…surveillance, monopolies, automation, telecommuting, next generation warfare, UBI, the future of work, the retail apocalypse, online dating, antivaxxers, the student debt crisis, supply chain vulnerability, green tech and climate change, urban homelessness. College equivalency certificates, biohacking, the retreat from globalization, collapse of mainstream journalism, Chinese ascendance, social engineering, Saudi modernization and the move away from fossil fuels in the kingdom, inclusive stakeholding, political realignment, and the problem of gerontocracy and the end of naive capitalism underpinned by U Chicago style economics…
It seems to me that even if only a handful of those things are pushed past a tipping point, it could make for a very wacky year (though not necessarily in a bad way). I don’t buy Weinstein’s conspiracy theory, but some of his reasoning in the monologue made me feel noticeably more uncertain about the near future.
So if 2021 and/or 2022 keep pace with 2020 in terms of wackiness (which I personally doubt), I think it will be for reasons that at least partially overlap with the above. :::
Okay, now that we’re a few months into 2021, I feel like updating a bit.
Most notably, there was the insurrection at the Capitol. Political violence of this reference class was mentioned in a couple other users’ answers, and I wish I had explicitly mentioned it in mine. I remain perplexed by the weak response to the insurrection by law enforcement—I certainly would not have predicted that aspect. I think there might be a couple more incidents of this sort, but probably less intense—the peak of organized fervor has passed. More likely is a continuous “low grade smouldering domestic insurgency” as supposed by CellBioGuy.
If Glenn Greenwald is to be believed, there is an impending new surveillance paradigm aiming at domestic threats like the insurrectionists and affecting all Americans—a successor to the Patriot Act from the previous war on terror. This paradigm is supported and advanced by the publishers of The Narrative, who warn that “unfettered” communication leads to radical Trumpism. I don’t think I would have been able to predict this very well in advance. But I also think this will probably not end up as bad as Greenwald supposes. It is more likely that impositions against privacy and free speech will remain politically difficult, and domestic security will be pursued using more narrowly targeted (and less constitutionally questionable) means. But I might put something like 10% on the strong form of Greenwald’s concerns, and moderately higher on a weaker form.
My answer is very broad. Basically, I am somewhat persuaded by this 7-minute monologue from Eric Weinstein on Coronavirus and the Accelerating Future.
It seems to me that even if only a handful of those things are pushed past a tipping point, it could make for a very wacky year (though not necessarily in a bad way). I don’t buy Weinstein’s conspiracy theory, but some of his reasoning in the monologue made me feel noticeably more uncertain about the near future.
So if 2021 and/or 2022 keep pace with 2020 in terms of wackiness (which I personally doubt), I think it will be for reasons that at least partially overlap with the above. :::
Okay, now that we’re a few months into 2021, I feel like updating a bit.
Most notably, there was the insurrection at the Capitol. Political violence of this reference class was mentioned in a couple other users’ answers, and I wish I had explicitly mentioned it in mine. I remain perplexed by the weak response to the insurrection by law enforcement—I certainly would not have predicted that aspect. I think there might be a couple more incidents of this sort, but probably less intense—the peak of organized fervor has passed. More likely is a continuous “low grade smouldering domestic insurgency” as supposed by CellBioGuy.
If Glenn Greenwald is to be believed, there is an impending new surveillance paradigm aiming at domestic threats like the insurrectionists and affecting all Americans—a successor to the Patriot Act from the previous war on terror. This paradigm is supported and advanced by the publishers of The Narrative, who warn that “unfettered” communication leads to radical Trumpism. I don’t think I would have been able to predict this very well in advance. But I also think this will probably not end up as bad as Greenwald supposes. It is more likely that impositions against privacy and free speech will remain politically difficult, and domestic security will be pursued using more narrowly targeted (and less constitutionally questionable) means. But I might put something like 10% on the strong form of Greenwald’s concerns, and moderately higher on a weaker form.