will live until I die and am recycled into
other living creatures.

Laying it out, I sound more callous than I intend, but I don’t know that
there’s a less brutal way to put any of that and keep it honest, but more than
sounding callous, I don’t want to be or sound like a hypocrite, even
unwittingly.

Thank you for engaging me, actually laying out my views allows me to solidify
in my own mind what it is I’m thinking, and figure out how to communicate it
better the next time.

~~~
ace_of_spades
Thanks for your reply. It's good to see that you reflect your own thinking and
attempt to articulate a coherent position. If you enjoy this type of
engagement, I can also recommend you the following short youtube video (~3
min) with a philosophical thought experiment that turns the table on you and
asks whether you would still hold your position in that case:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSUz6Rj5oo4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSUz6Rj5oo4).

Would be interested to hear your reply to that :)

------
cletus
So, I have a problem with a large number of these points. Each point alone
requires a long rebuttal that no one would read. I think Fred is way off here.
The bullet points:

1\. There will be no global change in human behaviour and activity that is
against the short term interests of those people. Period. The way to replace
fossil fuels with renewables is by them being a cheaper source of power. We're
well on the way here for solar.

2\. Until someone can devise a safe way to processor nuclear fuel, transport
the fuel and waste and process and store the nuclear waste nuclear power is
just not making any kind of resurgence. It just isn't. Believing otherwise is
a pipe dream that ignores the significant externalities of nuclear power (as
in the waste products from the reactor and refinement processes).

3\. Why Fred thinks China won't have the same short term self-interest that
every other country does seems fanciful at best.

4\. Crypto currency doesn't solve any problems that most people care about.
Bitcoin surged in value for two reasons:

\- So wealthy Chinese people could escape their country's capital controls and
move their wealth out of China. Mine Bitcoin in China, sell overseas for USD,
profit.

\- For illegal activity.

Traditional currencies have reversible transactions (which most people
actually want) and aren't subject to 51% attacks. Nor do they require
technical proficiency to safely use.

5\. Decentralized Internet is a pipe dream.

6\. Plant-based diets by the end of the decade? Not a chance.

I look forward to having a chuckle at this list in 2030.

~~~
brlewis
> Each point alone requires a long rebuttal that no one would read

I'd like to sell you a solution for that. Brief bullet points like the one you
made are readable, but when people disagree you need hypertext links to your
supporting arguments. I made a web app for creating such trees of arguments.
Here's an example in which you'll see I think the dangers of nuclear waste are
debatable:
[https://en.howtruthful.com/o/nuclear_power_is_a_crucial_comp...](https://en.howtruthful.com/o/nuclear_power_is_a_crucial_component_in_the_move_towards_creating_sustainable_carbon-
free_energy_for_the_united_states/68e13aad02e98d53843bc788f00ff193)

~~~
jogjayr
Cool idea, but I don't completely understand the interface. It's not clear
what the 1-5 buttons up top are: does clicking on it record my rating of the
claim?

What are the numbers next to each of the links in Pros and Cons? They look
like they correspond to the ratings above, but I didn't understand how those
were derived.

~~~
brlewis
You're on a link that's my opinion, so the numbers next to each link are my
ratings. Clicking the buttons on top saves your rating to local storage, and
makes a 'You' link to your opinion, where you can put pro/con arguments with
your own ratings.

Putting your ratings on the site requires a paid account. I'm making this in
my spare time and would have a hard time controlling spam if such accounts are
free. I still think the free version is useful for exploring your own
opinions.

------
mymythisisthis
All cars will be required to have dashcams. Either by insurance companies or
by governments.

All cars will be required to have GPS, and be tracked in real time. This is
already the case with the majority of commercial vehicles.

Incremental steps in autonomous cars, first starting with 'drone' cars. Cars
and trucks that are operated from a remote location. This will be piggy backed
on existing technology. Cheap cameras, cheap cell networks etc. Think of
delivery car, one person drives a truck from a remote location and one person
is inside sorting packages, carrying them to the door. People with kids can
work from home as Uber drivers and delivery drivers.

~~~
RivieraKid
The GPS thing is unlikely, what would be the rationale of that? This would be
a very unpopular policy.

~~~
criddell
The rationale is taxation. As more cars go electric they have to replace the
gasoline tax.

~~~
hanniabu
I would think it should be the other way around where gas cars would need to
pay carbon tax. Or we can just call it even. Or in a hopeful scenario, stop
oil and gas subsidies.

~~~
rad_gruchalski
Depending on location, we already pay carbon taxes. In gasoline, tax on the
new car, green sticker for being able to drive into low emission zones.
Electric cars have none of that, yet they contribute heavily. For example by
using electricity produced from coal. It’s just that the owner does not see
the emissions.

------
gfodor
I predict the 2020's will turn out to be the most difficult-to-predict decade
yet. The predictions of the OP in my mind fail to account for several yet-to-
mature disruptive technologies that will potentially transform our society to
the degree the Internet and web have. The only prediction I'll make is in the
domain where I work:

By the end of the decade, most people will be wearing some kind of immersive
computing device (glasses, contacts, perhaps neurological etc) all day which
allow software to proxy most aspects of their visual and audio perception,
perhaps more.

Among the many results of this change, the most profound will be the loss of
physical co-presence as a factor for interacting with other people. People
will routinely 'beam in' each other (similar to FaceTime conceptually, but
with no visual or auditory perceptual deficiency vs being together in person)
in varying contexts for varying purposes.

The technical miracle aside, this will cause a fundamental shift in the way we
think about what it means to "be" with other people -- the dependence upon
physical co-locality will be no longer something we place highly in our mental
model for spending time with others, other than children.

This will affect nearly every industry in terms of economics, some sectors
potentially catastrophically like long distance transportation, but the
biggest effect will be degree to which we will become able to empathize with
others around the world and create novel, deeply impactful forms of
interacting with others in a physical and emotional sense.

I suspect, perhaps hope, that the dominating result will be that, in
combination with new forms of media based upon these new technological
marvels, we will be able to greatly reduce or eliminate the tribalist
tendencies we have for one another when those 'others' are out-of-reach for us
to talk with, hug, dance with, and learn from.

In 2030, you'll be able to hug anyone on Earth instantly, and that's something
to be optimistic about.

~~~
dagss
The internet is already a huge step up in communication from 20 years ago.
Turns out people use that to find ideologically likeminded people meaning
tribalist movements everywhere are stronger now than before internet came
along. 90's were full of optimism about how tribalism could be overcome that
is completely vanished now.

From the same technological situation you describe I can only think of how
people would use that only to further isolate themselves. At least today,
physical location sometimes dictate you have to interact with people outside
of your own social class and background. What you describe could reduce that,
making every one retreat even further into their echo chamber.

People already live in close proximity to millions in cities. They generally
don't hug each other; more fixated on rushing past each other, avoiding eye
contact.

Humans just aren't made for having 7 billion friends...

~~~
mymythisisthis
The Internet had temperately killed technical clubs like HAM radio, wood
working shops etc., as people got into coding and could collaborate remotely.
Around 2008 lots of Makerspaces started to open, but not nearly enough, the
maker movement has stalled though.

We need to rethink the ways schools operate, from 8am-3pm they can be for
kids. After 4pm they can be adult learning hubs, maker spaces, DIY bicycle
repair shops etc.

~~~
rch
I think libraries are a better fit than public schools, and some already have
maker spaces, seed banks or gardens, and opportunities for continuing
education. With funding provided by a dedicated library district (which is
increasingly common) in addition to private foundation support, these
institutions can have a significant positive impact in the communities they
serve.

~~~
tick_tock_tick
School are normally significantly larger and mostly unused outside of their
normal operating hours. Realistically it shouldn't be an either or thing but
rather both.

------
brlewis
> We will see nuclear power make a resurgence around the world, particularly
> smaller reactors that are easier to build and safer to operate.

Funny, I was digging into this issue just this morning. One family member
supports Andrew Yang, but another won't support anyone who advocates for
nuclear power.

Despite Thorium not being fully proven yet, I lean toward agreement with Yang:
[https://en.howtruthful.com/o/nuclear_power_is_a_crucial_comp...](https://en.howtruthful.com/o/nuclear_power_is_a_crucial_component_in_the_move_towards_creating_sustainable_carbon-
free_energy_for_the_united_states/68e13aad02e98d53843bc788f00ff193)

~~~
nradov
I support nuclear power, however I doubt we will ever see many more reactors
built in most countries. The growth of photovoltaic solar power combined with
coming cheaper grid scale battery storage is going to wreck the economics for
nuclear (including fusion if it ever works).

~~~
paul_f
The big assumption being economical grid storage. We don't have a technology
yet to do that.

~~~
mdorazio
Yes we do and it’s already being deployed. See [1] for example.

[1] [https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2019/07/29/california-gas-
plant-...](https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2019/07/29/california-gas-plant-to-be-
re-powered-with-batteries-solar/)

------
aazaa
Many of these seem like wishful thinking on the part of the author. For
example, take the first one:

> The looming climate crisis will be to this century what the two world wars
> were to the previous one.

Oddly enough, if you go back to 2010 for predictions about the next decade,
you'll see quite a few people talking about "peak oil." Almost nobody
predicted a sharp turnaround in oil production and I don't think anyone in
2009 was predicting that the US would become a net oil exporter by the start
of 2020.

I'll make a counter-prediction on the topic of climate crisis for the 2020s:

The climate crisis movement will become widely discredited for its attempts to
manipulate scientific data and the scientific process for political ends.
Grave prophecies of doom will not come to pass, causing loss of momentum and
credibility. Climate research will continue, and as a result, new thermal
regulatory mechanisms will emerge that lead to a more nuanced view of future
climate change.

