Ask Lemmy

Global Bird Flu Pandemic. Our Population will be cut straight in half.

2008 was known for the Great Bush recession.

2025 will be known for the Great MuskRat Depression that Trumped all other depressions.

This time though the U.S. will feel the brunt

Nuclear war

Donald Trump will either still be President, or be dead.

-The internet will become something only old people use and will fill up with old people like radio and TV before it. Something new will be the hip new thing that kids use/consume, though it technically could be considered the internet

-Coal power plants will be phased out entirely in U.S.A. with some taking credit and others morning the loss of a purely economic conversion over to natural gas power. It will look like it is solar's time to shine, but a "new" way of generating power which is cheaper and slightly cleaner will take over and slowly convert natural gas plants to whatever it is.

-There will be a detracted argument over whether or not what comes after current gen-AI is considered sapient and worthy of rights. While the debate will be straightforward in a vacuum, other semi-related topics will mix in including: the rich wanting their AI doppelgangers to keep control of the money/power they earned during life; something to do with sex and/or relationships because of course there will be; religious opposition until the poll numbers swap, then there will be some regions that view AI rights a helping the disadvantaged

-A young politician from the democrats will get elected on the back of anti-Trump hate. They will have in their first two years theoretically enough support to pass substantial legislation, but will be stopped by a small number of conservative democrats from doing anything substantial save for maybe one big accomplishment. They will loose the 2030 midterms to a bunch of republicans and a "grass-roots" organization that is paid for by rich business owners, but will come back to win the 2032 election against a rich republican from New England. However, they won't have control over the congress and by 2035 will be a lame duck.

-Someone will scrap NASA's current human space flight plans to promote their own plan, which in itself will be scrapped when a new administration comes in. By 2035, articles will be printing "it is a shame that no real current alive human has stepped foot on the moon", taking a subtle dig at China's AI-human that is currently building structures on the moon.

Conservatives who are getting their face eaten will not learn a single thing from anything

Famine will enter the American lexicon again.

We'll have reduced the human body to basically just another machine and will be in the process of reverse-engineering it. So many new techniques and sources of data have come online all at the same time in biology.

This is in contrast to the current situation where we know a few things about select parts of the body in isolation.

Google goes offline for plebs, billionaires go mask off and start discussing population control via drones.

Peak human population will occur within the next ten years. Previously this was driven by falling birth rates. Now it will be driven by rapidly rising death rates. Within the next ten years, I think 300 million - 1 billion dead from starvation due to bread basket collapse is a conservative estimate.

Trump will die and a new religious movement declaring him to be divine will gain a significant foothold among people who call themselves Christians in the US.

Drone attacks and drone based spying will be huge and hobby drones will be highly restricted.

As a casual drone enthusiast I'm already filling in all of my flying now because the free flying days seem to be numbered.

Following the path of other regimes around the world, the USA builds their own "great firewall", segmenting most people here away from the global internet. At around the same time, personal VPNs become explicitly illegal. We might also see the government seize control of at least one certificate registrar, if they don't fire up their own, thereby "owning" TLS online.

On the upside, there's a chance we will see more grass-roots efforts to reboot a lot of institutions that were co-opted by the rich. You're just never going to hear about that through conventional channels. For instance: local newspapers with real journalism behind them. Or more small businesses with the intent to last, rather than sell. It's possible that more of those things will be co-ops, union shops, or even Mondragon inspired. Either way, there's a path forward for more community, real communication, and eventual prosperity, provided folks keep their heads and take things offline where necessary.

Major roadblocks to piracy and porn in the US. Piracy will never be eliminated, but the barrier to entry will become too difficult for most folks. I've subsequently been hoarding all of the media I can get my hands on in case this happens - I refuse to pay for 20 streaming services just to watch movies and TV.

Famine around the world. Global political instability + climate change + economic downturn = food scarcity.

A high profile political assassination in the US or Europe.

They made a film about it "idiocracy" and its already started.

The gulf monarchies' oil will dry up, and they will collapse under their own weight.

... Probably not. But hey, a man can dream...

The surveillance of chats and the prohibition of encryption in many Western countries must have a purpose. It mostly makes sense if democracy is dismantled.

Since the West doesn't show signs of sharing resources voluntarily, my prediction is that the West is willing to fight a nuclear war to preserve its lead which cannot happen in a democracy.

Without that war, Asia will take over as the center of commerce and innovation. The brightest will move there, which means that the remaining people in the West have to be innovative without the main ingredience for innovation.

Significantly populated areas of the developed world are going to be deemed inhospitable due to climate change