Just recording my predictions to see if they come true:
1) Pretty much everyone reopens by the end of the year and lets the virus run its course, with various precautions taken (mandating mask-wearing, etc.) There will be a paradigm shift eventually in which we accept going back to normal won’t happen.
2) Most activities will resume, but live sports and especially concerts will remain contentious, as they seem like superspreader events, and demand will be down considerably. I hope concerts aren’t going forever, but I expect in the next few years for the venues and LiveNation and such to go under.
3) Global travel will be another major issue—most countries will require a quarantine for new arrivals in the near future, which will make traveling more undesirable than simple fear of catching it on a plane will.
4) Major economic disruption. Unsure what the heck will happen politically. The 2020s was going to be a time of major shifts anyway. Don’t know what to predict. Globalization will take some sort of hit. A generational shift in generational leadership may make the transition somewhat smoother than it will seem.
1) Going much slower than expected, but still expect a sudden shift at some point. It’s starting to look like the health risks are less severe than many feared in April and May, but of course it’s not no big deal either.
2) This is going as I expected, more or less, but I’m surprised by how much working from home continues. I also think concerts could come back early than expected, but they’ve all been postponed by a year now anyway, and there’s no guarantee that they’ll be able to go forward then, by any means. They are tied with stadium sports for the worst possible superspreadever events, I think. Sports are generally so much more important to most people that they will almost certainly get started first, but it is a bit tough because many venues host both so how do you do one without the other? Mandating masks and banning cheering may be attempted, but the problem with both events is that people can’t wear masks and drink, and it’s real hard to keep quiet even if you’re trying. Sports crowds are generally much older, so the reverse could happen—young people adjusting to remote sports, and the older ceasing to attend. I don’t know.
3) This is going on as I expected—not a whole lot of discussion of it, though. Starting to change a bit.
4) Going as expected, to the extent much can be expected here.
Getting a lot of resistance on these, so adding more:
1) Higher ed is done. Less from logistics than puncturing the illusion surrounding the ponzi scheme nature of it, as well as the current American dream narrative. Makes people reconsider assumptions, but mostly the money won’t be there or won’t be easily spent. Elite colleges for certain things will return—tech and humanities—most people will stop getting a traditional college degree and turn to other types of programs or focus on ones that don’t require it. Credentialism will lessen in many areas.
2) Not as sure here, but pretty significant economic disruption as people can’t pay bills and default on mortgages and try to save money. It seems like the real estate bubble should crash, but everyone pushes back on this. Obviously, will depend on the location, but office real estate most definitely. I don’t see how this can’t cause a problem with residential either. It makes people think of the future differently. This may be mitigated by government intervention, probably a much bigger and more controlling government, or it could lead to decentralization.
3) As a result of 2), I tend to think permanent (for my lifetime, at least) reduction in American standard of living and also probably life expectancy. We were at the peak of living standards and it was unsustainable, borrowed from the future and past in a way that cannot be repaid or regained, because much of it is actually related to ones perceptions psychologically/narrative, as well as other interlocking manipulations, and the whole thing will unravel now—the whole infinite growth and progress thing is not persuasive enough anymore. Nor is the post-truth/post-politics world. Return to object level. This will mean that people are much less obsessed with lengthening their life without any cost-benefit calculation—Boomers will probably be peak healthcare consumption for some time. Everyone else will see a future where people languish in nursing homes, and have a less rosy expectation, and be more aware of the fact of death. This awareness of the tradeoffs, combined with the impact of COVID-19 (assuming it doesn’t peter out, but I imagine it will have some effect), will shave a few years off the average life span.
4) Massive inter- and intra- generational conflict. Appears to already be starting. Major problems between many Boomers and their kids. Their kids mainly dysfunctional and unable to break free of the assumptions they were raised with fully. Overly obedient for good reason. But ultimately will probably still wrench the wheel away from the leadership class eventually, as they aren’t tolerable at this point. There will definitely be some capable factions out there regardless of the overall issues.
Adding a few more *possibilities*, not all of which I think are likely. I’m not as sure on some of the fundamentals as I once was, partly due to new evidence. The evidence remains poorly presented overall so I could be more off than I thought, but in most cases that would be true for almost everyone.
I’d been confident for a while much of spread was presymptomatic and aerosolized, with handwashing likely not doing much at all. I now think there’s a small possibility something like fecal spread is involved, and that possibly the WHO is right about it being more about large droplets. But they could also be very wrong, and I think they probably are. Even then, one would think masks help slow spread in brief interactions, so they work well enough for anyone practicing social distancing indefinitely, but beyond a certain amount of exposure, the reduction in spread is probably hours or days. Raincoats work, but if you go swimming in one...
