Ask HN: A New Decade. Any Predictions?

- A cheap-to-produce replacement for many types of plastics will be developed. It will consist of microscopic interlocking, organically grown carbon structures that can be combined to give the final material whatever plasticity or strength is needed for an application. The material will need to be milled. Some formulations will be very heat resistant, hard and durable. Genetically modified organisms will produce the microscopic structures.

- Data will become the new plutonium.

- Gen-X'ers in the states will be the first generation to get the bad news that Social Security and Medicare will be slashed and to expect "less than 15%" of what the previous generations received. This will be in response to a major debt crisis and gen-x will roll over without much protest. Millennials too.

- Some US companies will start experimenting with 4 day work weeks, with the caveat that internet and phones be severely curtailed or even outright banned in the workplace in an attempt to goose productivity. Some workers will demand lots of break time so they can escape to get their social media fix.

- No public manned Mars nor lunar missions.

In the next 10 years, there will be a major change in education which will resemble Alfred North Whitehead's the Rhythm of Education.[0] This will not happen independent of John Dewey's philosophy of pragmatism, learning by doing, participation, connecting personally to ideas, and democracy in the classroom, but will also have a focus on discipline and precision. Whitehead's three stages involve a period of romance, becoming acquainted to a subject and knowledge, precision, systematically learning the facts connected with the subject introduced in the romance period, and, lastly, generalization, where facts are used to create new theory and independent thought by the student beyond what is known. Whitehead explains that this isn't a linear process, like our current approach to education, but rather cyclic.

Using less summative assessment, like standardized tests based on grade level, to compare students and set the rate of learning based on the mean of a group of children, instead, diagnostic and formative assessment using technology, like what we have seen with the Khan Academy, will be widely used to assist in the difficult often boring stage of precision giving teachers more time to introduce students new subjects and lead them to use their knowledge to make generalizations.

My prediction is the end of standardized tests at the grade level by 2030. Homework will not be necessary anymore as this will work will be efficiently done during normal school hours. Lastly, although it is important that we consider learning disabilities a real thing, it might be more fair and pragmatic to call it a teaching disability taking the responsibility from the child to learn putting it onto the adult. (Ok, this is personal, my goal for the next ten years is to eliminate homework.)

[0] https://mast.queensu.ca/~peter/essays/whitehead.pdf

Here's a really obvious short-term one: superfast SSDs in nextgen consoles lead to the same standard in PCs, and SSD prices drop dramatically, finally replacing HDDs as completely as tape.

1) The world population will not exceed 1b humans by the end of 2020.

2) Some level of nuclear exchange will take place, whether on a limited level using tactical nukes, or an all out strategic rumble e.g. India v. Pakistan

3) The above will be due to resource wars, particularly fresh water.

I predict the internet becomes addictive to a point where we will start seeing regulations and advisory for kids to stay offline. I'm already seeing parents my age being concerned about their kids.

Also, there will be a niche demand for people who go online and manage online life / identity for these people.