~~~
commandlinefan
> Grave prophecies of doom will not come to pass, causing loss of momentum and
> credibility.

Why would you think this? Grave prophecies of doom have failed to come to pass
for nearly half a century now and the climate change tale is _gaining_
momentum.

~~~
pmiller2
Failed to come to pass? Are you aware there’s an entire _continent_ literally
on fire right now?

~~~
RookyNumbas
Australia is always on fire. More of has burnt many times, many decades ago.

I'm not saying that climate change isn't responsible. I do believe that it has
increased the severity of the situation, and that is a big problem. But this
is not a doomsday scenario. It's a once every 20 years going back as long as
we can measure scenario.

I think your reaction is a perfect example of what the parent comment is
talking about.

------
jl2718
> people overestimate what will happen in a year and underestimate what will
> happen in a decade.

Last decade seemed like the opposite. So much happened every year, but nothing
changed over the decade. The biggest change seems to be the expansion of
aggrieved classes to include almost everybody. This only applies to “the West”
of course. Changes elsewhere are perhaps striking.

~~~
dwaltrip
There are enormous changes ocurring. Rapid development of less developed
countries, complete commoditization of computing power, secularization of
america (catching up to Europe), revizitalizion of the space industry (SpaceX
and other "new space" companies, smallsats, internet constellations, etc),
amazing resurgence of psychedelic research, prosthetics and other biotech
advancing rapidly, continued progress in many fundamental technologies
(batteries, materials science, robotics, BMIs, etc), AI technologies,
information representation and communication (changes in media, continued
digitalization of business, etc).

The list goes on and on.

~~~
gfodor
I agree - the list of technologies (not just bits and atoms, but human
institutions) winding their way along the innovation cycle leaves many, many
reasons to feel confident the next decade is going to be one of profound,
transformative, positive change.

One potential dark horse is genetic engineering. I wonder how close we are to
the point where kids are doing gene hacking after school. It could happen this
decade.

------
politelemon
I would take a pessimistic view on #8:

> Mass surveillance by governments and corporations will become normal and
> expected this decade and people will increasingly turn to new products and
> services to protect themselves from surveillance. The biggest consumer
> technology successes of this decade will be in the area of privacy.

I'd take this a step further and fear that not only will it become the norm,
even making use of privacy tech and devices will be viewed with suspicion or
may even serve as barriers towards getting access to various societal
instruments.

~~~
matt_kantor
> making use of privacy tech and devices will ... serve as barriers towards
> getting access to various societal instruments

This already happens.

For example, in the US good credit is often necessary to rent an apartment,
open a bank account, get insurance, or even land a job. In order to maintain
"good credit", one needs to make sure their financial activity is reported to
the bureaus. If you do everything using more-private cash or debit
transactions you lose out.

~~~
sroussey
Yes, but...

Some things you want as a signal and some things you don’t. Paying rent on
time should be a signal, but often is not. Going to a cancer clinic may not be
a signal you want, but already is exploited.

Nuance is needed. Lots of small but important decisions to be made. Sounds
like a product to me.

------
PaulAJ
China is _not_ going to provide a crypto version of its currency. The Chinese
government is all about centralisation and control. It will go for electronic
transactions via a few tightly-controlled banks combined with the elimination
of physical cash.

~~~
djmips
This has already happened AFAIK.

~~~
amursft
I recall seeing that they were experimenting with it. Yep, here's a story from
August.

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-12/china-
s-p...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-12/china-s-pboc-says-
its-own-cryptocurrency-is-close-to-release)

~~~
chefkoch
>Unlike decentralized blockchain-based offerings, the PBOC’s currency is
intended to give Beijing more control over its financial system.

So not what you are expecting from a crypto currency?

~~~
redisman
Wow sounds great can't wait to invest in this propaganda coin.

------
seanalltogether
> Plant based diets will dominate the world by the end of the decade. Eating
> meat will become a delicacy, much like eating caviar is today. Much of the
> world’s food production will move from farms to laboratories.

This needs a huge asterisks at the end of it right? You could argue that plant
based diets already dominate the world. Now if he's claiming that "muscular"
foods that are produced in a lab will pound for pound outsell animal based
meat I would happily take that bet against him.

~~~
Animats
Look at Impossible Burger. Burger King sells them. Try an Impossible Whopper
alongside the Beef Whopper. They're making a million pounds of burgers a
month, from soy, potatoes, and heme for the meat flavor. Their plant in
Oakland is only the size of a supermarket. This isn't an expensive product to
make.

When the beef industry's lobbyist in Washington first tried one, he called his
people and said, "Guys, we have a problem".

~~~
paul_f
There is a coming backlash against fake meat due to the amount of chemicals
and processing required. It's not just soy, potatoes and flavoring.

~~~
Animats
Yes, and it's funny.[1] The Impossible Burger was cool when it cost $20 at
Jardiniere. Then the company scaled up and started supplying Burger King. This
got some foodies upset. Wait until they get the price down to well below meat
and start supplying McDonalds.

[1] [https://www.vox.com/future-
perfect/2019/10/7/20880318/meatle...](https://www.vox.com/future-
perfect/2019/10/7/20880318/meatless-meat-mainstream-backlash-impossible-
burger)

~~~
imtringued
If that happens then we will stop seeing meat in any processed food because of
extreme cost cutting even if people still want real meat.

~~~
redisman
Processed food often already has a huge portion of soy and/or wheat protein in
addition to the grade F meat. HN's Whole Foods crowd seem to way over-estimate
Your Average Persons diet and how much they care what's in the tasty meal.

------
bransonf
A few good takes, but China becoming the dominant global power? Not a good
take.

China is fairly good at a few things, namely lending money and manufacturing
goods.

What they aren’t good at is making people happy. See Hong Kong for the last 6
months.

I don’t think the United States is becoming increasingly isolationist. I think
we’ve seen a brief period of these attitudes, but it’s not indicative of the
next decade imo.

And the author seems to think China will be able to rapidly adapt to change,
pointing to global warming.

China is the world’s worst source of pollution. I don’t think they’re going to
180, especially since their economy is built on it.

~~~
joyjoyjoy
"What they aren’t good at is making people happy. See Hong Kong for the last 6
months."

Wrong Chinese people are very happy. In some rankings they belong to the
happiest people. Here they are medium range:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/09/10...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/09/10/a-fascinating-
map-of-the-worlds-happiest-and-least-happy-countries/)

My prediction:

We will see an economic depression, also caused by energy problems. The
current quantitative easing is actually the first sign of the problems with
energy: [https://ourfiniteworld.com/2019/09/12/our-energy-and-debt-
pr...](https://ourfiniteworld.com/2019/09/12/our-energy-and-debt-predicament-
in-2019/)

PS: The US is also pretty good at making other countries unhappy. Iraq,
Afghanistan, Iran to name a few :-)

~~~
Baeocystin
"How's life in soviet russia?"

"Can't complain!"

This is the mistake you're making regarding China.

Source: grew up there

~~~
joyjoyjoy
"How's life in China?"

"Great!"

Source: I live there!

This is the mistake you're making regarding stuff you have no idea of.

~~~
Baeocystin
>Source: grew up there

~~~
joyjoyjoy
Yeah. Because we know that post-soviet Russians are very happy people. Not.

Source: I am there once a month.

~~~
loco5niner
I think you are missing the joke...

I imagine that if English is not your first language, it would be easy to miss
this, since the joke plays on multiple meanings for the phrase "can't
complain".

Usually, in this context, "Can't complain" means "life is good".

However, in this joke, the secondary meaning of "Can't complain" indicates
that "You can't complain about life in soviet Russia, because if you do
complain, you get in big trouble".

Basically, this indicates that life in soviet Russia was NOT good.

------
PaulAJ
Any prediction of decentralisation of the Internet, or anything built on it,
needs to explain how this will overcome the economies of scale (1 big data
centre is cheaper than 1000 little ones) and the network effects (everyone
buys and sells through Amazon because thats where you find the most buyers and
sellers).

~~~
FreeHugs

        1 big data centre is cheaper
        than 1000 little ones
    

There are billions of computers out there that are idle most of the time.
Utilizing them might very well be cheaper then building and maintaining a new
datacenter.

    
    
        everyone buys and sells through
        Amazon because thats where you
        find the most buyers and sellers
    

Not everyone. Not even the majority. Even in the USA which is Amazons biggest
market, their market share is less then 50%. Individual onlineshops are also
moving billions. Even the small ones built with Shopify are moving billions
when you combine their revenue. And then there is Ebay, Facebook Marketplace,
Alibaba, Rakuten, Zalando ... all moving billions worth of goods.

~~~
ohazi
> There are billions of computers out there that are idle most of the time.

They will remain idle unltil untethered energy and bandwidth become free.

I won't let you use my phone's spare cycles and murder my battery while we're
still using lipo cells that degrade after 2 years with _regular_ use.

~~~
hanniabu
> They will remain idle unltil untethered energy and bandwidth become free

unless you tie it to an incentive, and thus you arrive at cryptocurrencies

~~~
stickfigure
Funny you mention that, since we've seen cryptocurrency processing
concentrated in big data centers... for all the same reasons everything else
is located in big data centers - energy and bandwidth are cheaper.

~~~
hanniabu
That's up to whoever is supplying the services. While many may be outsourcing
this to data centers, I'm sure it's not the case for everyone and there are
people operating their own hardware.

------
stephc_int13
In my opinion, most the predictions made here are dumb, to be honest.

It seems like a mix of wishful thinking and linear projection of a few trends
this particular VC happen to like, but nothing bold or creative, nothing that
could make me think and wonder.

Are most VCs living in their own world or something?

