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What Will Happen in the 2020s

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Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#311

Post by 6nf »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #300
6nf wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think any major currencies will get turned into crypto assets either, there's no reason for a government to do that. Instead what's happening is that traditional banking systems are being upgraded to allow instant and person-to-person transfers of money. This is one of the main benefits of crypto - being able to instantly send money to anyone. If you can just use your existing online banking system, so much e…

All the big consumer banks in the US also have instant transfers to phone numbers or email addresses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zelle_(payment_service)

The Australian system does not require signup from the recipient (or the sender for that matter) and there's no transfer limits beyond what your bank already had on your accounts previously.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#312

Post by danans »

nobrains wrote: post #301
opportune wrote: post #236

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…

Muslims, 24% of the world's population, have the following requirements to eat meat: - They sacrifice a goat (or sheep, cow, camel, etc.) once a year on Eid. - They sacrifice a goat, etc. upon every baby's birth. - They are encouraged to sacrifice an animal for atonement, blessings and other reasons. Read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_sacrifice#Islam I don't think animal consumption is going down th…

The vast majority of those Muslims are in poorer countries (think Indonesia and Bangladesh, and not Saudi Arabia), and could never afford to eat meat in the daily quantities eaten in the West, the Gulf, and increasingly in the wealthier population of China.

Their regular diet consists largely of cereal grains, legumes, vegetables, and small amounts of meat to supplement, and even that is mostly cheaper to produce/acquire meat like chicken and eggs, or small riverine fish.

The religious observances you mention account for a tiny portion of overall meat consumption in the world, and to use them as an example why meat consumption can't be reduced is at best an abuse of statistics, and at worst a cultural scapegoat.

If anything, other cultures could perhaps learn from them to treat the consumption of meat as a sort of sacrament to be appreciated on special occasions, like the birth of a child. Prior to the era of industrial scale food production, that is how most non-aristocratic people consumed meat of larger animals, regardless of their culture or religion.

The far bigger factor driving meat production and the associated environmental issues is my kid ordering a 1/4 pound hot dog and then throwing away half of it.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#313

Post by 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.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#314

Post by Faark »

Baeocystin wrote: post #292
joyjoyjoy wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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... My prediction: We will see an economic depression, also caused by energy problems. The current quantitative easing is actually the first sign of the p…

"How's life in soviet russia?" "Can't complain!" This is the mistake you're making regarding China. Source: grew up there

I mean, yeah, being against those in power isn't a good idea in authoritarian regimes. At the same time, people describe living in former east germany as the most easy-going / carefree time of their life. Being taken care of as long as you do as your told isn't all bad and probably was the default state of the smaller communities in the past. Whish we would find ways to achieve this without the authoritarian aspects.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#315

Post by wayoutthere »

ma2rten wrote: post #313

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…

> 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.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#316

Post by radford-neal »

watertom wrote: post #186

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…

Phytoplankton populations are not going to crash. Extreme weather is not going to cause mass starvation. There's no scientific basis for either of these things happening.

Furthermore, you don't believe they are going to happen. If you did believe this, it would be absurd to talk about a "major event" regarding the US college system - "mergers and partnerships", "commoditization", etc. Really? Really?? What happened to the major event of the students starving to death?

What happened is that you don't actually believe the stuff you say about climate change. You just think it's cool and sophisticated to say that you know that change will happen 3-4x faster than any scientifically-based model says. Because whatever...

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#317

Post by commandlinefan »

aazaa wrote: post #85

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 anyon…

> 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.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#318

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

6nf wrote: post #311
lotsofpulp wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the big consumer banks in the US also have instant transfers to phone numbers or email addresses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zelle_(payment_service)

The Australian system does not require signup from the recipient (or the sender for that matter) and there's no transfer limits beyond what your bank already had on your accounts previously.

Ditto for the UK and European systems. Give destination routing number and account and amount, press some button. Done. No fees, ever, and transfer is more or less instantaneous.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#319

Post by rad_gruchalski »

hanniabu wrote: post #206
criddell wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

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.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#320

Post by Faark »

fabatka wrote: post #23

>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 spa…

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.

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