Predictions for 2020s

1. Agree

2. Automation will be one of the anticlimaxes of the decade.

3. China will have a mixed decade, marred by competition from other countries for production, human rights scandals, a domestic financial crisis that will spread globally, and a complete slowdown in growth. But its government will survive.

4. Crypto currency will be no more relevant in 2029 than 2019. The dollar will continue to dominate beyond 2030, until at last in the 2030s the Euro is backed by a significant military force.

5. No decentralised internet will gain popularity.

6. Plant based diets will see a meteoric rise in the west, but will still be a minority by 2030.

7. Biggest story of space will be the failure of NASA to make much progress in landing humans on Mars. SpaceX will make the most progress along those lines, with a test landing of an unmanned craft, but safety concerns over manned flight will hold SpaceX back in serving NASA.

8. A surprising backlash against social media will see the end of Facebook (but Whatsapp will survive well, with Instagram in a long decline). Twitter will pivot successfully almost beyond recognition.

9. Baby boomers will no longer dominate the electorate, and a shift to the political left will take place across America and Europe. The UK will see the most left wing government since Atlee’s. The climate crisis will help make big government palatable again.

10. Progress on cancer will be piecemeal and slow. However, this disappointment will contrast with miraculous advances in treating and prevention of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.

Mine...

11. VR will replace games consoles. VR will have a huge impact on society, but it will be only the beginning - much like 90s Internet, it will grow in importance decade by decade, but the 2020s will be remembered as the one in which it “arrived”.

12. Apple will decline to a shadow of its former self.

13. To everyone’s surprise, smart watches will have a come back in the second half of the decade thanks to hardware improvements, and will become almost universal for younger demographics. They will become a significant item of self expression, and related “digital jewellery” will also take off.

14. Electric cars will arrive faster than anticipated, putting huge strain on electricity distribution.

15. In the US, the college bubble will burst. In the UK it will not, but student numbers will drop and many universities will be forced to merge and close humanities departments.

16. Post Brexit UK will suffer a economic stagnation similar to Japan’s post banking crisis. Scotland will vote to remain in the UK, but Ireland will be reunified. A great number of people will leave the UK to work in the USA.

17. Putin will die, and Russia will enter a period of crisis and civil disorder.

18. After Trump’s second term ends in economic disaster, popularism in the US will slowly retreat. The democrats will be in power for the remainder of the decade, particularly focused on climate change.

19. Amazon and Microsoft will emerge as the great winners of big tech over the decade, driven by cloud services and consumer appliances.

20. A new e reader device that actually works well will be launched, destroying the kindle’s grip on the market, and will be universally adopted for education and leisure. The maker will be a newcomer and will end the decade as one of the most exciting startups since Google.