I’ve been following Marijn’s site for some time and they made a list of predictions for this year covering a range of topics including the UK, the US, tech, and entertainment. Some are quite bold but make sense, others less so but still make sense. A few of my “favourites”/ones I can see happening:
– There will be no mask or distancing mandate in England by the autumn equinox. The “plan B” measures will likely be relaxed at some point in March — perhaps earlier if Tory backbenchers get too fed up.
– The booster jab rollout will proceed unremarkably, as we all silently accept that we’re just going to have to treat covid like the ’flu now.
– The “metaverse” will neither be a gigantic flop nor as big as its proponents hope. Some people will quietly adopt virtual office spaces, teenagers will get VR headsets for their birthday, and furries will continue being furries, but there will be no great revolution.
– The NFT bubble will burst. Sorry, i mean, uh… the token that represents your claim of ownership to a jpeg of the NFT bubble will burst?
Please let that NFT bubble burst. I hate them. As for the boldest prediction? Queen Elizabeth II’s death (but after the Platinum Jubilee celebrations):
Queen Elizabeth will die. I say this every year, but i genuinely do think this will be the year — it’s not uncommon for widows to pass shortly after their spouses, and she’s been attending notably fewer public events recently.
I’ll come back to these as I’m sure they will too.