It seems like this may be way, way less dangerous for almost everyone than people think. Not saying it’s not a big deal or just the flu. But even with protests and other things, it doesn’t seem like we’re overwhelmed. Cases are going up, but they *will* go up, until we reach some level of immunity. The question is how much death and suffering results. Many of the cases seem minor. I think there is a decent possibility that historians will remember 2020 as a major overreaction, but this is by no means clear yet. It could go the other way, but I really don’t think it will seem scarier than cancer in a few years in terms of death risk. Not anywhere close. Longer term effects in some cases, I’m not sure. Some reports are worrying. But the long-term effects of the shutdown, social and economic, may end up overwhelming such concerns. I’m very concerned about how things are going to go in the next few years—what the heck are we going to do about all the people who lost health insurance and jobs? And many more probably will soon. I don’t see anyway historians consider lockdown anything but a major mistake, certainly past the two-week point. Even if the idea behind it seemed sensible, that idea seems to have rested on assumptions that were obviously mistaken and can’t be easily excused among our leaders (worrying about hospital crowding but not thinking about how that connected to sending infected patients to nursing homes or the hospital as a major source of spread during lockdown, and also making so many people lose their health insurance and hospitals lose so much revenue that the healthcare system itself may end up in even bigger trouble in the long-term.)
Still don’t think vaccines will make much of a difference, if we get them. Not happy with the IMO misleading messaging on this. UV lights in public buildings seem more promising than anything I’ve heard so far.
Most of the world seems to be returning to normal, dropping containment as a strategy, though relatively quietly—the U.S. seems to be an outlier here. I have a feeling Europe will have largely moved on from the virus itself in a year, with the most vulnerable taking precautions. The economy will be the focus, out of necessity. Idk what the heck will happen with the U.S.
It seems like some people may have more immunity than we thought, but it doesn’t seem immunity lasts long at all. Still, some degree of herd immunity will probably help a lot and and subsequent cases may well be milder.
Add: vaccine won’t do much, for reasons I’ve posted elsewhere.
The people it would make the biggest difference for would probably be too high risk to take a vaccine that wasn’t heavily tested overtime, and may not be able to risk such a vaccine at all. They would have to rely on herd immunity. The feeling of psychological security it would offer lower-risk people may have some impact.
Pandemic Predictions
Just recording my predictions to see if they come true:
1) Pretty much everyone reopens by the end of the year and lets the virus run its course, with various precautions taken (mandating mask-wearing, etc.) There will be a paradigm shift eventually in which we accept going back to normal won’t happen.
2) Most activities will resume, but live sports and especially concerts will remain contentious, as they seem like superspreader events, and demand will be down considerably. I hope concerts aren’t going forever, but I expect in the next few years for the venues and LiveNation and such to go under.
3) Global travel will be another major issue—most countries will require a quarantine for new arrivals in the near future, which will make traveling more undesirable than simple fear of catching it on a plane will.
4) Major economic disruption. Unsure what the heck will happen politically. The 2020s was going to be a time of major shifts anyway. Don’t know what to predict. Globalization will take some sort of hit. A generational shift in generational leadership may make the transition somewhat smoother than it will seem.
Update:
1) Going much slower than expected, but still expect a sudden shift at some point. It’s starting to look like the health risks are less severe than many feared in April and May, but of course it’s not no big deal either.
2) This is going as I expected, more or less, but I’m surprised by how much working from home continues. I also think concerts could come back early than expected, but they’ve all been postponed by a year now anyway, and there’s no guarantee that they’ll be able to go forward then, by any means. They are tied with stadium sports for the worst possible superspreadever events, I think. Sports are generally so much more important to most people that they will almost certainly get started first, but it is a bit tough because many venues host both so how do you do one without the other? Mandating masks and banning cheering may be attempted, but the problem with both events is that people can’t wear masks and drink, and it’s real hard to keep quiet even if you’re trying. Sports crowds are generally much older, so the reverse could happen—young people adjusting to remote sports, and the older ceasing to attend. I don’t know.
3) This is going on as I expected—not a whole lot of discussion of it, though. Starting to change a bit.
4) Going as expected, to the extent much can be expected here.
Getting a lot of resistance on these, so adding more:
1) Higher ed is done. Less from logistics than puncturing the illusion surrounding the ponzi scheme nature of it, as well as the current American dream narrative. Makes people reconsider assumptions, but mostly the money won’t be there or won’t be easily spent. Elite colleges for certain things will return—tech and humanities—most people will stop getting a traditional college degree and turn to other types of programs or focus on ones that don’t require it. Credentialism will lessen in many areas.
