Ask HN: A New Decade. Any Predictions? • Hacker News Board

Post by riversflow » Wed, Jan 08, 2020, 9:38 PM UTC

dmode wrote: post #954

riversflow wrote: post #900

1) The US will not get any sort of major infrastructure renewal. 2) There will be major pushback against drones across western nations. They will be seen as infringing on people’s rights/a safety issue. 3)China will continue to rule with an iron fist, but towards the end of the decade demographic problems will start to show their colors. Trillions will be dumped into chest puffing around the South China Sea. 3) AR wi…

I am curious about #8, because this was literally the prediction over the last decade. Remember - entering this decade California had 12% unemployment and a $27bn deficit and all businesses were supposedly "fleeing" California. The exact opposite of that prediction happened, and California actually widened the tech gap with other states. My prediction will be that this gap will actually increase in the next decade. T…

We shall see. The ability to do hardware prototyping in the Bay Area went from expensive but feasible, to nearly impossible thanks to increasingly stringent environmental and occupational safety regulations, unique to California(which has its own “CalOSHA” and environmental health agencies), and as I understand it the manufacturing capabilities in region was a major boon at one point for tech. Additionally, the inequality in the Oakland-SF-Berkeley area is definitely driving people away. Something like 50% of the state is considering moving in some polls.

Also, if you aren’t aware, California has a fundamentally underfunded Public Employees Retirement Funds, which were designed during the dot.com bubble with those growth rates in mind as being sustainable forever(seriously). Even after the decade long bull run it’s still only 70% funded, the fund even admits that this could be a rough decade.

https://calpensions.com/2019/08/26/calpers-gets-candid-about...