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What Will Happen in the 2020s

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Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#121
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Time is running out: please help the Internet Archive today. The average donation is $45. If everyone chips in $5, we can keep our website independent, strong and ad-free. That's right, all we need is the price of a paperback book to sustain a non-profit library the whole world depends on. We have only 150 staff but run one of the world’s top websites. We’re dedicated to reader privacy so we never track you. We never…

> 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. What do users of the archive gain by it being independent of advertising? And why can't it be a non profit and also offset expenses by selling advertising? Look at it this way. There are plenty of non profits that can only make money by donations. They can't…

It's more about being "independent of advertisers" than whether advertisements are practically hosted on the site. An archive should be a third-party, neutral source, and advertising jeopardises this.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 stru…

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…

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.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#124
post #17

> 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_p…

By the numbers nuclear is very safe but it does have asymmetric risk and most importantly a bad reputation. Next gen nuclear should be a marketing rebrand in addition to new tech. So Yang is right to focus on thorium.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#125
post #17

> 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_p…

Ok but the choice is not democratic in every part of the world. Think e.g. about China.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#126
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.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#127
post #63

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 d…

> 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.

Careful. I remember reading similar sentiments about the web in the 90's. Turns out it's true, to a degree, but also unleased all the misinformation we see today. I can imagine something similar in the future where you can't tell what's real, not only news, but also what you see in front of you.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#128
post #32

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).

Network effects are important, granted.

Regarding economies of scale - it's all so cheap that it doesn't matter for most cases that don't involve utterly tremendous amounts of resource usage.

I mean, the primary thing holding this back is consumer level ISP's being arsey about servers. A 10 year old machine hooked up to my 35mbit home connection is more than enough to run most internet services.

And that's effectively free because I already have it.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#130
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. What do users of the archive gain by it being independent of advertising? And why can't it be a non profit and also offset expenses by selling advertising? Look at it this way. There are plenty of non profits that can only make money by donations. They can't…

It's more about being "independent of advertisers " than whether advertisements are practically hosted on the site. An archive should be a third-party, neutral source, and advertising jeopardises this.

It's not a newspaper (as only one example) where they hold editorial control over the content and are therefore (in theory) beholden to the people who pay the bills (the advertisers). Forgetting for a second whether it would have any major impact (I say it would not I mean they scrape web pages in a very clear fashion) it's hard to believe it could go the route of say YELP in their mission. Or that a minor impact to what they do would not be offset by not having to beg for money. (With PBS it was called a begathon when they had to raise money).

And even with donations they could in theory be 'corrupted' just the same. A rich person could give them a large sum of money (as a donation) and then would have some defacto say in how things were done.

Take as another example ball parks (to even counter my point). They sell naming rights. That does not mean that the entity who purchased the naming rights gets to decide who plays on the team or who coaches the team although you could argue that that could happen (and I would say it does not offset the benefit of not having that 'independence'.

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