------
ma2rten
Regarding China, I believe that the Chinese economy will collapse because less
and less countries will want to do business with China due to it’s human
rights violations.

Regarding plan based diets, I agree but I think that eating meat will be seen
as babaric. I believe that the way way we treat animals now will be seen
similarly as we see slavery now.

Regarding, decentralized internet and crypto currencies. I don’t see why those
would happen and believe will see more regulation not less.

~~~
wayoutthere
> Regarding China, I believe that the Chinese economy will collapse because
> less and less countries will want to do business with China due to it’s
> human rights violations.

Think you're totally wrong here. The only countries that will care about
China's human rights record are the NATO countries. The other 6 billion people
in the world live under governments that will be happy to work with a
superpower willing to look the other way to their own transgressions.

~~~
ma2rten
But those are the countries that China would want to trade with.

China also has territorial conflicts with all of it’s neighbors in South China
Sea.

~~~
wayoutthere
China is very much in the same position the US was in at the turn of the 20th
century: lots of territorial conflict with old powers, but a grudging
recognition that the winds of change are in their favor. All it will take is a
single small-scale conflict akin to the Spanish-American War and China will
have unquestioned dominance over the South China Sea (like the US did with the
Caribbean and South Pacific).

Their neighbors will be forced to play nice with them or be blockaded. Which
is exactly what the US did in the early 1900s with central / south American
banana republics. There is a playbook for ascendant superpowers, and China is
just playing their best hand. Anyone who isn't a superpower is just going to
have to accept what China does.

------
octocode
If we start predicting that the 2020's will be the rise of the remote-working
6-hour workday, maybe it will catch even more momentum and finally become
true.

------
RivieraKid
> Countries will create and promote digital/crypto versions of their fiat
> currencies

Why? I don't see what would be the benefit of that. Fiat currency already is
digital. And - at least where I live - domestic transfers are instant.

~~~
petters
Giving each citizen an account at the central bank. Then everyone will have
access to "real" money digitally (not only via cash, which is currently the
case).

~~~
jayd16
What's the point? Why would countries bother?

~~~
buboard
tracking everything

------
cableshaft
What will happen in the 2020s: “Error establishing a database connection.”

Yep, sounds about right.

~~~
jl2718
Maybe this is the decade that web developers will finally stop using dynamic
databases for static content.

I'll predict the opposite. Web stacks will get even more unnecessarily complex
and buggy. Investment sizes, late-stage development cycles, and page size,
will continue to grow toward infinity while startup success rates drop closer
to zero. Page load times on the best available connection and hardware will
remain constant as it always has.

------
theincredulousk
I think the next decade will see a radical change in the materials used to
make a significant percentage of common goods. From biodegradable materials
that equal the performance of petro/plastics, to graphene replacing steel,
aluminum, carbon-fiber, etc. for many applications. Also potentially changing
the game with respect to microchip fabrication and performance.

RE: Graphene though, there are so many military applications, that it’s hard
to say what the lag will be to civilian technology. If history is any
indication, and I hope it isn’t, there could be a decade or (much) more
between first production applications and public knowledge that those
applications even exist, let alone having access to products incorporating
them.

------
travisoneill1
> 4/ Countries will create and promote digital/crypto versions of their fiat
> currencies, led by China who moves first and benefits the most from this
> move. The US will be hamstrung by regulatory restraints and will be slow to
> move, allowing other countries and regions to lead the crypto sector. Asian
> crypto exchanges, unchecked by cumbersome regulatory restraints in Europe
> and the US and leveraging decentralized finance technologies, will become
> the dominant capital markets for all types of financial instruments.

People will not start trusting the Chinese government in the next 10 years. If
there is a use for crypto here it will be for rich Chinese to evade their
government when moving money outside the country as they typically do.

~~~
Animats
_If there is a use for crypto here it will be for rich Chinese to evade their
government when moving money outside the country as they typically do._

That's the real use of Bitcoin. It's why Bitcoin mining is such a big thing in
China. It's "exporting". Made in China, sold outside China - that's exporting,
and not only legal, but encouraged and subsidized. Buy a share in a Bitcoin
mine in yuan, watch your EUR or USD balance build up in Hong Kong or
Switzerland.

~~~
opportune
It also messes up the Bitcoin mining economics for the rest of the world. If
you see mining bitcoin as a way to convert CNY -> equipment and electricity ->
bitcoin -> foreign currency, you’re willing to operate at a loss. Kind of like
how when people launder money they accept they’ll only get 50% or something of
their dirty money converted into clean, except in reverse.

------
gz5
>5/ A decentralized internet will emerge, led initially by decentralized
infrastructure services like storage, bandwidth, compute, etc. The emergence
of decentralized consumer applications will be slow to take hold and a killer
decentralized consumer app will not emerge until the latter part of the
decade.

The pendulum of history suggests this will occur (at some point), and I hope
it happens sooner than later in many respects, but it is also seems like one
in which we won't know the triggers/causes/sparks until after the fact,
partially because it seems it will take complex combinations of causes?

Anyone seeing possible sparks which perhaps the rest of us aren't yet
identifying?

~~~
chubot
Maybe there will be a need for massive computing in remote areas: Antartica,
or space. They need a lot of local storage and compute. And they have low
bandwidth.

It's kind of like GPUs are in cars right now. You can't drive a Tesla with
dumb sensors over the Internet -- you need smart local compute.

[https://www.wired.com/story/tesla-self-driving-car-
computer-...](https://www.wired.com/story/tesla-self-driving-car-computer-
chip-nvidia/)

So I guess IoT and doing heavy local computation is a technical reason you
would need decentralization. I can see that happening for many use cases. I'm
not sure if it will happen for the consumer web because centralization is more
efficient and the current network effects are so ingrained. Similar to how
Windows is still dominant on the desktop, but iOS/Android are perhaps more
important platforms.

\---

I think major changes in behavior are driven by new hardware -- phones in the
00's, PC's in the 80's, Internet in the 90's, etc.

People have been trying to push VR, but to me VIDEO is the real VR -- more
stuff happens there and more people use it. I was chatting with a friend
yesterday and observed that YouTube is basically what "SecondLife" was
supposed to be. People are exchanging all kinds of valuable information and
entertainment on YouTube.

So if you need to process a lot of video locally for some reason, that could
be a killer app for decentralization. Just like a self-driving car, although
I'm bearish on self-driving impacting the average consumer in the next 10
years. I think it will continue to be cheaper to operate rideshares with human
drivers in most parts of the world and most terrains/climates.

~~~
meesterdude
> YouTube is basically what "SecondLife" was supposed to be. People are
> exchanging all kinds of valuable information and entertainment on YouTube.

A keen observation!

~~~
chubot
Yeah it's probably because I've been watching a lot of YouTube lately, but it
feels like there's just a lot more real interaction going on there than on
other platforms. It sounds like Twitch is the same way.

One example: I learned how to clean my toilet from this video.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wd6pV5lyvG8&t=1s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wd6pV5lyvG8&t=1s)

The comments are hilarious... Tons of people having the same "AHA" moment.
(Basically you paper mache your toilet with vinegar and wait a couple hours.
Old mineral stains come off like butter!)

Compare a google search for "clean toilet" and it feels like a bunch of SEO-
infested crap.

YouTube is more like the "old web" where you can get a real opinion on
something.

\-----

I have friends who cook and that's a whole other subculture of YouTube. I've
been watching a good MMA show. And there are programming streams, and pretty
much every programming conference has an archive, which is a rich archive of
free information (e.g. PyCon, CppCon, etc.)

I don't know what's going on in Second Life now but to me it feels like it's
probably not "real life". I guess people want "life" and not "second life",
and video is becoming an increasingly large aspect of the former.

------
cinnamonheart
I'm seeing a database error, but there's a similar site with 2020 predictions
(and onwards):

[https://futuretimeline.net/21stcentury/2020-2029.htm](https://futuretimeline.net/21stcentury/2020-2029.htm)

Most of the 'predictions' have links explaining why they think this may occur
in that timeframe, e.g., this one about exascale computers:
[https://www.futuretimeline.net/21stcentury/2021.htm#exascale](https://www.futuretimeline.net/21stcentury/2021.htm#exascale)

------
csomar
> The looming climate crisis will be to this century what the two world wars
> were to the previous one.

I don't think so. WWII was a war between two fronts. Climate change affects
countries very differently. The ones not affected much will unlikely
contribute. My guess is that everyone to his own in this one.

> experiments to reallocate wealth and income more equitably will produce a
> new generation of world leaders who ride this wave to popularity.

I don't think it'll be more than experiments. Capital is very sensitive to
being grabbed by government for the benefit of the "people". My guess is that
we'll see countries that try to have their industries collapse; while other
countries letting that capital flow to them.

> China will emerge as the world’s dominant global superpower

China is doomed to fail in the long run. Not sure if it's going to happen in
the next decade or later, though. But it'd be all good and hopefully democracy
is established.

> Countries will create and promote digital/crypto versions of their fiat
> currencies, led by China who moves first and benefits the most from this
> move.

This was already tried and failed. Crypto-currencies have no meaning without
the decentralized factor. Governments will never be able to establish their
crypto due to the fact that they want to control the underlying.

> Asian crypto exchanges, unchecked by cumbersome regulatory restraints in
> Europe and the US and leveraging decentralized finance technologies

Kinda related to the point above. Countries with low taxes are going to boom
further as western countries are tightening their fiscal game.

> A decentralized internet will emerge, led initially by decentralized
> infrastructure services like storage, bandwidth, compute, etc.

I, very, believe this one and hope it happens in the next decade.

~~~
ianai
China doomed to fail based on what?

