What your social-media news feed could look like if things go wrong

December 6, 2016 1:16 PM

The Pessimist’s Guide to 2017. Donald Trump and Brexit shocked most of the world in 2016. But not readers of last year’s Bloomberg Pessimist’s Guide, which warned that the unthinkable could happen in both cases. Now the authors are turning their attention to 2017. (SLBBW)
posted by slogger (105 comments total)

While Bloomberg was right about Brexit and Trump, they were off the mark in their other predictions, e.g. that Israel would attack Iran's nuclear facilities, a Russian-Iranian joint cyber attack on American banks, and the price of oil rising to over $100/barrel. They were better than a lot of the other predictors in last year's FPP, however...
posted by Doktor Zed at 1:25 PM on December 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

Is this the new election thread?
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:26 PM on December 6, 2016 [7 favorites]

No.
posted by LobsterMitten at 1:27 PM on December 6, 2016 [13 favorites]

NO.
posted by wenestvedt at 1:28 PM on December 6, 2016 [21 favorites]

a Russian-Iranian joint cyber attack on American banks

Yeah, instead the Russians attacked our media and electoral systems, quite possibly swaying the result in their favor. I'd say they weren't pessimistic enough.
posted by jedicus at 1:31 PM on December 6, 2016 [24 favorites]

This is my bet about what's going happen, for sure, just not in 2017. But certainly by 2019.

All that fiscal stimulus in an economy that’s already at full employment causes massive labor shortages, wage pressures that build sharply, forcing the Fed to deal with rising inflation, crashing the housing market and sending banks and the financial system into another tailspin.
posted by My Dad at 1:33 PM on December 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

Not nearly pessimistic enough.
posted by maxsparber at 1:33 PM on December 6, 2016 [12 favorites]

Welp, that pretty much took the last of whatever wind was left in my sails.
posted by lord_wolf at 1:35 PM on December 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

Well, at least they didn't predict the death of Iggy Pop, so it's not all bad.
posted by Capt. Renault at 1:36 PM on December 6, 2016 [6 favorites]

Not nearly pessimistic enough.

No mention of nuclear war. I just keep hoping the Deep State will find a solution for the problem of Trump.
posted by My Dad at 1:38 PM on December 6, 2016 [7 favorites]

Wikileaks turns on Trump

So at least part of this isn't real.
posted by Artw at 1:38 PM on December 6, 2016 [42 favorites]

Well, at least they didn't predict the death of Iggy Pop, so it's not all bad.

Dammit Renault. What are you trying to do, jinx things?
posted by fimbulvetr at 1:40 PM on December 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

Well, at least they didn't predict the death of Iggy Pop, so it's not all bad.

Depending on your alignment, this, or the death of Keith Richards, will officially signal the end of the 20th century.
posted by ryanshepard at 1:40 PM on December 6, 2016 [6 favorites]

Sure are lots of ways for the Global Embuggerance to build up.
posted by ocschwar at 1:42 PM on December 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

Wikileaks turns on Trump

So at least part of this isn't real.

Russia may have wanted Trump to get elected, but that doesn't mean they want him well-liked after he's in power.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 1:48 PM on December 6, 2016 [27 favorites]

Wikileaks turns on Trump

While I don't doubt Assange would, he's nothing without the hackers feeding him information. He won't have anything to work with if Russia doesn't turn on Trump. Given Trump's pro-Russia attitude, I don't know if they have a reason.

Also, Trump wouldn't let the Ecuadorian embassy stop him if he wanted Assange.
posted by Mitrovarr at 1:51 PM on December 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

I have nothing to add, but holy crap, sites are hijacking the damn "Page Down" button? This was almost impossible to scroll through and read. STOP FUCKING WITH THE BROWSER UI.
posted by SansPoint at 1:53 PM on December 6, 2016 [36 favorites]

Replace Wikileaks with some other activist hacker then. It's probably only a matter of time before the Trump administration gets hacked and leaked.
posted by clockworkjoe at 1:54 PM on December 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yalta 2.0 ends with the Baltic States remaining in the EU/NATO and Finland not partitioned between the Karelia and Murmansk Oblasts? Sounds pretty optimistic to me.
posted by acb at 1:54 PM on December 6, 2016 [8 favorites]

That's quite optimistic, actually - it posits the Left will get its shit together.
posted by a power-tie-wearing she-capitalist at 1:59 PM on December 6, 2016 [8 favorites]

It's probably only a matter of time before the Trump administration gets hacked and leaked.

