New Years' Predictions

If you look back at anyone's predictions from a year ago, they are more or less always all wrong. I wonder why we bother? We poor mortals really cannot foresee the future.

Still, the temptation is too great. Here are mine. My track record stinks. I actually think I have a good sense of what's coming; what is unpredictable is when. We'll see in a year's time.


1. Global warming is dead, dead as Jacob Marley, but nothing dramatic is likely to mark this fact—or rather, the dramatic event, Climategate, has already happened. The experts never publicly admit that they were wrong; it takes the next generation to point it out. Like global overpopulation before it, global warming will just slowly fade from the news and public consciousness. The earth will no doubt still be ending, but it will be something else now.


2. I've been predicting for years now that the Chinese government would fall; for seventeen years, to be precise. But what the heck, each year it gets more likely. I'm going to predict it again. China is a bubble; bubbles pop. Mass unrest is growing. The year of the tiger may be the year.


3. If China, then also North Korea. Also perhaps vice versa; not that the two regimes are interlinked, but they are i the same part of the world, and dominos are dominos.


4. Iran? Not so sure. It's been getting more coverage, but I suspect a certain amount of wishful thinking in the West. But if China and North Korea go-- then we have a situation like 1848, or 1989. Iran would probably go under in those circumstances.


5. However we feel about the regimes involved, this is necessarily bad news, short-term, for the world economy. Instability per se is never good for business. South Korea would be knocked back, I assume, by the humanitarian needs of a failed North Korea next door, though I also think that has been exaggerated. China would no longer be able to underwrite US Treasuries—but, on the other hand, the US might have a legitimate excuse to suspend payments until the dust cleared. If what I predict otherwise happens, though, we get more recession.


6. There is good reason to believe that, on the whole, Islamism is in decline. It will be knocked back further, sharply, if Iran's regime falls. This may well become apparent in the New Year, despite recent appearances in Detroit, Afghanistan, and Yemen.


Now for technology predictions:


7. A new story that may emerge in the next year is the decline of the traditional university—for multiple reasons, it's the sort of thing that's going to happen, and rather quickly, one of these years. First, we're not making young people any more. Second, the university has become hopelessly out of touch with the broader culture. Third, its quality has markedly declined through affirmative action and political appointments. Fourth, it has become proportionately far more expensive than it was. Fifth, it cannot react quickly enough for a rapidly changing world. Sixth, new technologies directly challenge its raison d'etre. A continuing recession will accelerate the trend. Universities in the rich world have so far masked problems by attracting large numbers of foreign students to fill seats. That may continue for a few years yet, but this is another bubble that's gotta pop. This may be the year. In fact, you can see it starting, at the less prestigious institutions, already. The option to study online is going to be very attractive. Long-term, the only realistic role for universities to play is certifying acheivements with challenge tests.


8. For similar reasons, the general move to homeschooling will also accelerate.


9. The traditional print newspaper will continue to decline rapidly, with print versions of magazines starting to disappear as quickly as newspapers. A magazine that serves its base well has nothing to fear—it will simply move online and continue to prosper, so long as it makes the move before someone else fills the online niche too well. But print versions? Nope. And the rules will be rather different: up-to-the-minute updates and deep archives, not weekly or monthly, all-new editions.


10. Ebooks are starting to boom; the superiority of the online distribution system is so obvious that it was an online bookstore, Amazon, that was the first big web retail success. Everyone will have an ereader and download books electronically. Bookstores are going to start popping out of business quickly. Publishers, on the other hand, are likely to do better than they were.


11. Do not, not, not, invest in the pulp and paper industry. Canada will soon be choking in all the forest cover—unless we can find a very efficient way to turn trees into biofuel.


12. Do invest in book publishing.


13. Do invest in Apple; they're currently best-positioned for the PDA revolution. Google also still looks strong. So does Amazon.


14. The desktop computer is starting to look quaint. Handheld devices are the wave. Everyone will soon need to have a PDA of some sort; or their cell phone will have evolved into one.


15. Speaking of PDAs: big term for the new year will be “augmented reality.” This is going to be bigger than the Internet is now.


16. There will be no big revival of the real estate market, not back to the glory days. Long-term trends are against it. Fewer young families, older folks downsizing, more telecommuting.


17. The West will continue to grow more conservative in outlook. Like everyone else, I expect the Tories to win the next election in Britain, and the Republicans to take the midterms in the US. This sort of thing, though, is self-limiting; left and right will always alternate. More importantly, the issues and the parties' stands on the issues will continue to shift the centre ground towards the right.


18. Nobody else seems to see this on the horizon, but another bubble that I think is ripe to burst is medicine. With the aging population everywhere in the rich world, it's just getting unsustainably expensive. And there is, as it happens, a cheap hi-tech alternative to the current standard practice. Seems to me it's a no-brainer that a good medical database can out-diagnose any human physician. Boom: there go all those doctors' gigantic salaries.

Sure, there'll still be a place for highly-skilled surgeons. It's called India.

Are any professions safe from outsourcing? Only, I think, those requiring very high-level verbal skills. Writing, editing, perhaps law. Ironically, from being the lowest-paid, these are liable to become the highest-paid professions, with less competition and, thanks to what is coming to be called "Information and Communications Technology," far greater demand than at present.