~~~
almost_usual
Witness what’s going on in Hong Kong? There’s plenty of speculation that
what’s happening there is being funded or supported by an opposing party in
China. Older generations are also implicitly supporting protestors there very
carefully. The young college kids are who everyone sees but there is a lot
happening behind the curtain.

China has had multiple generations of unrest. It isn’t just the young
generation that is ready for change.

I wouldn’t say China itself is doomed but communism there might be.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
The older generation in Hong Kong, if my friends there are in any way
representative (all adults at 97 handover, like me) in what they tell me,
simply hold the same resentments they did in 98, 99, 00 etc for the changes
China has made to their home and how it is governed, and the constant chipping
away at what they have. Some of those friends have been out on the marches and
protests across the years, not just 2019's. First demo in favour of universal
suffrage was probably in 98 when China dismantled the electoral system for the
LegCo and replaced with the pro-Beijing weighted system. Universal suffrage of
the Chief Exec was promised right back then.

It doesn't need an opposing mainland party to explain HK. There may be, but I
see little evidence for it.

------
fabatka
>7/[...] The early years of this decade will produce a wave of hype and
investment in the space business but returns will be slow to come and we will
be in a trough of disillusionment on the space business as the decade comes to
an end.

I guess this depends on SpaceX's success with the Starship - if a rocket that
is made outside a cleanroom and with cheap rolled steel frame proves to be
usable means that going to space becomes very very accessible.

~~~
Faark
Yeah, but space needs to be profitable, not just accessible, for private
companies to take over investments. Even as SpaceX fanboy, I have a hard time
imagining this any time soon.

Space based internet constellations have a huge resurgence right now, but
that's unlikely what the author meant.

(Asteroid) Mining? Even if we already had the tech, such a mission would take
decades. Who would accept the uncertainty risk of investing over such long
time-spans? That is, if there is anything worthy enough to mine in space in
the first place, will that still be the case many years later?

Tourism might be a thing, but enough to bootstrap an entire space economy?

Countries/politicians/billionaires wanting to project power or memorialize
themselves still seems like the safest bet to me.

------
jackcosgrove
I too dream of a decentralized internet and especially decentralized cloud
resources, but I can't find a way around the question of how you securely host
a database on some random person's idle computer/"spot instance". If that data
is compromised, who do you sue? The random person who has no assets?

Data security ultimately depends on secure physical access to the hosting
hardware. Not everything can or should be put in a public database, so you
need physical security. Cloud providers provide physical security plus
trustworthiness due to their reputations, as well as deep pockets to sue if
something goes wrong.

Most industries end up with only a few competing firms. Why would cloud
computing be different? I'm open to solutions on data security.

~~~
Spearchucker
Multiple clients sync to/from a server. Server syncs with other servers. Part
of the sync with clients is a list of all servers so clients can cycle servers
until sync succeeds. Eventual consistency. I'm doing this with a small dataset
now.

~~~
jackcosgrove
That solves consistency but does not secure the data against a malicious node.

~~~
Spearchucker
Data is encrypted (or not) by the client. The server is a zero-knowledge sync
service.

I have an open source client that does client side encryption. I hope that
once released people will use it, or ideas from it, to create their own
clients.

------
ekianjo
> 6/ Plant based diets will dominate the world by the end of the decade.
> Eating meat will become a delicacy, much like eating caviar is today. Much
> of the world’s food production will move from farms to laboratories.

In this decade? Not a chance. Maybe in 50 years this is more likely.

------
FreeHugs

        A decentralized internet
        will emerge
    

It already is decentralized. No single authority controls the routing of
packets.

    
    
        led initially by decentralized
        infrastructure services like
        storage, bandwidth, compute, etc.
    

Seems like what he means is that more decentralized services will be built on
top of the internet. Services, where you don't know who will provide the
service you are buying. And where anybody can jump in to provide that service.

A bit like AirBnB, Uber etc. But probably he means that the rules of those new
services will be enforced by protocols, rather then by companies. So I guess
Bitcoin is the most prominent example of such a service that is already in
existence.

------
sethgibbons
I’m hoping that in 2020 fewer VCs will try to market themselves by making
random predictions for the future.

~~~
F_J_H
...and that we'll have fewer trolls...

------
ledauphin
#9 is hilarious. There will be 50 year old millennials in 2030, making the
"prediction" nothing more than an observation about how political power has
worked for all of known history.

~~~
pmiller2
Not to mention it completely ignores Gen X.

------
ilaksh
The global debt crisis and intractable US entitlements will lead to a global
depression. China will promote a new cryptocurrency to compete directly with
the failing dollar. The US and allies will attempt to use their massive
military to defend the dollar. China will not have sufficient military might
be so will lean on other countries in particular Russia with their nuclear
arsenal.

World War III will be sold on supposed moral grounds as all wars are. China
and other countries will say that they need to defeat an evil US that is
immoral and forcing the world to use their baseless currency causing great
suffering. The US will say that China is attempting to create a global
dictatorship with total control and no freedom. Both sides will see moral
justification to fight to the death.

As the likelihood of the war ramps up over the next few years, there will be a
feverish push to create general purpose AI and improved robotic locomotion
such as artificial muscle-based locomotion with high strength to weight
ratios. Around the time that the first nuclear salvos arrive, perhaps around
2023-2025, these efforts will pay off with robust general AI and humanoid
robots.

By 2030, the planet will be a nuclear wasteland, with several billion dead.
There will be a new religion pushing to give the AGIs full autonomy and
control. The Martian colony will have a few dozen people already and rapidly
ramping up.

A growing group of nuclear survivors have adapted with advanced high bandwidth
brain-computer interfaces connected to superintelligent AI systems that act as
a supercortical layer.

~~~
buboard
When is the movie out?

------
buboard
What about demographic collapse in the west/china? will it not overshadow a
lot of this? Esp coupled with demographic looming catastrophe in africa. Poor
countries becoming increasingly unsustainable at a time when the developed
ones will be least able to help.

~~~
rgarrett88
Immigration will make both of these things less of an issue. It will create
increasing political tensions.

~~~
buboard
immigration requires opportunity, and opportunity is becoming increasingly
scarce in europe. it's more likely, lots of capital will be reallocated
towards the growing parts of africa

~~~
nradov
Immigration doesn't require opportunity if you're fleeing from drug cartels or
islamist death squads.

~~~
buboard
that's a very small number; and they re refugees

------
grok2
What? No reference to country specific disconnected-from-the-rest-of-the-world
Internet, a-la Russia's experiment a few days ago? To me, more government
control over the Internet to the extent of governments basically sealing the
Internet to within country borders with more regulation (taxes, anyone?) of
out-of-country access seems like a no-brainer thing happening in the upcoming
decade...way more than just the great-wall-of-china firewall.

------
booleandilemma
This kind of reads more like a wishlist than a list of predictions.

------
spodek
Climate left out many other environmental issues: pollution, plastic,
extinctions, etc

Most of all Overpopulation.

People fear discussing it now because they only know of China's policy and
eugenics. I predict that the successful, non-coercive policies of Thailand,
Iran, Mexico, etc that increased peace, prosperity, and stability will become
better known.

Those models will lead us to realize that we can peacefully and stably lower
birth rate to increase peace and prosperity, easing all other environmental
problems. We'll realize steady-state following de-growth works more
successfully on a full finite planet than pushing economic and population
growth forever.

~~~
jtr1
I'm intrigued by this and definitely open to learning more about de-growth
models. Would you mind providing some examples of the policies implemented in
these countries?

~~~
spodek
Alan Weisman's book Countdown revealed to me about countries that lowered
birth rates without coercion. Before reading it I only know about the one-
child policy and some eugenics attempts. I highly recommend the book. I just
recorded a conversation with him for my podcast. Fascinating conversation but
it's still in the editing queue.

Off the top of my head, his main examples were Thailand, Iran, and Mexico.
Here's a piece on Thailand
[https://www.context.org/iclib/ic31/frazer](https://www.context.org/iclib/ic31/frazer).
Wikipedia covers Iran between 1989 and 2006
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_planning_in_Iran](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_planning_in_Iran).
Cultures including Japan and Italy saw dramatic decreases in birthrates
without focused efforts.

Here are videos of him:
[https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=alan+weisman&oq...](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=alan+weisman&oq=&gs_l=).
I haven't watched them, but probably will give you a jump start on the book.

------
Damorian
I look forward to laughing at this list a decade from now.

------
Yizahi
No excessive carbon taxation will happen. No significant or global emergence
of digital currencies (not including regular "electronic" dollars or euro).
Meat may become more rare along with fish (due to still unregulated in 2030
overfishing and acidification), but there will be no or almost no lab grown
food. Mass surveillance will propagate even more but privacy will not succeed
or become sought by majority.

------
graycat
Plant based food?

Well, let me think! I just ate a home cooked pizza. The total calories were
654, and 455 of those were from just the flour, a "plant based food"!

More generally, in the US, big time grocery store items are milk, butter,
cream, eggs, beef, chickens, and pork.

For feeding the animals, we have grass, hay, wheat, corn, and soy beans. E.g.,
look at a rail yard

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Qv7y0W_mNM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Qv7y0W_mNM)

and see the long train of grain cars!!! We're talking a LOT of grain.

For the retired dairy cattle, "think fast food" \-- US hamburgers are not
going away at all soon!

Point: No way, not a chance, not even a teeny, tiny chance, will that huge
industry and supply chain, with huge fractions of the land in the US South and
Midwest devoted to growing animal feed, be displaced or even affected by
"laboratory" anything.

Sure, we grow some mushrooms in caves. And some greenhouses grow tomatoes and
maybe oregano, bib lettuce, basil, rosemary, etc. But greenhouses and
hydroponics both go way back with no chance of anything similar having a big,
new impact now.

------
amursft
Good predictions.

Didn't mention distributed/remote work. Not sure if that's because it's so
obvious a trend as to be boring?

I think he's early on the plant-based diet prediction, but correct in 20-30
years. Actually a lot of these seem like trends that might take more than 10
years, but have a high chance of being correct eventually.

