Saturday, February 22, 2020

Five 2030 Predictions


I think all of these have a more-than-50%-chance of happening, but I am probably overconfident:
  1. COVID-19 will kill more than 25 million people worldwide by 2030. I really hope I'm wrong and an effective, cheap vaccine is available soon.
  2.  More than one US state will default on their public employee pension obligations by 2030. Underfunded pensions are a chronic problem; I might be wrong and strong economic growth might push the day of reckoning past 2030. Or maybe COVID-19 will kill enough retirees to make the accounting work out (but I doubt it; the cost of dealing with lots of sick people is likely to strain government budgets at all levels).
  3. Polyamory and a push for state-sanctioned polyamorous marriage will be a big "culture war" issue during the 2020s.
  4. At least one country's central bank will issue a blockchain-based digital currency that will have a 'market cap' of more than 100 billion dollars by 2030.
  5. A woman will be US president before 2030.
UPDATE: I asked my Twitter followers what they thought; here are the poll results:
  1. 27% agreed with me(2,121 votes)
  2. 76% agreed (487 votes)
  3. 31% agreed (1,000 votes)
  4. 72% agreed (1,227 votes)
  5. 43% agreed (877 votes)
If my Twitter followers are right, I'll get two of five right.