Outrageous Predictions for 2021

December 8, 2020 9:37 AM

After an extraordinary year, the SaxoStrats are back with Outrageous Predictions for 2021. The events of 2020 have sent nearly every underlying social and technological supertrend into overdrive, bringing a once-distant future a quantum leap closer. But which "Future is Now" forecast do you think is most likely?

A successful Covid-19 vaccine kills companies
Amazon “buys” Cyprus
Germany bails out France
Blockchain tech kills fake news
Revolutionary fusion design catapults humanity into energy abundance
Universal basic income decimates big cities
Disruption dividend creates Citizens Technology Fund
Sun shines on silver, which sizzles on solar panel demand
Next-generation tech supercharges frontier and emerging markets

Previous Outrageous Predictions: 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015 [All links open PDFs]

SaxoBank black swan predictions previously on MetaFilter

posted by chavenet (19 comments total)

Commercial real estate no longer being a viable business model won't automagically make those buildings fall over. UBI and mixed-use zoning could potentially be the best thing to happen to cities since cities were invented. I'm actually looking forward to it.
posted by mhoye at 9:41 AM on December 8, 2020 [11 favorites]

That particular prediction seems to have been written by someone who can't remember the time before March, when things like "neighbours" existed.
posted by sagc at 9:55 AM on December 8, 2020 [4 favorites]

Revolutionary fusion design catapults humanity into energy abundance

Including entropy abundance. All that abundantly used energy has to go somewhere.
posted by hypnogogue at 9:58 AM on December 8, 2020 [1 favorite]

Prediction: fusion power does not become viable in 2021, but nevertheless the Earth's average temperature becomes slightly warmer.

Prediction: nothing of great significance will be done to prevent future climate change. This is outrageous.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 10:09 AM on December 8, 2020 [6 favorites]

Amazon "buying" Cyprus would have to remove the many oligarchs already using it as an entry-point to Europe. I don't know if I'd bet on Bezos in a billionnaire-off against people who aspire to Magnitsky-Act sanctions ("Sanctioned? You've made it, my friend!").
posted by k3ninho at 10:42 AM on December 8, 2020 [4 favorites]

Also, if you’re willing to walk into that kind of border hotspot, why not Northern Ireland? Maybe the UK and EU could use a corporate buffer state.
posted by clew at 11:06 AM on December 8, 2020 [2 favorites]

Glancing through the previous years' - with generosity toward 2020 as being unusually hard to predict - have any of these actually "outrageous" predictions predicted anything? It looks like an awful lot of superficially plausible wankery from what I can see.
posted by Tomorrowful at 11:26 AM on December 8, 2020 [5 favorites]

The rich will get richer, the poor will get poorer, the environment will continue to degrade in terms of its ability to support human life as we know it.
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:38 AM on December 8, 2020 [9 favorites]

They predicted Brexit in 2015 - I don't have enough context to know if that was a particularly outrageous prediction at the time.
posted by tarshish bound at 11:38 AM on December 8, 2020 [1 favorite]

Blockchain tech kills fake news

The outrageous prediction about blockchain technology is that it will ever be useful for anything at all.
posted by star gentle uterus at 11:39 AM on December 8, 2020 [14 favorites]

Blockchain tech is handy for traction to help prevent a Snow Crash.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:51 AM on December 8, 2020 [9 favorites]

Maybe I'm showing my age or something here by admitting I've never heard of whatever "SaxoStrats" are, but this is some of the dumbest prognosticating I've ever seen. There are definitely slivers of truth in here: commercial real estate is absolutely going to be the (or at least a) cause of the post-COVID economic meltdown, because offices that have made remote work possible for a year or more aren't just suddenly going to come back to their commercial leases in super-expensive real estate when 75% of their staff is still remote. But jumping from there to "UBI will happen in 2021, and it will be responsible for the destruction of cities," is so completely asinine that I'm struggling to come up with a word to convey the size of the sneer on my face.
posted by Mayor West at 11:57 AM on December 8, 2020 [6 favorites]

These would all be better as little SF stories than as business "news", IMO.
posted by clew at 12:06 PM on December 8, 2020 [3 favorites]

I always giggle at "the end of cities" predictions. Humans are social creatures and have been building bigger and bigger cities for, oh, more than 5,000 years.
posted by PhineasGage at 12:41 PM on December 8, 2020 [8 favorites]

Yeah, this banker fanfic is pretty dull.

I prefer when they go longform, like The Mandibles: a Family 2029-2047.

posted by bartleby at 12:53 PM on December 8, 2020 [5 favorites]

The people who think Blockchain tech will eliminate fake news definitely have their heads where the sun doesn't shine. Fake news isn't true news that's been altered, it is lies fabricated out of nothing. QAnon doesn't care about sources, and there is nothing that hinders lies from entering the blockchain in the first place.
posted by ymgve at 1:01 PM on December 8, 2020 [9 favorites]

Blockchain tech kills fake news

Verrit, but made out of flooz
posted by Vulgar Euphemism at 4:35 PM on December 8, 2020 [1 favorite]

Blockchain tech kills fake news...
These would all be better as little SF stories than as business "news", IMO.

Karl Schroeder's "Noon in the Antilibrary" (2018) is at your service.
posted by doctornemo at 6:18 PM on December 8, 2020 [3 favorites]

You're all wrong, and kind of adorably wrong.

What Happens is This:

The Large Hadron Collider finally does something epic and opens the lanes between realities. Tourists from everywhen come pouring into our Slice, or your particular Moment of it. Chaos reigns for a few years until someone finally gets it (and by getting it becomes the first Tourist from your Slice.)

Regulations on Alternative Life Choice travel come down hard, but not fast or hard enough to prevent the complete erosion of a shared reality on Earth. Within a generation, moss is growing over the interstates as humankind no longer believes in a linear life.

It sounds really out there, I know, guys, but we've been here for years and we tried to warn you.
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 4:39 AM on December 9, 2020 [2 favorites]