Ask HN: A New Decade. Any Predictions?
(1) Britain will exit from the EU, and there will be more such exits.<p>(2) The major countries will make big and somewhat successful efforts to increase the birth rates.<p>(3) Internet content, especially video, will grow quickly in volume and variety with a lot of quite high quality.<p>(4) The one size fits all mainstream media will change or shrink, likely shrink, as new media with great variety will explode.<p>(5) Small team, inexpensive, but innovative, entertaining, and often quite popular video story telling will grow quickly.  The better funded effort will make a lot of use of computer generated images, e.g., extrapolation of and big steps up from the movie <i>Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow</i>.<p>(6) Trump will win in 2020, dominate the Republican party, and do at least some good recruiting promising <i>players</i> for the future.    Also in 2020 the Trump Republicans will win the House.  Due to the Republican victories, the Democrat party will be lost wandering in a desert at least for Trump&#x27;s second term.  But then some Democrats will get serious and rebuild the party.  By 2030 we will have two strong political parties both going for the center of the road voters.  Some of the news media, on the Internet, will report the news objectively and with considerable depth and, thus, greatly help US government.<p>(7) We will have some big surprises in astrophysics.<p>(8) We will have some big surprises in exploration of our solar system, especially asteroids.<p>(9) We will have some big surprises in progress in curing diseases, maybe even mostly cure cancer.<p>(10) The economists, the Fed, etc. are getting enough understanding of how to get full employment, rapid growth, low interest rates, and low taxes.  The growth in the economy will will reach a level which pays off the national debt quickly.<p>(11) Home schooling via high quality materials on the Internet, as Web pages, PDF files, and video clips will grow quickly as will corresponding testing and certification.  Tens of thousands of families will have their 12 year old children through current college STEM field materials.  Generally the Internet will do much better in instruction for skills, crafts, professional development, etc.<p>(12) The US will start deploying nukes for electric power again, sometimes for the grid and other times, with small nukes, for just local housing or plants.<p>(13) A major fraction of Internet traffic will go via satellite, especially in poor or sparsely populated areas.<p>(14) There will be at least one moon base with humans there for months at a time.<p>(15) The James Web telescope will yield astounding results.<p>(16) The Mideast oil states will grow quickly in sophistication and development.<p>(17)  Supersonic passenger planes will return.<p>(18) Automobile manufacturing will be much more highly automated with some cars with prices under $10,000.<p>(19) The Internet will enable significant flows from the most crowded areas to less crowded.<p>(20) There will be a lot of one day and same day deliveries for consumer shopping, including for refrigerated and frozen items.<p>(21) There will be a lot of retail selling direct from the factory, in the US or other countries.  So, some item that costs $10 now may sell for $2 -- generally prices will fall.  I.e., quite broadly the <i>middleman</i> will get <i>disintermediated</i>.<p>(22)  New house will get a lot cheaper:  (A) The move to rural land will lower the costs of lots.  Such lots will use water wells and septic systems and, thus, lower costs of utilities.  Internet access can be via satellite and, thus, from anywhere, e.g., some house in the woods, a boat on a lake, a cabin on a mountain top.  Houses can be <i>manufactured</i> and just delivered to a site and be ready to move in in two days or so. Otherwise, there will be larger manufactured components for just Lego style plug together houses.<p>(23) Medical research will make good or better progress in control of obesity.<p>(24) Warehousing will become nearly fully automated.<p>(25) Automation in manufacturing will expand rapidly.<p>(26) New materials, e.g., carbon fiber, Kevlar, plastics, adhesives, etc. will grow quickly for cars, buildings, etc.<p>(27) There will be much more fossil fuel extraction from the continental shelves of the continents, especially in Asia.<p>(28) Solar power with batteries and fossil fueled backup generators will become much more popular due to more rural housing that, finally, needs no connections for electric power, telephone, Internet, water, sewer, or anything else, thus greatly lowering the costs of rural housing.  Such rural housing will also drive more home schooling based on the Internet.  Small communities, of say, a dozen homes on some 100 acres of land will grow up and maybe have their own small nuke for electric power, including for home HVAC.<p>(29) Generally cost of living will go down significantly due to some of the above -- buying direct from factories, much cheaper housing, cheaper cars, more automated manufacturing, due to home schooling, no more school taxes and, thus, much cheaper local taxes, due to rural living, much less in government services, e.g., snow plowing, traffic lights, road and sewer construction, and, thus, much lower taxes.<p>(30) Due to (29), etc., a much higher birth rate.<p>(31) Due to the information via the Internet, much better informed voters and much better politics and government.<p>(32) Also heavily due to the Internet, much cheaper alternatives to traditional college.<p>(33) The US will solidly stop the flows of illegal drugs into the US, and Mexico will make a lot of progress recovering from a narco state.<p>(34) The US will make good progress toward astoundingly capable unmanned jet fighter planes.<p>(35) CRISPR techniques will make astounding progress in plant and animal <i>breeding</i>.<p>(36) Generally a lot of prices will get pushed down due to lower prices for oil and natural gas from fracking, continental shelf drilling, and ANWR drilling, higher agricultural productivity from better seeds, feeds, equipment, and computer based information, more automation in manufacturing, direct selling from factories to end users, more efficient order processing, warehousing, and shipping, generally more computing and automation.  But the low interest rates are causing lots of capital investment, low unemployment, and higher wages.  Higher interest rates would risk depression from prices falling from the improved efficiencies and higher unemployment; so interest rates need to stay low to avoid recession due to falling prices.