Sure---First time he does something the Russians don't like.

Who knows, the Chinese are already excellent on the technical part, and I'm sure they're very interested in getting better on the social/political engineering side too.

We may be in for a fake news arms race.
posted by bonehead at 1:59 PM on December 6, 2016 [6 favorites]

Trump will want an enormous war. He will get an enormous war.

WW3? Maybe.
posted by jeff-o-matic at 2:00 PM on December 6, 2016

i still say gen-x is finally going to get the apocalypse we were promised in the 1980s
posted by entropicamericana at 2:01 PM on December 6, 2016 [60 favorites]

You gen-x'rs may get your apocalypse, but us Millennials will be the main characters and everyone will forget about the x'rs as always.
posted by mayonnaises at 2:04 PM on December 6, 2016 [38 favorites]

sad but true
posted by entropicamericana at 2:06 PM on December 6, 2016 [15 favorites]

We're going to be the mangy old geezers begging for water and some might get to be Vuvalini, while you'll be the ones to run Bartertown and Gas Town and the Bullet Farm. Your kids though, will be War Boys.
posted by bonehead at 2:09 PM on December 6, 2016 [8 favorites]

Not nearly pessimistic enough.

I was going to point to Algeria and Taiwan as omitted potential-disasters-in-the-making, but I guess it's hard to top

No mention of nuclear war.

as omitted pessimism goes. However, I can't agree with

hoping the Deep State will find a solution for the problem of Trump.

Unless perhaps by "solution" we mean "pointing out in plain and direct language how grossly unconstitutional half of Trump's shitty ideas are"? But that would be more of a job for Supreme Court Justices than for Deep State Bureaucrats. Bureaucrats could be much more effective at stonewalling bad ideas, I admit, and that would be a decent solution to the symptom of Trump, but it would just make the underlying problem of Trump voters metastasize. If you think angry right wingers are scary now, try proving to them that voting is a futile deception and see how scary they get.
posted by roystgnr at 2:09 PM on December 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yeah, instead the Russians attacked our media and electoral systems, quite possibly swaying the result in their favor. I'd say they weren't pessimistic enough.

Well, it does look like that Washington Post story on how Russia was planting fake news was itself a fake news story, so there's that at least.

But then again, what if the Washington Post fake "fake news" story were actually genuine fake news legitimately planted on this occasion by Russia via a shadowy and anonymous proxy "news" operation? Actually, from a Russian perspective, that would be cost effective thing to do. Rather than actually funding and feeding 200+ US-based propaganda outlets, invent one that says these news organisations are Russian propaganda and then get a credulous newspaper to fall for the story and propagate the disinfo. Win!
posted by Sonny Jim at 2:12 PM on December 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

Jinxers.
posted by snorkmaiden at 2:14 PM on December 6, 2016

where is the enormous ELE meteor, i want the meteor.
posted by poffin boffin at 2:14 PM on December 6, 2016 [6 favorites]

don't blame me i voted for giant asteroid
posted by entropicamericana at 2:15 PM on December 6, 2016 [15 favorites]

So this is for people who feel insufficiently well-supplied with bad news?
posted by Sing Or Swim at 2:17 PM on December 6, 2016 [29 favorites]

If I understand correctly, these are less like real predictions and more like a weird bit they do: the worst things they think could plausibly happen. Not really kidding, sure, but also not quite a serious attempt at prognostication.

The fact that two of the worst possible events they listed came true is less proof of the Pessimist's Guide as the new Nostradamus and more the umpteenth bit of proof that 2016 sucked hard.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:18 PM on December 6, 2016 [7 favorites]

Well, at least they didn't predict the death of Iggy Pop, so it's not all bad.

