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Ask HN: A New Decade. Any Predictions?

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Re: Ask HN: A New Decade. Any Predictions?

#991
I have a few too, although I don't know who is going to read them since there are over 1k comments. Here goes nothing.

1) I'm pretty sure a final cure for HIV-1 and better detection + treatment for AIDS will come up in the next 4 years. Also, the Pre and Post exposure drugs will probably become efficient for infections older than 48 hours. The things with HIV/AIDS research is that a discovery on one end of the disease yields results on all of them in a short amount of time.

2) Populism and nationalism will start to die out because gen X and Z are brought up in a more data-available world. They'll probably have a more Hans Rosling/Steven Pinker attitude towards the world than a Trump/Johnson one.

3) Ethiopia will become the powerhouse of the continent, prompting migration from all over. If an open and/or tolerant attitude is kept towards neighbors, it might generate a ripple effect across the whole region - an effect consisting in stability. That's what Israel could've done if a dual-state solution was obtained, or Iran if the CIA hadn't generate a coup to remove the democratic prime minister because BP Oil couldn't buy cheap resources anymore. I really hope no one fucks up this time.

4) Poorer countries will outpace the more developed ones in terms of digital governance, administration and bureaucracy since they'll start implement administrative reforms with the current available tools that have the power to reach anyone - which are all online. Current administrations from developed countries still need to overcome the integration nightmare of current systems.

5) Public photography and filming will get intensely regulated worldwide as the laws haven't been adapted to the smartphone era as well as the digital privacy era. For example: currently, photographers are allowed to snap photos of you in public without asking for consent in most of the countries. Then they sell them off for 100 dollars on Getty Images. Then you see yourself in a prostate ad from an obscure magazine sold in a mall in Indiana. Life's complicated.

Re: Ask HN: A New Decade. Any Predictions?

#992
post #592

AI languishes and self-driving cars remain highway-only, but self-checkout stations and simple cleaning/stocking bots become more common. Oil companies begin rebranding as energy companies and pour assets into solar and wind. Climate change continues to worsen, with deniers still prevalent. Craigslist gets bought by Facebook. Google tries to get into online shopping, fails. Desktops still on x64. Phones still on ARM,…

> A professional athlete will die while playing, leading to news about how sports need to be safer.

This has happened many times during professional bike races. It leads to exactly what you say, people insisting that it get safer, but doing nothing about it.

Re: Ask HN: A New Decade. Any Predictions?

#993
post #306
post #132

Here are mine: 1. Still no level 4/5 autonomous cars anywhere in sight. The promise of being "just around the corner" fizzles down and people just forget the hype. 2. Same with AI. The panacea hype dies down. No AGI at all. No major job losses due to AI automation. 3. Facebook (the SN) still exists but ages along with it's current user base. i.e it's the "old people's" SN. Facebook (the company) is still going strong…

I think these predictions are way too safe, to the point that they aren't predictions at all. These are all very widely accepted views already (in the tech community / HN atleast) which explains why this comment is top currently.

A good part of them would have been great predictions to the past decade :)

Re: Ask HN: A New Decade. Any Predictions?

#995
post #781

1. Electric cars become the norm. All cars are fully autonomous on highways. A driverless highway transport service will go mainstream in some states. (California) 2. China will undergo a major recession, as manufacturing moves to Africa and US maintains its trade war with China across Govts. 3. The best performing stock will be a meat substitute company 4. VR will take off big time. Concerns about VR porn being too…

> Also, Toronto/Montreal will become the Silicon valley of Canada, as skilled immigrants move to the Canada knowing they will never get greencards in the US. As a (US citizen) programmer living in Toronto, I have seen this first hand: people moving from the bay, or moving directly to Canada because of a) the US having enormous lines for green cards and b) Canada aggressively courting skilled workers (you can get an i…

Maybe Montreal for french and spanish speakers

Re: Ask HN: A New Decade. Any Predictions?