2) Not as sure here, but pretty significant economic disruption as people can’t pay bills and default on mortgages and try to save money. It seems like the real estate bubble should crash, but everyone pushes back on this. Obviously, will depend on the location, but office real estate most definitely. I don’t see how this can’t cause a problem with residential either. It makes people think of the future differently. This may be mitigated by government intervention, probably a much bigger and more controlling government, or it could lead to decentralization.
3) As a result of 2), I tend to think permanent (for my lifetime, at least) reduction in American standard of living and also probably life expectancy. We were at the peak of living standards and it was unsustainable, borrowed from the future and past in a way that cannot be repaid or regained, because much of it is actually related to ones perceptions psychologically/narrative, as well as other interlocking manipulations, and the whole thing will unravel now—the whole infinite growth and progress thing is not persuasive enough anymore. Nor is the post-truth/post-politics world. Return to object level. This will mean that people are much less obsessed with lengthening their life without any cost-benefit calculation—Boomers will probably be peak healthcare consumption for some time. Everyone else will see a future where people languish in nursing homes, and have a less rosy expectation, and be more aware of the fact of death. This awareness of the tradeoffs, combined with the impact of COVID-19 (assuming it doesn’t peter out, but I imagine it will have some effect), will shave a few years off the average life span.
4) Massive inter- and intra- generational conflict. Appears to already be starting. Major problems between many Boomers and their kids. Their kids mainly dysfunctional and unable to break free of the assumptions they were raised with fully. Overly obedient for good reason. But ultimately will probably still wrench the wheel away from the leadership class eventually, as they aren’t tolerable at this point. There will definitely be some capable factions out there regardless of the overall issues.
Adding a few more *possibilities*, not all of which I think are likely. I’m not as sure on some of the fundamentals as I once was, partly due to new evidence. The evidence remains poorly presented overall so I could be more off than I thought, but in most cases that would be true for almost everyone.
I’d been confident for a while much of spread was presymptomatic and aerosolized, with handwashing likely not doing much at all. I now think there’s a small possibility something like fecal spread is involved, and that possibly the WHO is right about it being more about large droplets. But they could also be very wrong, and I think they probably are. Even then, one would think masks help slow spread in brief interactions, so they work well enough for anyone practicing social distancing indefinitely, but beyond a certain amount of exposure, the reduction in spread is probably hours or days. Raincoats work, but if you go swimming in one...
It seems like this may be way, way less dangerous for almost everyone than people think. Not saying it’s not a big deal or just the flu. But even with protests and other things, it doesn’t seem like we’re overwhelmed. Cases are going up, but they *will* go up, until we reach some level of immunity. The question is how much death and suffering results. Many of the cases seem minor. I think there is a decent possibility that historians will remember 2020 as a major overreaction, but this is by no means clear yet. It could go the other way, but I really don’t think it will seem scarier than cancer in a few years in terms of death risk. Not anywhere close. Longer term effects in some cases, I’m not sure. Some reports are worrying. But the long-term effects of the shutdown, social and economic, may end up overwhelming such concerns. I’m very concerned about how things are going to go in the next few years—what the heck are we going to do about all the people who lost health insurance and jobs? And many more probably will soon. I don’t see anyway historians consider lockdown anything but a major mistake, certainly past the two-week point. Even if the idea behind it seemed sensible, that idea seems to have rested on assumptions that were obviously mistaken and can’t be easily excused among our leaders (worrying about hospital crowding but not thinking about how that connected to sending infected patients to nursing homes or the hospital as a major source of spread during lockdown, and also making so many people lose their health insurance and hospitals lose so much revenue that the healthcare system itself may end up in even bigger trouble in the long-term.)
Still don’t think vaccines will make much of a difference, if we get them. Not happy with the IMO misleading messaging on this. UV lights in public buildings seem more promising than anything I’ve heard so far.
Most of the world seems to be returning to normal, dropping containment as a strategy, though relatively quietly—the U.S. seems to be an outlier here. I have a feeling Europe will have largely moved on from the virus itself in a year, with the most vulnerable taking precautions. The economy will be the focus, out of necessity. Idk what the heck will happen with the U.S.
It seems like some people may have more immunity than we thought, but it doesn’t seem immunity lasts long at all. Still, some degree of herd immunity will probably help a lot and and subsequent cases may well be milder.
Add: vaccine won’t do much, for reasons I’ve posted elsewhere.
The people it would make the biggest difference for would probably be too high risk to take a vaccine that wasn’t heavily tested overtime, and may not be able to risk such a vaccine at all. They would have to rely on herd immunity. The feeling of psychological security it would offer lower-risk people may have some impact.