Literally just had to check Wikipedia to be sure Iggy Pop hadn't, in fact, died this year.
posted by threetwentytwo at 2:19 PM on December 6, 2016 [6 favorites]

i still say gen-x is finally going to get the apocalypse we were promised in the 1980s


Could we just have the cyberpunk dystopia?
posted by ocschwar at 2:20 PM on December 6, 2016 [12 favorites]

If I understand correctly, these are less like real predictions and more like a weird bit they do: the worst things they think could plausibly happen. Not really kidding, sure, but also not quite a serious attempt at prognostication.

Also, it's primarily about predicting the *markets*, so the only impacts that are really tracked are the financial impacts.
posted by kewb at 2:20 PM on December 6, 2016

Nice fanfic.
posted by ZeusHumms at 2:23 PM on December 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

remember those halcyon days when reading about megatsunamis was terrifying and depressing and now it's just like, god, if only.
posted by poffin boffin at 2:23 PM on December 6, 2016 [44 favorites]

i find it easiest to view the coming decades in the way Il Trumpollini views climate change. In that way I can maintain my usual cheerful and sunny disposition before we all succumb to das blinkenlights.
posted by aeshnid at 2:25 PM on December 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

i find it easiest to view the coming decades in the way Il Trumpollini views climate change.
What? That they're invented by the Chinese?
posted by Thorzdad at 2:39 PM on December 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

Neither Australia nor climate change was mentioned so I'm going to assume everything will be peachy on those fronts.
posted by um at 2:40 PM on December 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

Sonny Jim: "But then again, what if the Washington Post fake "fake news" story were actually genuine fake news legitimately planted on this occasion by Russia via a shadowy and anonymous proxy "news" operation? "

Will Trump have me jailed for burning a false flag?!
posted by chavenet at 2:41 PM on December 6, 2016 [8 favorites]

Could we just have the cyberpunk dystopia?

I have had the though that given the politics of 2016 and the way they're looking for next year that maybe being ruled by megacorps wouldn't be so bad after all.
posted by Candleman at 2:42 PM on December 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

Could we just have the cyberpunk dystopia?

We literally live in a cyberpunk dystopia written in the 1980s. Trump is president, surveillance is everywhere, hackers can affect global politics, mercenaries fight shadow wars across the glob, and synthwave music is popular.
posted by clockworkjoe at 2:43 PM on December 6, 2016 [83 favorites]

No country with a McDonald’s can remain a democracy.
posted by Sonny Jim at 2:45 PM on December 6, 2016 [6 favorites]

>>i still say gen-x is finally going to get the apocalypse we were promised in the 1980s


> Could we just have the cyberpunk dystopia?

Why not both? A Trump presidency will finally give some a chance to see if being a trench-coat wearing hacker on the fringes of a stifling society is as sexy as it seemed when we were 13.

And, on the bright side, a nuclear apocalypse will slow down, or stop, global warming. Nuclear winter + eliminating much of the industrial world will probably have a positive effect. A thousand years from now, people could sing hymns to the savior T'rmp who brought the cleansing fire and saved humanity.
posted by honestcoyote at 2:46 PM on December 6, 2016 [9 favorites]

Huh. The 'pessimist's view' is a lot more optimistic than my predictions. Where's the ethnic cleansing? The widespread famine, pestilence, war, death and other horsemen? Where's the third use of nuclear weapons against civilians, (maybe by the US again?)? Where's the slow, choking death of the sea and, as a fun corollary, us?

Right now, anything that doesn't end with the Earth as Arrakis sans spice or worms seems a bit too rosy to be true by my standards.
posted by signal at 2:46 PM on December 6, 2016 [13 favorites]

I am working on an invention for 2017 that basically looks like a bucket that fits over your entire head. Once you put it on it plays soothing music whilst displaying a never-ending montage of sunny meadows, babbling brooks, and puppies and kittens playing.

Also it periodically zaps you with electricity because life is pain you effete bourgeois scum.
posted by um at 2:47 PM on December 6, 2016 [34 favorites]

We literally live in a cyberpunk dystopia written in the 1980s. Trump is president, surveillance is everywhere, hackers can affect global politics, mercenaries fight shadow wars across the glob, and synthwave music is popular.

That's 86 characters too long for Twitter.
posted by Sonny Jim at 2:52 PM on December 6, 2016 [10 favorites]

Russia may have wanted Trump to get elected, but that doesn't mean they want him well-liked after he's in power.