#996
- More time is spent on taking care of loved ones

https://flowingdata.com/2015/12/15/a-day-in-the-life-of-amer...

- Less time commuting (companies get better at managing a distributed work force)

- the 50% of people not connected to the internet start to get access

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/oct/18/almost-50...

- wages are driven down globally by this additional 50% coming online creating more backlash in democracies.

- Increasingly countries will use China's great firewall tech to keep out Western influences and grow local internet competitors

- high speed internet gets deployed in war zones with drones and we understand why the US is against Chinese 5G companies.

- high speed internet (5G etc) means that many jobs that couldn't be off-shored are near shored for a mixture of tax and cost savings - taxi drivers, pilots, delivery trucks, fork lifts with a mixture of AI and people

- cashiers become sales people as stores fight against online sales

- percent of people working in manufacturing drops to 6.5% from 10.5%

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/USAPEFANA

- a group of people add 30% to their life span due to drugs that reproduce intermittent fasting and other drugs that seem to work on mice.

https://www.amazon.com/Lifespan-Why-Age_and-Dont-Have/dp/150...

- China goes to 30% of world GDP and US reacts by going to cold war

https://www.statista.com/statistics/270439/chinas-share-of-g...

- Japan builds up its military in reaction to china

- Housing manufacturing and education continue to not have productivity gains.

- Nuclear fusion is still not any closer to wide scale deployment

- Cities in Europe and Asia go E-bike friendly while Americans stick to their cars.

- The muslim world will become more pro-women's rights based on Saudi Arabia's lead

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k0SvAEvM-I&vl=en

- Banks will stop touching cash except via ATMs and will convert branches into sales offices to push their online offerings. Goldman Sachs in reaction merges with Revolut.

Re: Ask HN: A New Decade. Any Predictions?

#997
post #662
post #194

In the spirit of the future is here just not evenly distributed: 1. Electric cars will go from niche for the rich to something for everyone. 2. Genetic testing will become even more commonplace and even more useful. 3. ipv6 will become dominant, but there may be holdouts. 4. Freezing your sperm / eggs / stem cells will become something everyone does. 5. Using a non-memory-safe language for servers will be seen as bui…

Even today Cost of construction is not a big factor in real estate price. Proximity to Central business district is one of the major components. Transport might have a impact. Agree on colonial mindset on CO2 emissions.

but automated manufacturing techniques are not widely used except for mobile homes....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modular_building

Re: Ask HN: A New Decade. Any Predictions?

#998
post #482

1.) As quantum computing advances, there will be at least one successful 51% attack on a major cryptocurrency. 2.) Tesla/SpaceX StarLink will become a major competitor in the ISP space. Most transmitted data throughout the world will touch a StarLink satellite. 3.) Financial downturn/semi-recession in mid-late decade primarily caused by excessive corporate stock buybacks artificially inflating stock prices. (Stock bu…

I would happily take the other side of the bet on EVERY item here! But I do appreciate your boldness in predictions.

#3 seems possible - normally there is a recession every decade or so.

Re: Ask HN: A New Decade. Any Predictions?

#999
post #752

- Automation replaces the need to have a human workforce. North Korea murders 99% of its population and replaces them with robots. Kim still goes around factories pointing at things. - It becomes possible to literally program humans to do whatever you want them to do. Python is the chosen language but a lack of type safety results in an error that wipes out half of humanity. - We colonize mars but by choosing only th…

I know some of these are obviously backed by winks, but I got a smile from this because they're only a hair away from being rather plausible. You should be writing sci-fi! > Potemkin jobs abound in a world that doesn't require humans to work to produce anything but needs to keep them busy to stop them complaining about stuff. "There is another theory which states that this has already happened." https://en.wikipedia.…

The recent video game Death Stranding touched on this theme, but regrettably didn’t go too deep into it. I would be really interested in fiction revolving around giving people work for work’s sake.
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