Predicting the future is easier if it’s a backsliding future.
- Roe vs Wade will fall
- Ozone hole will reopen
- Every infectious disease beaten back by vaccines will return
- Every mediocre show/movie will be rebooted
- Rules-based international order will be dismantled
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The Great Backslide: 2015 - 1965. 50y on a typical indicator
- Internet will be disconnected at national borders
- Cold War will restart
- Literacy will decline
- Longevity will decline
- Infant mortality will go up
- Medical quackery will re-emerge
- Religiosity will rise
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Adding this here
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IDEA: Evil TED, call it DET, Destructions Expected Tomorrow. Each talk will be a doom-and-gloom countertalk to a famous TED talk given by impersonator in goatee. Start with Evil Hans Rosling (RIP) doing downward-trending graphs. twitter.com/vgr/status/112…
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What happens after the end of history? We rewind and rerun. Why are we surprised?
The Great Weirding (2016-20) becomes the Great Backslide (2020-2070) becomes the Great Refactoring (2070-2370). Three stages of a Dark Age. Of 350 years.
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And that’s assuming I finish inventing psychohistory. If not the 350 years becomes 3500. Y’all better give me money to get this done.
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I’m curious, why do you believe religiosity will rise?
Religious affiliation in the US has been declining for 30 years, and the trend seems like it’s accelerating (not reversing)
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The great joke of the last 100 years of technology is that it simultaneously sped up change and kept stupid old fuckers who can’t deal with said change alive and in power.
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