Putin still needs Trump to put a stake through the heart of NATO. He won't take over the Baltics until he's quite sure of that.
posted by scalefree at 2:53 PM on December 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

Why isn't one of the items immediately after Trump's launch of a trade war, this one:

CHINA LAUNCHES CYBER WAR TO DISABLE ENTIRE AMERICAN ENERGY GRID

Oh right, how are we going to view our Twitter feeds without electricity! Duh. That would have put an end to the fun.

Seriously though, the risk of actual war with China, possibly escalating into a WWIII scenario with Trump trying to build a military alliance with an expanded new Russian empire. That's what a really pessimistic scenario looks like anyway. This seems way too optimistic to me, but then I'm depressed right now, so I've got filters on. I think I skew depressive realist though nowadays, so we'll see...
posted by saulgoodman at 2:53 PM on December 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

Also it periodically zaps you with electricity because life is pain you effete bourgeois scum.

will there be an aftermarket attachment which will make and feed me totino's pizza rolls
posted by poffin boffin at 3:00 PM on December 6, 2016 [7 favorites]

Oh right, how are we going to view our Twitter feeds without electricity! Duh. That would have put an end to the fun.

"Welcome to where time stands still / No-one tweets and no-one will."
posted by comealongpole at 3:00 PM on December 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

John Pilger has been touting his film about the Coming War on China for a while.

Mark Blyth was pretty much the only person who predicted both Brexit and Trump. Probably less chance of global war now that Clinton is not President.
posted by Coda Tronca at 3:01 PM on December 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

Oh right, how are we going to view our Twitter feeds without electricity! Duh. That would have put an end to the fun.

If China wanted to provoke a shooting war with Trump, shutting down Twitter would certainly do it.
posted by kewb at 3:05 PM on December 6, 2016 [5 favorites]

Here in the UK Murdoch's Sunday Times put out a series of supplements in the late '90s of predictions for each of the coming decades. I've still got them somewhere, need to dig them out. There were a lot of predictions/projections/extrapolations from '90s trends. Only ones I remember are a 2007 race-ruining hacking of the Austrian Grand Prix and Hillary Clinton becoming US President.
posted by comealongpole at 3:06 PM on December 6, 2016

You gen-x'rs may get your apocalypse, but us Millennials will be the main characters and everyone will forget about the x'rs as always.

True, but we will provide the soundtrack because eighties music just will not die.
posted by srboisvert at 3:07 PM on December 6, 2016 [8 favorites]

    We literally live in a cyberpunk dystopia written in the 1980s. Trump is president, surveillance is everywhere, hackers can affect global politics, mercenaries fight shadow wars across the glob, and synthwave music is popular.

That's 86 characters too long for Twitter.

We're in an 80s cyberpunk dystopia. Trump president; surveillance everywhere; hacked global politics; mercs in shadow wars; synthwave music.

FTFY.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 3:07 PM on December 6, 2016 [8 favorites]

Seriously though, the risk of actual war with China, possibly escalating into a WWIII scenario with Trump trying to build a military alliance with an expanded new Russian empire. That's what a really pessimistic scenario looks like anyway.

In exchange for the Baltic and Nordic countries, Trump gets Putin to agree to a joint surprise nuclear first strike on China. Does China have a system like Russia's Dead Hand?
posted by Sangermaine at 3:10 PM on December 6, 2016

"Finally, the world is shocked when North Korea proves it can fit a miniaturized nuclear device on a missile capable of hitting the U.S. West Coast."

"Trump’s entire Asian strategy is thrown into disarray, forcing him to kowtow to China and beg for their help in reining in their rogue neighbor."

It seems like the actual pessimist's version of this is Trump launching an attack on North Korea as pre-emptive containment.
posted by Sangermaine at 3:19 PM on December 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

This is bloomburg - the ethnic cleanings are not there because those things don't move the markets.

