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What Will Happen in the 2020s

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Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#401

Post by dionidium »

mymythisisthis wrote: post #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 camera…

Why limit it to tracking? Why do we put these powerful machines in the hands of users that we know with certainty will kill themselves and others at a predictable rate and then just ask them nicely not to do harm?

The technology required to geofence, speed-regulate, and otherwise control where, when, and how fast cars can go already exists. Why aren't we using it? We don't need fully autonomous cars. There are all kinds of things we can do incrementally. I have to imagine some jurisdictions are going to realize this, eventually. And once they do the totally predictable savings to life and property will be unignorable.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#402

Post by agumonkey »

bransonf wrote: post #209

A few good takes, but China becoming the dominant global power? Not a good take. China is fairly good at a few things, namely lending money and manufacturing goods. What they aren’t good at is making people happy. See Hong Kong for the last 6 months. I don’t think the United States is becoming increasingly isolationist. I think we’ve seen a brief period of these attitudes, but it’s not indicative of the next decade i…

I can never get what China is doing. One day you hear about solar boost then you see more coal. Strange.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#403

Post by Supermancho »

gordaco wrote: post #322
6nf wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Faced with a choice between beef or fake beef that tastes exactly the same, most people will just go for the real beef. They don't want the highly processed fake stuff that contains who knows what. The only way beef loses is if the alternatives are significantly cheaper. If a McBeef is $5 more than a McFakeBeef then you got a shot at converting people.

You are being downvoted, but I think that you are totally right. For an awful lot of people, eating meat is a matter of status; it's similar to why many people prefer having big cars even if they are less environmentally friendly. There is also the fact that plant based diets are still associated to certain ideologies and because of that they will keep being scoffed at by people from opposing ideologies. Sure, you do…

> eating meat is a matter of status

Chicken mcnuggets are barely chicken. The market already demonstrated that "real meat" is a matter of availability and marketing, not a matter status chasing (not that there aren't exceptions, which are a statistical minority).

I'm not sure why anyone thinks this is a compelling argument. SMH

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#404

Post by zik »

brlewis wrote: post #255
nradov wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I support nuclear power, however I doubt we will ever see many more reactors built in most countries. The growth of photovoltaic solar power combined with coming cheaper grid scale battery storage is going to wreck the economics for nuclear (including fusion if it ever works).

Solar wrecking the economics for nuclear looks unlikely to me: https://en.howtruthful.com/o/nuclear_power_can_replace_coal_...

Check the rate of nuclear power plants being built. It's fallen off a cliff. The people who finance nuclear reactors already think that nuclear power will be uneconomic in the lifetime of any new plants.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#405

Post by Tempest1981 »

brlewis wrote: 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…

TerraPower looks promising -- Safe from meltdown, uses existing nuclear waste as fuel, etc.

https://www.geekwire.com/2019/inside-terrapower-nuclear-lab/

"Nuclear" probably needs a better name -- modern designs have come a long way since Fukushima was built.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#406

Post by ekianjo »

> 6/ Plant based diets will dominate the world by the end of the decade. Eating meat will become a delicacy, much like eating caviar is today. Much of the world’s food production will move from farms to laboratories.

In this decade? Not a chance. Maybe in 50 years this is more likely.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#407

Post by mythrwy »

I'm in doubt on most of this.

China won't become the dominate superpower this decade.

Plant based diets won't replace meat.

Youngsters won't replace oldsters in power (unless at that point they are the oldsters).

A decentralized internet won't be the norm.

There won't be a WWII level of effort against man made climate change and in fact after "nothing much happens" (again) the noise will die down.

Here's my prediction for the next decade: Some unexpected stuff happens but mostly incremental changes. I do agree with #10.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#408

Post by sumedh »

Supermancho wrote: post #403
gordaco wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are being downvoted, but I think that you are totally right. For an awful lot of people, eating meat is a matter of status; it's similar to why many people prefer having big cars even if they are less environmentally friendly. There is also the fact that plant based diets are still associated to certain ideologies and because of that they will keep being scoffed at by people from opposing ideologies. Sure, you do…

> eating meat is a matter of status Chicken mcnuggets are barely chicken. The market already demonstrated that "real meat" is a matter of availability and marketing, not a matter status chasing (not that there aren't exceptions, which are a statistical minority). I'm not sure why anyone thinks this is a compelling argument. SMH

I think the OP is taking about beef and pork for making his point.

Does raising chickens even have the same impact as raising cattle on the climate?

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#409

Post by Vomzor »

pedalpete wrote: post #288
arnaudsm wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree except with your last sentence. They have the biggest total pollution, but their pollution per capita is actually low compared to eastern countries, and they are investing and legislating aggressively for clean tech.

Furthermore to your point, I don't think we need to look at pollution from a more holistic point of view. How much of the pollution in China is due to them manufacturing and "recycling" goods for the west? Can we look at pollution that has been "offshored" and calculate that into the mix?

Mapped: The world’s largest CO2 importers and exporters https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-worlds-largest-co2-import...

"Despite the large total of CO2 imports and exports, US emissions are only 6% higher and Chinese emissions are 13% lower when CO2 transfers are taken into account." Energy related carbon dioxide emissions peaked in 2007 in the United States [1]. They didn't just get hidden by imports replacing domestic manufacturing. Even incorporating imports into the national balance, US emissions are down from the peak. This is largely due to efficient combined cycle gas turbines replacing coal plants and -- to a lesser but growing extent -- a larger proportion of renewable electricity in the national electricity mix. Chinese carbon dioxide emissions have not peaked yet.

As of 2017 (referenced above), 87% of Chinese emissions are attributable to domestic consumption. That should moderate hopes that Chinese emission trends could be reversed by CO2 tariffs. It should also moderate anxiety that Chinese emissions are "really" the offshored emissions of Western consumers.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas_emissions_by_th...

copy/pasted from another thread

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#410

Post by sroussey »

matt_kantor wrote: post #160
politelemon wrote: post #109

I would take a pessimistic view on #8: > Mass surveillance by governments and corporations will become normal and expected this decade and people will increasingly turn to new products and services to protect themselves from surveillance. The biggest consumer technology successes of this decade will be in the area of privacy. I'd take this a step further and fear that not only will it become the norm, even making use…

> making use of privacy tech and devices will ... serve as barriers towards getting access to various societal instruments This already happens. For example, in the US good credit is often necessary to rent an apartment, open a bank account, get insurance, or even land a job. In order to maintain "good credit", one needs to make sure their financial activity is reported to the bureaus. If you do everything using more…

Yes, but...

Some things you want as a signal and some things you don’t. Paying rent on time should be a signal, but often is not. Going to a cancer clinic may not be a signal you want, but already is exploited.

Nuance is needed. Lots of small but important decisions to be made. Sounds like a product to me.

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