Comment by aazaa | Hacker News Reader

Comment by aazaa | Hacker News Reader

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1. The election of 2020 will catalyze the creation of a third major political party composed of former Democrats and Republicans. By the end of the decade, this new party, propelled by its charismatic leader, will have relegated the current parties to minority status.

2. The fastest-shrinking part of the economy will be middle management. Flat organization restructuring will be driven by a dizzying proliferation of cheap decision-making systems directly instructing low wage workers.

3. At least two digital 9/11s will take place. These will be major attacks on crucial infrastructure of a world power by a group no larger than 2,000 individuals.

4. At least two digital Tonkin Gulf incidents will take place. In the rush to pin blame and "do something," the victim of a digital 9/11 will identify - and attack - an innocent country.

5. At least one low-yield nuclear weapon will be used in a combat situation.

6. New battery technologies will make it possible to power a full-size car for 500 miles with a unit costing under $300.

7. The value of bitcoin in circulation will exceed the M1 money supply of all but the top 3 countries.

8. Teenagers will rarely leave their houses, replacing most physical interactions, including school, with telepresence tools.

Wow, I think almost every one of these is wildly unrealistic :)

1. Third parties are desperately needed but the rules are stacked way too hard against them. And there’s not nearly enough true dissatisfaction in both parties to see a new one overcome.

2. People were saying that decades ago. Really skeptical.

3. Unless they result in thousands of lives lost, it won’t have nearly the same effect. And that seems unlikely / hard to predict.

4. See above

5. Weird. There are very few nuclear powers and none of them have much incentive to start using nukes in combat, let alone low level nukes.

6. I hope so! But this would probably be the most transformative one on this list. That level of battery innovation would have huge cascading effects throughout society. Feels like wishful thinking.

7. Only if there’s some killer app, and the last decade doesn’t inspire confidence.

8. You think most countries are going to tear down a multi trillion dollar education / babysitter system in favor of telepresence homeschooling in the next decade? No way. And teenagers don’t leave the house as much anymore due to technology but that trend will not explode in a decade. Maybe over longer term, but I also think it’s a real problem that society will attempt to solve well before we end up with most teens rarely leaving the house.

Anyway, just mildly disagreeing. Guess we’ll see!

re: 3. For me it's easy to imagine something as simple as a long sustained power outage would result in the deaths of thousands.

Thank you for making intriguing predictions that aren't about FANG, software stack, etc :)

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