That said, I find it odd that all of the world is going to have these crippling economic depressions... except the US for some reason? Like, certain sectors will take some lumps based on whatever given predicted events, but they have a Chinese depression, a new cold war, and a global trade war in the space of a year and yet somehow the US avoids recession? Not sure about that.
posted by absalom at 3:22 PM on December 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

absalom, I was wondering about that too. You don't remove a substantial percentage of the U.S. agricultural workforce, launch a trade war with China, fuck with the remittance economy, and let oil in the Middle East skyrocket without any of that affecting Americans.
posted by sobell at 3:33 PM on December 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

CHINA LAUNCHES CYBER WAR TO DISABLE ENTIRE AMERICAN ENERGY GRID

Well, China still needs purchasers for their goods, so shutting down their biggest market might not be their smartest move.

Personally, I see Trump's effects as leading to a more isolated America politically, but not a shooting war between superpowers. That would impact his (and perhaps more critically, Ivanka's) bottom lines, and their primary motivation are their pocketbooks. Yes, and winning, and saving face, but not at the expense of money, hence the fraud lawsuit settlement.
posted by Existential Dread at 3:37 PM on December 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

I find it uncomfortable seeing a mainstream media outlet allowing itself to fantasize with fake pessimistic news from the future, it's like watching someone masturbate
posted by zokni at 3:48 PM on December 6, 2016 [7 favorites]

like if you listen closely enough you can hear faint moans of pleasure coming from the guy who counts the link clicks, as the projected disarray and panic increase
posted by zokni at 3:50 PM on December 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

The Optimist’s Guide to 2017
posted by unliteral at 3:58 PM on December 6, 2016 [17 favorites]

I'll tell you one thing, I'm starting to feel like quitting smoking was a real sucker's move.
posted by enn at 4:27 PM on December 6, 2016 [22 favorites]

Disappointed rather than relieved that they didn't show some Mad Max pics at the end, because I don't believe them and was looking forward to the laugh.
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:14 PM on December 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

President Trump provokes waves of protest across the nation as he announces a series of proposals to prevent jobs from leaving the US for Mexico. "This wall of investment and productivity will keep our jobs at home," he will say, seemingly oblivious to the anguished protests of his former supporters, "this is the wall we need. We're not building a literal physical wall along a 2000-mile border, that would be crazy."

A movement emerges combining college students, anarchists, rednecks, redditors, investment bankers, truck drivers, and Californian billionaires. It's unclear what they want, but it's something to do with cybersecurity and Russia. In a masterful stroke of public relations acumen, Trump's new Secretary of the Interior, Neil Degrasse Tyson, manages to placate them and divert their energies to supporting a manned space mission to Uranus.

Shares in American magazines, newspapers, and book publishers surge as Trump enacts legislation to make the Oxford comma mandatory in all printed and electronic writing. Shares in Google, Facebook, and Apple take a hit as it becomes obvious they are incapable of enforcing this without significant user support costs.

Trump's romanticism and Vladimir Putin's aggression force Germany’s Merkel into a difficult choice: To immediately align with one or the other of these strong, intimidating, fearsome men, preemptively capitulating to all their desires; or to get on with making Europe great again. She does the right thing.

Shamed by the newly-emerging international climate of peace and respect, Putin calls off his fighter jets and agrees to stop being a dick. In return, Merkel and Trump invite Russia back into the Group of 9 nations, which now also includes New Zealand because the rest of them all wanted an excuse to visit Lake Wakatipu.

Slamming what he calls #KookyChina, Trump or whoever is running his Twitter account tweets that he's planning to label the country a climate manipulator and slap "huge" tariffs on carbon dioxide coming across the Pacific. By the next week, everyone has forgotten about it.

The Islamic State (aka ISIS, aka Daesh, aka Daeesh, aka IS-chan) finally runs out of steam and is reduced to being mostly just an image board somewhere between 4chan and islamist.tumblr.com in terms of influence and power.

Finally, the world is shocked when North Korea proves it can fit a miniaturized mechanical penguin on a bottlecap-size dance platform. It becomes their first big export market hit in the toy and novelty market.

Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s effort to diversify the world’s largest oil producer away from fossil fuels goes nowhere in its second year. Fortunately for his government, the world remains thoroughly addicted to oil and any pending apocalypse in that part of the world is put off for another year.
posted by sfenders at 5:23 PM on December 6, 2016 [10 favorites]

Russia may have wanted Trump to get elected, but that doesn't mean they want him well-liked after he's in power.