~~~
rubidium
Distributed work will continue to be a minor thing prevalent mainly in tech
circles. Human nature doesn’t change on 10 year timescales. We’re tribal
beings who organize around work and family.

Best Buy’s pullback from it for their office staff is instructive.

~~~
chrstphrhrt
Yeah I've been doing remote 95% of the last couple years and it takes a toll
not being able to be around people at all. Even as a mostly introverted person
who needs quiet alone time for solving harder problems and general flow state.
There's something about social interaction that helps with motivation that I
find hard to get over chat and video. This is assuming the people are not
toxic somehow.

~~~
gfodor
See my post above: there are reasons to be optimistic remote social presence
and shared spatial awareness for many contexts will be solved this decade.

------
rvz
Some of the points made here I agree with, probably slightly more accurate
that the other warped predictions I’ve seen so far.

However, I question that predictions /2 and /6 seem to be wildly far-fetched
that it’s as if the author based his predictions from a damaged magic mirror.

/2) While the tech is there for automation, Several safety and regulatory
requirements the AI technology is not transparent enough to completely replace
workers. This will take more years to only end up being a complimentary tool
for its users.

/6) doesn’t sound very realistic to achieve in this decade. The research is
experimental or starting to emerge but not mature yet for be available to all
yet and will not be in this decade. Probably the next or very late 2020s.

I’m surprised to see that mainstream AR not being mentioned nor the further
regulation of tech being detailed more in this article.

~~~
adventured
Several of his answers are between laughable and decades sooner than would be
possible under any scenario. It came across as Fred reaching desperately to
say something interesting and instead he just wrote a bunch of well-worn low
value fantasy from other sources.

Just look at how comical this stuff is:

> Plant based diets will dominate the world by the end of the decade. Eating
> meat will become a delicacy, much like eating caviar is today.

In one decade? Dominating the whole world and meat becoming a delicacy. That's
such a bad prediction it's borderline sad. Maybe over the course of 50-100
years. It would take a decade just to scratch the surface of that prediction.
It'll take decades just to scale up the necessary food production changes and
distribution required by that prediction. He entirely ignores the massive
investment required, the slow moving nature of it, the entrenched gatekeepers
that dictate food policies, and the very slow moving nature of changing global
consumer taste & demand (more likely to occur via aging out and new young
people adopting, rather than true mass adoption by existing people that have
all been eating meat for the entire lives; that will take a long time).

> Asian crypto exchanges, unchecked by cumbersome regulatory restraints in
> Europe and the US and leveraging decentralized finance technologies, will
> become the dominant capital markets for all types of financial instruments.

Things at that scale, dominated as they are in finance by giants with vested
interests and tightly regulated and influenced directly by military muscle, do
not change that much in the span of ten years or less. Another absurd,
impossible prediction. This is Fred going overboard on a crypto binge.

He might as well have said in his list that we'll all be piloting flying cars
in ten years. It's the exact same bullshit worthless futurism fantasy backed
with the exact same supporting basis (vapor).

> China will emerge as the world’s dominant global superpower leveraging its
> technical prowess and ability to adapt quickly to changing priorities

In ten years the US will still have the only global projection military and
will still have the world's largest economy. Another obvious error of
projection by Fred and a bad one at that. If everything goes right for China,
in 30 years they could theoretically occupy a dominant superpower position.
That's best case scenario. However what is most likely is that China will
split the world in half with the US and never achieve such an overwhelming
position and that they'll suffer stagnation due to well understood problems
they're already sinking under (demographics, debt, increasingly extreme
authoritarianism).

Basically none of what he lists in item #1 will occur in the next decade. Most
of it is so impossible to occur in the span of just ten years, that again,
it's super far fetched. Someone should have screened all of this for him
before he hit publish.

------
cable2600
>6/ Plant based diets will dominate the world by the end of the decade. Eating
meat will become a delicacy, much like eating caviar is today. Much of the
world’s food production will move from farms to laboratories.

GMO Frankenfood made in labs hasn't been proven safer than regular meat in
peer reviewed studies yet.

Eating all plants like potatoes in The Martian have to take multi-vitamins as
well. It is boring to eat the same thing each day.

McDonald's has farms so that it can sell a $1.48 McDouble cheaper than a $6
salad. If plants cost more money, why eat them when meat is cheaper? Ever
tried to price plants in the veggie section? They cost too much, but you can
buy a frozen pizza for $3 which is cheaper.

~~~
gfodor
It’s a fallacy when making ten year predictions to assume nothing will change
in order to lead to the prediction. Presumably for the idea of plant based
diets to dominate, there will need to be an available substitute for meat
which is competitive economically and in taste.

~~~
bergie
It might be enough to force near prices to include their environmental impact.
I think that's what the post says about meat becoming like caviar. So it would
still be available, just way too expensive for every day meals.

~~~
cable2600
Jacking up meat prices would upset a lot of people. Meat-substitutes would
have to be cheaper than they are now. Food By Products are already used in
meat as filler. Like ground beef and hamburgers have cereal or soy in them.

------
fernly
A lot of the regulations that "hamper" U.S.-based fiscal markets provide basic
protection against financial mismanagement and corruption. The writer's
supposition that relatively unhampered Asian crypto-currency markets would be
trusted is highly optimistic. They are more likely to turn out to be prone to
in-house theft or corrupt insider-dealing, or to external hacking (the 750K
BTC lost from Mt Gox are still missing[1]), or to government control and
manipulation.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mt._Gox#Bankruptcy;_stolen_bit...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mt._Gox#Bankruptcy;_stolen_bitcoin_\(2014%E2%80%93ongoing\))

------
boyadjian
There are two wealth in this world: financial wealth, and demographic wealth.
Both are limited by natural resources, so it should come as no surprise that
they are declining. Humanity will be confronted with the principle of reality.

~~~
ianai
What is demographic wealth?

~~~
amelius
I'm guessing a population that can generate wealth (think age distribution,
education).

------
29athrowaway
> 6/ Plant based diets will dominate the world by the end of the decade.
> Eating meat will become a delicacy, much like eating caviar is today. Much
> of the world’s food production will move from farms to laboratories.

Before refrigeration, a considerable amount of meat on the market was spoiled,
with a horrible taste as well as a horrible aftertaste. The price was much
higher than today. You had to use a sauce to make it more palatable.

It would have made sense to go vegan back then, but no. People are more
willing to eat spoiled, expensive meat with mold rather than going plant-
based.

------
Mikeb85
These predictions don't show any particular insight beyond the things that
absolutely everyone talked about in 2019. Literally just predicting that some
of this year's causes du jour will extend a decade.

------
aussiegreenie
Here are my 2 cents worth of prediction.

1\. Energy will become very cheap (almost free), solar and wind will be about
USD 5-7 per MW-h (or ~USD 13 per BOE)

2\. The Chinese CCP will fail. - China will return to local strongmen who may
claim to be the CCP. But are really Warlords similar to 1919 - 1940.

3\. Major ecological failure. The shit will really hit the fan. Millions dead
and many more millions trying to get to rich countries.

4\. Economic growth stalls - all the neo-liberal bullshit dies. Growth hits
hard ecological limits.

This is just the start, modern civilisation will be lucky to survive until
2040.

------
rayhendricks
One thing that was not mentioned was anti-trust action by the government. I
predict by 2030 one of the FAANG + MSFT will have been investigated and broken
up by the government. Leaning twords FB or AMZN.

------
pier25
The 2020s will be when the majority of humanity _finally_ agrees that we need
to make climate change our highest priority since it will be too obvious to
ignore. See what's happening in Australia now for example.

OTOH I don't think serious global action will happen in this decade. I
seriously hope I'm wrong on that one because we are already 40 years late and
I fear we might have passed the point of no return.

------
dadarepublic
There was a smattering throughout about areas where the US lags. There was a
lot of discussion around #6 but I found #3 to be quite interesting, esp. the
last sentence:

> Conversely the US becomes increasingly internally focused and isolationist
> in its world view

I wonder what are some people's thoughts on this - specifically if they agree
and what are some of the potential impacts to US citizens and abroad
(influence, wealth, industry leadership, etc)?

------
chiefalchemist
> We will see real estate values collapse in some of the most affected regions
> and we will see real estate values increase in regions that benefit from the
> warming climate.

Identifying the risky low lying areas is relatively easy. However, predicting
how and where the climate will change for the better, is at best a crap shot.

We'll know things are getting serious when there's talk on Wall Street about
moving out of lower Manhattan.

------
softwaredoug
> the US becomes increasingly internally focused and isolationist in its world
> view.

