| I enjoyed going back through the 2010 thread too. Just for fun, below are my judgments on some of the predictions, as an all-knowing resident of the 2010 commenters' misty future. For anyone who is really into making clear predictions, the Long Now Foundation has a website where people can place 'accountable' bets at https://longbets.org/ I've divided my comments on the 2010 thread into three categories: Hits, Hit and Miss, and Misses. I'll start with the misses. Misses: 2010 Prediction: Major changes will happen in Iran, one way or the other. The current trajectory they are on does not seem sustainable for a decade.
—DanielBMarkham 2021 Review: Iran's power structure is largely unchanged for now. 2010 Prediction: During the second half of the decade, the Chinese bubble will burst. This will be a quite heavy shock. A lot of people will lose a lot of money. A younger/more populist group of politicians will assume power in China.
—DrJokepu 2021 Review: This hasn't happened yet, though growth does appear to be slowing in China. I think it's interesting to note the use of the word 'populist' here; perhaps what the author had in mind was 'more responsive to popular opinion and less repressive' as opposed to 'nativist rabble rousing', which tends to be what people mean by 'populist' in 2021. Xi Jingping arguably is more populist by the latter definition, but not the former, and he isn't significantly younger than his predecessors. 2010 Prediction: Hugo Chavez & his friends will be removed from power in Venezuela.
—DrJokepu 2021 Review: Chavez died in 2013, but his party and his chosen successor are still in power, despite an economic and political crisis that began in 2014, and a disputed presidential election in 2019. 2010 Prediction: Megan Fox or Jessica Biel is nominated for best supporting actress.
—kevbin 2021 Review: If this referred to the Academy Awards, it didn't pan out. Both were nominated at the Golden Raspberry Awards for Worst Supporting Actress however, and Fox won for her role in 2015's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. 2010 Prediction: Still no Duke Nukem Forever.
—DrJokepu 2021 Review: It was released the following year. 2010 Prediction: Unauthenticated free wifi becomes nearly extinct after a major hacking incident is traced to Panera Bread (or similar) and a court rules that companies are liable for the actions of those on their free wifi networks. Realizing this, companies force authentication on everyone or turn off their wifi all together.
—ericb 2021 Review: Nope. 2010 Prediction: External brain-computer interfaces make progress, and typing begins to be replaced by the end of the decade.
—ericb 2021 Review: Brain-computer interfaces are still mostly laboratory projects for now, and typing shows no signs of being replaced yet. Even voice interaction remains impractical for anything other than simple commands. 2010 Prediction: Boeing Dreamliner Delayed Until 2022
—edw519 2021 Review: The first Boeing Dreamliner commercial flight took place in 2011, though this was a humorous prediction. 2010 Prediction: Facebook will be gone in 5 years, just like MySpace.
—InclinedPlane 2021 Review: Facebook was still very much around in 2020 and the company's market capitalisation is approaching a trillion dollars. 2010 Prediction: No more airline travel hassles in the USA, people will be able to board and fly without government restrictions or searches.
—Scott_MacGregor 2021 Review: Nope. 2010 Prediction: Taxes in California will be the lowest in the nation.
—Scott_MacGregor 2021 Review: Nope. 2010 Prediction: Politically, Generation-X will be in power--look out.
—Scott_MacGregor 2021 Review: The current US President was born in the 1940s, as were both his predecessor and his strongest competitor in the primaries. 2010 Prediction: Everyone will have their full genome sequenced if they need some sort of medical treatment.
—brfox 2021 Review: This hasn't happened yet, but it does seem plausible for the not-too-distant-future, and relatively inexpensive SNP-based sequencing kits for ancestry and basic health insights are widely available to consumers. 2010 Prediction: Healthcare will start to become cheaper due to personalized medicine and more data based decision-making.
—brfox 2021 Review: Healthcare costs are still exorbitant in the US and personalised medicine is generally expensive. This prediction might yet come to pass further in the future, but the timescale wasn't right. 2010 Prediction: Telerobots become commonplace. These will be not much more than a wheeled or tracked base with a pole and holder for a mobile phone. It allows you to visit people in their homes, visit companies or customers, provide some kinds of medical service and carry out inspections of remote sites.
—motters 2021 Review: Nope. 2010 Prediction: the first terrorist small nuclear detonation
—slvrspoon 2021 Review: Fortunately this one was a miss for the last decade. |