"It won't last. Have you ever seen two schoolyard bullies stay best friends?"
posted by ovvl at 5:37 PM on December 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

This list, to quote Modest Mouse, is good news for people who like bad news.
posted by Joey Michaels at 5:43 PM on December 6, 2016

Like Sanspoint, I tried to hit "space" to page down and the thing started scrolling all crazy of its own accord, so I closed the tab. I guess "web design gets even worse than it already is" is the only pessimistic prediction I get to know about.
posted by edheil at 7:24 PM on December 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

That's not pessimism. This is pessimism.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:26 PM on December 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

Trump's new Secretary of the Interior, Neil Degrasse Tyson

I don't even really like Neil DeGrasse Tyson, but you are setting the bar several miles too high. The actual frontrunner is the sitting governor of Oklahoma, who last year enacted a statewide law that banned any cities or municipalities from banning hydraulic fracturing. Yup, she banned fracking bans. And, of course, anthropogenic climate change ain't a thing.
posted by Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam at 7:45 PM on December 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

It's probably only a matter of time before the Trump administration gets hacked and leaked.

Trump managed to win the election with his appalling public record. What difference could hacking and leaking make?
posted by Daily Alice at 7:48 PM on December 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

....and this is the GOOD scenario.

This guy could start WWIII out of a fit of simple petulance.
posted by adam hominem at 7:55 PM on December 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

What's with the face-painted troops in black and white camo pants?
posted by RakDaddy at 8:36 PM on December 6, 2016

We literally live in a cyberpunk dystopia written in the 1980s.

It always sounded so much more interesting in the stories.
posted by bongo_x at 8:53 PM on December 6, 2016 [8 favorites]

Damn, Johnny Wallflower, that was... well, I will compliment that editor's skill. But also...

Fuck.
posted by daq at 8:57 PM on December 6, 2016

We literally live in a cyberpunk dystopia written in the 1980s.

No, it will get worse than this.

Seriously, I'm expecting much worse than any of these scenarios, economically, socially and politically. Nuclear war, probably; conventional war absolutely will happen with Iran but also, quite possibly, with China. Canada will be annexed and stripped; Europe will be involved in proxy wars with Russia; the markets will be utterly decimated by uncontrolled deregulation and massive bull runs, followed by a complete crash of the kind not seen since the 20s (because there were controls put on to prevent this, but they'll be removed in the name of profit).

And after that, of course, things will get worse. :(
posted by jrochest at 9:01 PM on December 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

You are from longlong ago, yes?

Tell us, we have question about your time

Is true you catch three green seaspiders in one day, with much meat on each?
posted by benzenedream at 9:56 PM on December 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

Could we just have the cyberpunk dystopia?

I'm pretty sure that's what we have now.
posted by Beholder at 10:10 PM on December 6, 2016

-Don't assume western democracy will last forever (Moscow Diary)
-Stark Inequality or Total War: "Drawing on history, Walter Scheidel of Stanford argues in a coming book that only all-out war might fundamentally alter how resources are distributed."
posted by kliuless at 10:32 PM on December 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

even assuming no major disasters, there are two big red flags indicating things are going sideways that i'll be looking for on a slow news day in, say, august 2017:

1) trump replaces his personal secret service detachment with a group of handpicked soldiers from special forces units that will operate as his personal guard.

2) the relatively sane cabinet members like mattis resign, explaining that this was more work than they anticipated and they would like to spend more time with their families.
posted by wibari at 10:57 PM on December 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

A lot of this is more or less going to probably happen, right? Merkel leaving makes sense, can imagine Le Pen getting in, also the Putin stuff... every country turning into itself, isolated pits of snakes... Civic institutions in disarray, hatred and poverty everywhere there isn't war too... Imagine it all in the dark, without information, if all that falls apart... it's going to happen, isn't it. It's mostly because of Trump, isn't it. I still cannot believe that Trump is in, and that it's because of thoughts and people like this. They can't help it, but they're obscene, it's obscene, this is the age of obscenity.
posted by cotton dress sock at 12:01 AM on December 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

They can't help it, but they're obscene, it's obscene, this is the age of obscenity.

But that age started in 2003 when 70 percent of Americans thought Saddam Hussein did 9/11.
posted by Coda Tronca at 1:28 AM on December 7, 2016 [4 favorites]

We literally live in a cyberpunk dystopia written in the 1980s.