There’s about 50-60% of the US population, and 2/3 of the US economy, that are
very much eager to do business with the rest of the world. They are
concentrated in urban areas, and thus have issues in the political process,
but it’s enough clout that I wouldn’t make hard predictions about US
isolationism in the 2020s.

~~~
gfodor
Isolationism does not seem to be anything more than a ghost. Any analysis that
assumes that the current US administration is isolationist is in my opinion a
tell that someone is trapped in a filter bubble.

------
blueyes
This post from Alex Danco contains a similar but much more opinionated and
falsifiable set of predictions: [https://alexdanco.com/2019/12/17/ten-
predictions-for-the-202...](https://alexdanco.com/2019/12/17/ten-predictions-
for-the-2020s/)

------
bouncycastle
One prediction he missed out is the mining of space for scarce resources. (He
just touched on commercialization of space, but he probably assumed things
like satellite launching and space tourism)

I wouldn't be surprised if Tesla/SpaceX towed a lithium filled asteroid to
near Earth within the next decade. They are probably working on it right now.

Save this comment and come back in 2030

------
larnmar
On the central conceit about people underestimating how much happens in a
decade... how much has happened in the last decade?

I feel like very little has changed in the last decade. Technologically,
socially, politically, it feels like we’ve lived through a decade of very
little noticeable change, especially compared to other periods such as
1990-2000 or 1980-1990.

------
unexaminedlife
I think by the end (very end) of this decade it will become common place for
at least the upper class to cryogenically freeze and store a cell culture to
take advantage of advances in medicine that will also occur in this decade
such as affordable / reliable processes for growing your own organs for
transplant, etc.

------
XCSme
My prediction is that the top 10 defining factors in 2020 will have absolutely
nothing in common with this list.

------
Buttons840
My prediction: Average commute time will increase in proportion to the
adoption of self driving vehicles.

~~~
criddell
I think so too. Autonomous cars are going to fuel urban sprawl like crazy. I
know I want to get further out of the city. Once I can commute without driving
I won’t mind a long commute.

------
ianai
The predictions about China are a little confusing. I know they’ve copied lots
of foreign tech, but have they demonstrated any ability to source original
research and development that had no external links? This read a little like
what China would want the 2020s to look like.

~~~
arnaudsm
I agree. Except for mass manufacturing and stolen tech, most chinese tech is
smoke and mirrors at the moment. Chinese research is famously low-quality
given that most researchers are paid by the paper.

I hope their fusion and quantum experiments are real, and not PR lies like the
soviet union used to do in the 80s.

------
SlowRobotAhead
Fred Wilson (A VC) somehow dominates HN last New year as well... And was so
completely wrong it’s shocking anyone would promote him year after year.

It’s obvious to me people are doing so only because they WANT all these
predictions to come true not that they have any basis in reality. It’s bubble
talk for bubble people, no offense.

His solution to NN (which we all died from, remember?) was “blockchain”.

Here he is last year heavily propped up for saying Trump wouldn’t be in office
after Mueller probe... Remember the Mueller results? Anyone not involved in
hyper partisan politics knew it was going to be a dud.
[https://avc.com/2019/01/what-is-going-to-happen-
in-2019/](https://avc.com/2019/01/what-is-going-to-happen-in-2019/)

Just browsing his previous predictions just makes more curious how he gets
spotlights here every year. 2018 he made a list “questions” answering only
some himself, about 1/2 wrong. And 2017 is just... well... AI isn’t the new
Mobile, Cyberwarfare isn’t the new Cold War: [https://avc.com/2017/01/what-is-
going-to-happen-in-2017/](https://avc.com/2017/01/what-is-going-to-happen-
in-2017/)

~~~
rokhayakebe
_And was so completely wrong it’s shocking anyone would promote him year after
year._

This is a misunderstanding of how voting/promoting works. If someone is wrong
you may want to promote them as much as someone who is right in the hopes of
enlightening the masses.

Also, you may disagree with something and find it interesting still. In that
case upvoting makes sense.

Upvoting != Agreeing. Unfortunately, when you do not have a button for
agreeing or disagreeing, you are inclined to use the Vote button.

------
zoomablemind
Reminded me of 2009 "The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century" by
George Friedman of Stratfor. Among of his far fetched (but who knows, still
possible) predictions was Poland becoming [again] a decisive power in
Europe...

------
hkyeti
There's a large plant based burger chain here in Australia. Many of their
customers aren't even aware they aren't having meat, they just enjoy the
taste. I definitely think the plant based prediction is on the money.

------
weej
Bizarre: In chrome this is rendering as strange character set in UTF8, but
HTML source shows correct english text output.

[https://imgur.com/a/18CJCDY](https://imgur.com/a/18CJCDY)

------
unexaminedlife
By the end of this decade a commercialized, industrial strength solution will
exist for people to (a) make machines do things just by thinking, (b) transfer
a subset of your thoughts to someone else just by thinking them.

------
biolurker1
Majority of the HN community would downvote anything
decentralized/crypto/block chain up until a few months ago. Lately I see less
titled "why you don't need blockchain*. Let's see

------
aaron695
These are realy realy awful predictions.

> We will see real estate values collapse in some of the most affected regions
> and we will see real estate values increase in regions that benefit from the
> warming climate.

What happens this decade is the same as the last decade.

The difference is small for any measure. Seas rise at about the same rate,
climate changes at the same rate. wtf? If anything technology is improving and
long term implementations are starting to be implemented to reduce the issues
we saw from the last decade.

> Plant based diets will dominate the world

Meat will rise and continue to rise. The world is getting richer, this stats
are undeniable. It's like they look at the fad at McDonalds down the road and
extrapolate across the world. Once lab based meat becomes normal (perhaps this
decade) it will increase even faster.

------
jon_akimbo
The fallacy I see here is the assumption that today's hot topics will still be
as relevant in 10 years and not (as I suspect) superseded by wholly different
issues and problems.

------
justinzollars
My predictions:

1\. China overtakes the USA GDP by 2029

2\. Trump wins reelection

3\. The United States has a recession by 2021

4\. Inflation becomes an issue in the United States because of high debt,
increased military spending as a result of great power competition and huge
pension debts/promises coming due with baby boomers retiring. The best
investments (other then great startups of course) becomes Gold (because of the
proclivity to favor spenders over savors.)

5\. The United States will focus on big infrastructure spending.

6\. Google develops a competitor to Huawei's Safe City project for the United
States and its geopolitical allies, this will be a great benefit to our
society

7\. Humanity will reach mars

8\. Humanity will turn the corner on Carbon pollution

9\. San Francisco reaches a breaking point and elects moderates whose focus is
building more housing.

10\. The United States will join the TPP

11\. Chinese culture and media breaks out and becomes popular in a similar way
Hollywood and American culture is popular in other places

~~~
ertecturing
1\. Probably

2\. Trump wins by smaller margin (losing Michigan or Florida)

3\. What will the recession be caused by?

4\. Maybe younger voters vote against Social Security for this reason [insert
doubt]

5\. Unless Bernie is elected don't expect any infrastructure spending

6\. Huh

7\. Don't get your hopes up

8\. Maybe

9\. There's no breaking point. Their Hell has no bottom.

10\. Both Bernie & Trump are against TPP. Would require moderate to get it.

11\. Only Americans/Brits are good at spreading movie culture, that'll be true
for a long time to come.

------
mythrwy
I'm in doubt on most of this.

China won't become the dominate superpower this decade.

Plant based diets won't replace meat.

Youngsters won't replace oldsters in power (unless at that point they are the
oldsters).

A decentralized internet won't be the norm.

There won't be a WWII level of effort against man made climate change and in
fact after "nothing much happens" (again) the noise will die down.

Here's my prediction for the next decade: Some unexpected stuff happens but
mostly incremental changes. I do agree with #10.

------
DailyHN
> 2/ Automation will continue to take costs out of operating many of the
> services and systems that we rely on to live and be productive. The fight
> for who should have access to this massive consumer surplus will define the
> politics of the 2020s. We will see capitalism come under increasing scrutiny
> and experiments to reallocate wealth and income more equitably will produce
> a new generation of world leaders who ride this wave to popularity.

------
torinrittenberg
hey all - wondering your thoughts on my end-of-year notes around startup
fundraising and VC.

[https://torinrittenberg.com/writing/looking-back-and-
ahead-o...](https://torinrittenberg.com/writing/looking-back-and-ahead-on-the-
vc-funding-landscape)

------
tardo99
My favorite is the part where the torch will be passed from baby boomers to
millenials and gen z. As if there isn't an entire generation of people between
the baby boomers and the millenials.

------
mrfusion
I’m really curious to hear what we underestimated in 2010? Anyone have some
thoughts?

------
qznc
Interesting absence: No autonomous cars, no AI breakthrough, and no drone
delivery.

------
daxfohl
AI will attain perfect scores on international math and computing olympiads.
Toward the end of the decade we'll see AI solve an unsolved Clay Millennium
Problem.

------
knolax
> 9/ We will finally move on from the Baby Boomers dominating the conversation
> in the US and around the world and Millennials and Gen-Z will be running
> many institutions by the end of the decade. Age and experience will be less
> valued by shareholders, voters, and other stakeholders and vision and
> courage will be valued more

I don't how the first part of his prediction leads to the other. By the time
Millennials/Gen Z take control they'll be just as old amd curmudgeonly as the
Boomers. All in all the article seems pretty light on justification.

------
cleandreams
In my view being optimistic about the future is in conflict with believing
that China will become the dominant power. There are many concerning signals
from China, not least the situation of Muslims and also the surveillance
state. There is much we don't know about the true situation of debt, public
and private, in China.

~~~
magduf
>There are many concerning signals from China, not least the situation of
Muslims and also the surveillance state.

Why is the situation with Muslims concerning for China? For Muslims and for
anyone who cares about human rights, sure, it's concerning, but it does not
follow at all that this is bad for China. The US became the dominant power
despite having slavery longer than any western nation, and then having Jim
Crow laws for a full century afterwards, including during the post-WWII
economic boom.

I would argue that, unfortunately, there is no evidence that treating your
minorities well is necessary for economic success. In fact, it may be the
opposite. Ancient Rome did quite well while having slavery, after all.

As for the surveillance state, here we don't really have a lot of historical
precedent. Obviously it didn't work out too well for the Warsaw Pact nations,
particularly East Germany, but what they're doing in China really isn't like
that.

------
magwa101
"Cancer solved", every 10 years. "Plant based diets", um, I don't know anyone
that stays vegetarian.