Though it's rapidly morphing into a rather unsubtle YA supernatural dystopia, down to immortal oligarchs literally subsisting on the blood of young people.
posted by acb at 2:06 AM on December 7, 2016 [6 favorites]

I have to challenge the value of this whole exercise. It's depressing without having any redeeming value at all that I can see. It doesn't end with any kind of list of suggested mitigations or even a prompt for action or for brainstorming solutions. Also all the really bad outcomes here are bad outcomes for investors; almost nothing is said about the cost in human terms. This prompts me to ask in all sincerity, "Don't we all have something better we could be doing?"
posted by newdaddy at 2:48 AM on December 7, 2016 [4 favorites]

Also, it is following the Nostradamus Spaghetti Rule: if you throw enough spaghetti at the wall, some of it is going to stick.
posted by newdaddy at 2:50 AM on December 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

Also all the really bad outcomes here are bad outcomes for investors; almost nothing is said about the cost in human terms.

“But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders”
posted by acb at 4:12 AM on December 7, 2016 [7 favorites]

All of this assumes a lot of competence and organized thought on the Trump side of things. I think it's far more likely he'll be another Bush II.

Nuclear war is possible, but then again, it's always possible, isn't it? That's the whole point of nuclear war. However, I think the events of this year have proven that cyber attacks are a far more effective weapon. Who wants to risk triggering mutually-assured destruction when you can interfere with elections or ruin your rivals' economies?

The global tendency towards splitting apart alliances, the rise of nationalism, all this go-it-alone-ism, yeah, that's happening. I feel like the era of "trying to make things work" came out of the horrors of the world wars and the desire to never let that happen again. I guess all of that has just passed from the collective memory? Does it really take a traumatic event to make people want to work together on a global scale? Or was "working together on a global scale" a Wilsonian pipe dream to begin with, a platitude that glossed over the realpolitik of economic inequality, environmental degradation, international and intranational rivalries?
posted by panama joe at 6:52 AM on December 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

Trump enacts legislation to make the Oxford comma mandatory in all printed and electronic writing.

So you're saying it's not gonna be all bad?
posted by entropicamericana at 7:57 AM on December 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

i mean if he bans hamilton quotes on mefi i might consider giving him a chance
posted by poffin boffin at 8:18 AM on December 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

This article about Rodrigo Duterte's anti-drug slaughter in the Philippines makes me think dystopia has arrived there already.
posted by Bee'sWing at 8:22 AM on December 7, 2016

Nuclear war is possible, but then again, it's always possible, isn't it?

"We begin bombing in five minutes..."
posted by bonehead at 9:19 AM on December 7, 2016

acb: “But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders”

My favorite recaption of that one
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:53 AM on December 7, 2016 [5 favorites]

So this is kind of journalistic Stoicism.
posted by gottabefunky at 10:08 AM on December 7, 2016

Like the end of Dogville?
posted by Artw at 10:58 AM on December 7, 2016

Is this the new election thread?

Nope; I've just started work compiling that.

{Does Google News search on 'Trump Controversy'}
{Sees screen fill with results}
So ... much ... to choose from.
posted by Wordshore at 3:49 AM on December 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

I wonder if I'm too old to get a job doing high-speed pizza delivery for Uncle Enzo.
posted by MtDewd at 10:58 AM on December 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

> Canada will be annexed and stripped

I've been expecting this to happen someday for as long as I've been old enough to understand that I live in a very large country full of water and other valuable resources and largely devoid of people and the ability to defend itself from any serious military invader. The best case scenario for Canada, long-term, is that the U.S. never bothers actually invading because it's cheaper and easier to just take what they want at rock-bottom prices.
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:14 AM on December 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

our "northern resource area"
posted by poffin boffin at 3:38 PM on December 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

It's snappier than "Airstrip One" I guess.
posted by Artw at 4:03 PM on December 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

immortal oligarchs literally subsisting on the blood of young people.

No, no, we now live on Planet Piss!
posted by My Dad at 8:35 PM on December 8, 2016

Is this the new election thread?

No. THIS is the new election thread.
posted by Wordshore at 10:17 AM on December 9, 2016