------
guscost
For future reference, vote as you please:

The “looming climate crisis“ and most of today’s popular academia will be a
mainstream joke by 2030.

------
jgrant27
Lost all credibility at "... Age and experience will be less valued ...".

~~~
swalsh
It's sad, but it may not be wrong. The AOC's of the world are popular for a
reason.

------
ggm
In 2020 a cohort of US politically active people will die, retire or be
replaced in significant roles. Ruth Bader Ginsberg is statistically likely.
Saunders and McConnel likewise. This is influencing longer term politics
because of obsession with 'legacy' such as the make up of the supreme court.

Putin is less likely to move on. There may be a new leadership in Iran but
culturally it's unlikely to be more flexible, if anything it's going to be
less flexible.

Europe already has it's new leaders. It probably won't be very different.

A politically resurgent youth vote will be coming into it's prime pissed off
with current tax and social policy in housing and education. And of course
climate.

The ww2 generation and it's successor will be dying out faster, but costing
more in pension and health costs and contributing less in tax inputs.

Ubiquitous internet will be a given but more overtly a dual edged sword as tax
and national borders continue to collide

No candidate for high office will have a blank sheet of high school pranks.
Fifteen year old tweets will be held up to fresh air

------
naruhodo
> We will finally move on from the Baby Boomers dominating the conversation in
> the US and around the world and Millennials and Gen-Z will be running many
> institutions by the end of the decade.

Gen-X will continue to be forgotten, apparently.

------
cia-killer
I'm surprised this guy isn't bankrupt and homeless.

------
chukye
Error establishing a database connection

------
cpach
Wilson’s site got the hug of death :)

~~~
cpach
Fortunately it’s back now :)

------
randomsearch
Predictions for 2020s

1\. Agree

2\. Automation will be one of the anticlimaxes of the decade.

3\. China will have a mixed decade, marred by competition from other countries
for production, human rights scandals, a domestic financial crisis that will
spread globally, and a complete slowdown in growth. But its government will
survive.

4\. Crypto currency will be no more relevant in 2029 than 2019. The dollar
will continue to dominate beyond 2030, until at last in the 2030s the Euro is
backed by a significant military force.

5\. No decentralised internet will gain popularity.

6\. Plant based diets will see a meteoric rise in the west, but will still be
a minority by 2030.

7\. Biggest story of space will be the failure of NASA to make much progress
in landing humans on Mars. SpaceX will make the most progress along those
lines, with a test landing of an unmanned craft, but safety concerns over
manned flight will hold SpaceX back in serving NASA.

8\. A surprising backlash against social media will see the end of Facebook
(but Whatsapp will survive well, with Instagram in a long decline). Twitter
will pivot successfully almost beyond recognition.

9\. Baby boomers will no longer dominate the electorate, and a shift to the
political left will take place across America and Europe. The UK will see the
most left wing government since Atlee’s. The climate crisis will help make big
government palatable again.

10\. Progress on cancer will be piecemeal and slow. However, this
disappointment will contrast with miraculous advances in treating and
prevention of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.

Mine...

11\. VR will replace games consoles. VR will have a huge impact on society,
but it will be only the beginning - much like 90s Internet, it will grow in
importance decade by decade, but the 2020s will be remembered as the one in
which it “arrived”.

12\. Apple will decline to a shadow of its former self.

13\. To everyone’s surprise, smart watches will have a come back in the second
half of the decade thanks to hardware improvements, and will become almost
universal for younger demographics. They will become a significant item of
self expression, and related “digital jewellery” will also take off.

14\. Electric cars will arrive faster than anticipated, putting huge strain on
electricity distribution.

15\. In the US, the college bubble will burst. In the UK it will not, but
student numbers will drop and many universities will be forced to merge and
close humanities departments.

16\. Post Brexit UK will suffer a economic stagnation similar to Japan’s post
banking crisis. Scotland will vote to remain in the UK, but Ireland will be
reunified. A great number of people will leave the UK to work in the USA.

17\. Putin will die, and Russia will enter a period of crisis and civil
disorder.

18\. After Trump’s second term ends in economic disaster, popularism in the US
will slowly retreat. The democrats will be in power for the remainder of the
decade, particularly focused on climate change.

19\. Amazon and Microsoft will emerge as the great winners of big tech over
the decade, driven by cloud services and consumer appliances.

20\. A new e reader device that actually works well will be launched,
destroying the kindle’s grip on the market, and will be universally adopted
for education and leisure. The maker will be a newcomer and will end the
decade as one of the most exciting startups since Google.

------
ivalm
Wow, I think I disagree with... most of them?

1\. While I do think climate change is something we need to mitigate now,
political realities are very clear on this one -- people don't want to spend
much money on mitigation. Furthermore, the dire consequences are still quite
far away, doubtful 2020s are the years this will turn around.

2\. I think for now automation will do what industrialization did before --
increase productivity which will lead to increase in consumption. I think it
is only when we start approaching AGI when human labor will start becoming
superfluous. Again, I don't think UBI is in the cards for mass adoption in the
US or other major countries in the 20s (although I see it as inevitable on a
longer time scale).

3\. China IS a global super power, whether it will fully displace the US is
again doubtful, they have the capacity to do it in the next 20-50 years, but
probably not in the next 10. There is a lot of inertia against them basically
everywhere (europe, east asia, india, etc).

4\. There is literally no reason this would happen. Even private attempts on
decentralized currencies (bitcoin/etc) did not produce assets that are used as
money for regular transactions (not black market, not aimed at speculation).
For countries it is even less attractive to start a crypto since if you have a
stable fiat then why wouldn't you just... have the stable fiat? Countries LIKE
having control over their currency.

5\. Internet relies on hardware/infra that is currently privately owned by
what are essentially local monopolies/duopolies. Unless laws that force infra
sharing get passed (which in the US I just don't see happening), decentralized
internet will absolutely not happen. Again, the 20s are now and we have no
real movement in this direction.

6\. Most people prefer meat. Currently population growth is such that meat
production can easily keep up with demand. I agree that meat production is
worse for the world (due to being resource inefficient) and I agree that it is
more ethical to eat artificial meat due to decrease in suffering, but let's be
real, most people will just eat the meat that is cheap and easily available.
There is zero chance major countries manage to pass bills that would make meat
expensive.

7\. This one I almost agree with, I just don't think that there will be "a
wave of hype" since without better propulsion/space elevators capital costs
are obviously high and don't scale well (space isn't software).

8\. I agree that governments will ratchet up surveillance, but I don't think
consumers will be willing to put much money into privacy. I bet most people
don't care (enough to spend money) about privacy, and the fraction who are OK
with surveillance will only increase.

9\. I mean, given that most baby boomers will be retired by 2030 I agree that
they will play increasingly diminished role in the society, but I don't think
it's because age/experience will not longer matter.

10\. This is something I most agree with. I do hope that the 20s will be year
genetics changes how we treat non-infectious diseases.

------
nicebill8
> Error establishing a database connection

Looks like we're going back to the 00's

~~~
csomar
Comments are broken too...

------
lettergram
I kind of doubt most of these. My prediction:

1\. China will fall to internal strife of some kind. Still may maintain power,
but famine and mass executions / disappearances will occur.

2\. we will have further centralization of the internet

3\. Solar will only account for 10k Gw

4\. Agree that nuclear will make a massive resurgence

5\. Gas will still be the dominate power source for mobile transportation, but
less so. This is because gas prices will fall.

6\. Saudi Arabia will have a violent revolution

7\. California housing market will collapse due to high electricity prices,
lack of electricity and wildfires

10\. Meat will be nearly as prevalent today, but wild caught fish will be
virtually no more

11\. Self driving vehicles will operate in many of the non-heavily effected
weather states. Laws will be passed to regulate and exclude some states after
fatalities

12\. Marijuana will be legal federally

13\. Government will start accessing Alexa, Google, Siri recordings and public
will be made aware

14\. China will start using / building power projection in states it can.
Specifically to protect food

~~~
andrepd
>China will fall

>Saudi will have a violent revolution

Very very unfortunately, this sounds more like wishful thinking than a
reasonable prediction. The ways in which modern states can maintain power and
suppress their people is overwhelming. China can and has built perhaps the
most oppressive totalitarian state ever to have existed. Saudi is diversifying
its _absurd_ wealth to resist downturns in oil, and the "first world" is still
hapelly grovelling and kissing the rings of that disgusting despot, selling
them weapons and propping them up diplomatically. All in all, I don't have my
hopes up.

It's all rather depressing.

~~~
brobinson
The PRC's working population peaks somewhere between right now and the next 5
years. By 2050, over 1/3 of their population is over 65 years old. They've
been under replenishment birth rates for a long time. Their population pyramid
is really, truly scary.

Their highly leveraged economy will not survive at "6%" growth over the next
decade. It is not clear that they will escape the Middle Income Trap [1]. They
are struggling with zombie companies and transitioning from manufacturing to a
services-based economy. Their manufacturing is also being slowly eaten away by
countries like Vietnam.

As the PRC maintains its legitimacy through the economic growth that has
happened under its existence, a recession could trigger political upheaval or
force the CCP to distract the populace, e.g. they might try to annex the ROC
(Taiwan and its other holdings) by force. A military conflict in which a large
number of one child families lose their sole child would have disastrous
ramifications as far as government stability, too.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_income_trap](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_income_trap)

(No opinion on Saudi as I only follow the economy/demographics of the PRC and
Eurozone countries)

~~~
nopinsight
Given their focus on technology and modernization and massive investment in
R&D and STEM education, it is likely that China will grow further still.
China’s R&D investment is now at the top of the world about on par with the
US. There are also a very high number of capable engineers in China as
suggested by PISA results.

A key difference with middle income countries that only earn export income as
manufacturing base is that there are quite a few Chinese companies that
possess its own technology and brands. DJI, Oppo, Xiaomi are some examples.
Many of these brands are not well known in the US but have become increasingly
competitive with global brands, at least in some respect, in Asia and perhaps
elsewhere.

It might make sense to compare them to Korean brands a while back, with an
additional advantage of massive domestic market.

Their forward-looking focus on major industries of tomorrow like AI, EV, and
biotech does not hurt either.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_research_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_research_and_development_spending)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21868570](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21868570)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21692002](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21692002)

Since there are many areas in China that could be further developed, the
service sector will also likely grow.

My point is that the US ought not get complacent and believe in wishful
thinking that competition from China will simply go away in time.

~~~
georgeplusplus
It’s all about trade. The USSR was brought down because they had no nations to
trade with and refused to play ball with them and excluded them from the world
diminishing their growth and power. The key difference this time around is
Europe seems pretty complacent to let China keep doing its thing.

------
jhbadger
>9/ We will finally move on from the Baby Boomers dominating the conversation
in the US and around the world and Millennials and Gen-Z will be running many
institutions by the end of the decade.

And as typical in such pieces, GenX gets forgotten...

~~~
meddlepal
GenX is tiny and has failed to progress forward precisely because it is so
small compared to the Boomers and Millennials. Also by the end of the decade
parts of GenX will be approaching 60.

~~~
trentnix
"Failed to progress forward" \- what are you talking about?

The United States - and really the world as a whole - has enjoyed its most
prosperous time in all of human history during Gen-X's window of contribution.

~~~
chiefalchemist
Yes. But that prosperity came with a massive balloon payment in the form of
climate change. What's label prosperity today will be "Grand ma, WTF were
y'all thinking?"

Long to short, the jury is still out on the actual success of Gen-X.

~~~
trentnix
I'm not buying the climate change alarmism.

The climate has changed and will change. Some of that change (although I think
its a small part) will be influenced by human activity. The Earth will adjust.
Humanity will adjust. And humanity will continue to flourish.

~~~
chiefalchemist
A high percentage of the world's population lives on or near the coast. Why
the climate is changing doesn't change the effect on these people and the
places they live. Dismissing this fact as alarmist isn't going to help anyone.

p.s. Humanity will continue to flourish? Your prediction is based on what,
past performance? When Mother Nature's bounty was harvested mindlesssly and
shameleessly? That's going to continue forever? Infinitely? Can you share some
links supporting such projections?

------
watertom
I think the climate is going to change much faster than any models predict,
like 3-4x faster, because we went past the tipping point about 30 years ago.

Phytoplankton populations will crash out in the next 10 years and the marine
food chain will collapse.

Extreme wether patterns are going to completely disrupt food production, which
will cause mass starvation and a global immigration/refugee crisis.

In the U.S., the terrified of everything elderly, and right wing will go for
less freedom and more authoritative government control. They will also secede
more control to corporations as a way of avoiding “big government”,
effectively handing over power special interests and the ultra wealthy.

Healthcare will however become nationalized because the system as it stands is
out of control and therE is no way to reign it in, so costs will keep
spiraling up until the system breaks.

Marijuana will get legalized in most states, and the percentage of THC will
start to get capped.

Designer CRIsPR “therapies” will become popular.

The U.S. college system have a major event, costs are spiraling out of
control, and the colleges have no way to stop the cost growth, students are
becoming more accustomed to online classes, in the next 10 years there will be
a mass realignment of the U.S. college system, just like banking, healthcare.
A lot of closures, mergers and partnerships. A commoditization of higher
education, which will be good for some majors, like STEM, and really bad for
majors that are more “subjective”. I also think we’ll see incorporation of
what is seen as traditional “trade school” skills. Learning is learning, and
is the schools can make it profitable, “why not?”.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
What's going to _cause_ the crash of phytoplankton? Rising CO2, I presume, but
by what mechanism?

~~~
Symmetry
Possibly ocean acidification could damage the cell walls of diatoms, which
make up a fair fraction of phytoplankton? But I don't see how that could have
been locked in 30 years ago.

------
emayljames
Agree with all, except the crypto currency bit.

Asia (China) would not have an incentive politically to run with it, as it
would remove traceability and control of money flow. Not to mention online
currencies pitfalls.

~~~
dehrmann
Crypto currencies have failed to be useful as currencies, so I'm not sure why
governments would be so eager to try them.

------
anonytrary
The climate crisis will be exacerbated by the increasing centralization of
large cities. Humans are tending towards centralized population hubs, and away
from rural areas.

This will be the main catalyst for adopting greener infrastructure. Fear of
permanent climate change will _not_ be the catalyst, as that is a long term
repercussion of not solving the pollution problem, and humans have _never_
been good about preparing for things in advance.

~~~
augustt
I thought it was the other way around? Don't people in cities have a lower
carbon footprint because of public transportation, smaller homes, and other
things that can be shared?

~~~
anonytrary
Yes it seems people were confused by my first sentence. I should have said
"the _perception_ of the climate crisis will increase, leading to faster
adoption of green policies".

There's a reason why people in rural areas are less aware of climate change
due to human pollution. The effects of pollution are much less apparent in
rural areas due to the far lower human density. Rural areas are "clean" to the
human eye, so we have large swaths of the population that simply don't care
about long term effects of pollution, because to them, even the short-term
effects are almost indiscernible.

People are moving to cities at a faster rate despite the proliferation of the
internet. As such, we'll eventually reach a critical mass of the population
that eventually leads us to adopting greener policies. All because people are
moving _into_ cities _from_ rural areas. I get that it sounds
counterintuitive.

------
lidHanteyk
Ah, from the mouths of babes.

1) Maybe. Or maybe we fuck it up and we are the penultimate generation of pre-
Anthropocene human life. Hard to say for sure. So far, the rich and powerful
seem to have little trouble selling their property.

2) Automation will not lead to some sort of wakefulness and critique of
capitalism, but just more technocracy. The future is Google being too busy to
offer you customer service.

3) China will collapse after their attempts to monopolize the South China Sea
fall through.

4) Cryptocurrencies as a technology will collapse after several showstopping
protocol-level issues are found. Most notably, a team will crack Satoshi's key
and steal their BTC hoard, crashing almost all cryptocurrency prices, while as
a runner-up effort, another team will successfully demonstrate forgery of
high-difficulty blocks with ironic complexity analysis.

5) The various decentralized mesh networks around the globe will each grow to
blanket their metropoloi, and some areas will see their mesh networks merge to
create massive clouds of ambient connectivity. Disks will still be expensive,
though. In fact, I'll predict another disk supply crash due to a natural
disaster, akin to the tsunami from last decade.

6) Most folks around the world do not eat that much meat, and no numbers are
listed, so I'll instead say that people will _continue_ to not eat much meat.
Perhaps meat consumption in USA, China, etc. will diminish, but probably not.

7) India and China step up their national space programs over the next decade,
while ESA and NASA continue operating. Elon Musk is still around because of
sheer willpower, but nobody else is really privatizing.

8) Already happened. It will continue to happen. The author's really showing
off their bubble with this one.

9) Yes, many Boomers are near the end of their mortal coils. Don't be so
morbid about it. I'm not sure if this prediction's at all interesting, since
any actuary could make the same prediction without a single cup of coffee.

10) Gene therapy will still be sputtering and straining at the end of the next
decade. CRISPR with Cas9 will have been long obsoleted, and nothing will have
replaced it. There may be a field of genetic programming, though, where people
specialize in writing code using DNA; there will certainly be a field of
epigenetics which is distinct from traditional genetics.

------
chukye
6 is a big NO. The most part of diseases of this decade are caused by plant
based diets. Humans need meat, without it we get sick. B12 can't be found in
plants, there are plenty studies that shows how sick we get if we eat ONLY
plants.

~~~
uxcolumbo
RE: The most part of diseases of this decade are caused by plant based diets

Do you have any studies that back up your claim that humans need meat to live
a healthy life?

Several governmental bodies worldwide state[1] that one can live healthy using
a plant based diet and The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine[0]
even recommend a plant based diet for good health and disease prevention.

Did you know B12 is produced by bacteria and that some meat eaters are low in
B12 and need to supplement. Animals in factory farms are being fed B12
supplements[2].

You might want to research this further so you're better informed next time
you state information as fact. Or watch this documentary -
[https://gamechangersmovie.com/-](https://gamechangersmovie.com/-) it's on
Netflix.

[0] [https://www.pcrm.org/good-nutrition](https://www.pcrm.org/good-nutrition)

[1] [https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/the-vegan-
diet/](https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/the-vegan-diet/)
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK396513/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK396513/)

[2] [https://baltimorepostexaminer.com/carnivores-need-
vitamin-b1...](https://baltimorepostexaminer.com/carnivores-need-
vitamin-b12-supplements/2013/10/30)

~~~
chukye
btw, please don't do like these guys [https://metro.co.uk/2019/11/14/vegan-
parents-starved-toddler...](https://metro.co.uk/2019/11/14/vegan-parents-
starved-toddler-to-death-by-forcing-him-to-eat-raw-plant-based-diet-11147678/)
feed your babies with meat, we don't have technology (yet) to eat only plants.

~~~
uxcolumbo
This is one isolated case of parents who were probably quite dogmatic and ill
informed and they were fruitarians - mainly eating raw food, so probably not
living on a well-balanced diet.

The article even states that a vegan or vegetarian diet is fine for kids[0].
So again please read articles properly next time and don't make generalised
statements based one some headlines you read.

[0] "Babies and young children on a vegetarian or vegan diet can get the
energy and most of the nutrients they need to grow and develop from a well-
planned varied and balanced diet."

