31 ms·

Here are mine: 1. Still no level 4/5 autonomous cars anywhere in sight. The promise of being "just around the corner" fizzles down and people just forget the h

• grumple 7y ago
  You had me up until here: 'Web development matures and a "standard" stack is accepted, all in JS.' The Node ecosystem is a mess and it starts with core being a hodgepodge of deprecated mush. I think it's more likely that wasm picks up steam. Rails, PHP, Django, etc aren't going anywhere.
  • Nextgrid 7y ago
    I almost feel like there are 2 parallel industries in web development. One based on solving problems and using the right tool for the job, and one based on bullshit, overengineering and including more and more complexity & tooling to make up for huge downsides in the language and to justify their entire careers (can you really advocate against using a tool when your entire career depends on using that tool?) The former will keep going and keep solving problems, but it'll be relatively quiet in the grand scheme of things just like it is now. The JS ecosystem will continue to thrive in the latter world where there's more VC money, hype & RAM than common sense, so we'll keep hearing about it. As long as there's enough VC money to fuel the fire this situation will keep going (along with NPM's storage expenses growing alarmingly) but the second the VC money dries up and hype-driven startups die off, companies will mostly come back to the first approach and the majority of "React developers" will be out of a job.
    • papito 7y ago
      Right on. Most of my efforts now include fighting complexity, while everyone else around me seems hell-bent on adding more of it.
      • inimino 7y ago
        Hear, hear. We should start some kind of movement. Or at least write a manifesto.
        • asdf004 7y ago
          Lets do it this way: The product should be so sinple the customer understands how it works and must do all maintanace on it without help. If they do need help you've failed.
    • leolas1995 7y ago
      This. Currently looking for job and it seems that every single company out there is just looking for someone who knows angular, react, node, etc. I always emphasize that I can learn the tools required by the job, but no, they just want someone with n years of experience in just a specific tool, instead of someone who can learn and adapt. Not a whine, just a concerned observation on the industry.
      • grumple 7y ago
        I found that some companies were willing to let you learn tech on the job. Talk to some recruiters. If you're confident, like me, make it clear to a recruiter or company that you have every confidence that you will learn the tech quickly and it won't be a problem.
    • ravenstine 7y ago
      There's a lot of people in web development who are full of shit. You can tell who they are when they claim that JS or the DOM is slow unless you use X framework. What they either don't understand or ignore is that frameworks are for the developer, not the computer. If you are a fool, a framework isn't going to stop you from making really bad choices and over-engineering something into oblivion. Years from now, there will be people claiming that React is "too slow" or "too bloated" or "too complicated", and it will be abandoned for the next greatest thing. Some of this also has to do with the fact that there are lots of wild-eyed entrepreneurial types who either want to work for FAANG or have a startup that they believe will compete with FAANG. Thus, they only believe in the latest and greatest thing. The secret, or perhaps not-so-secret, is that the vast majority of web applications are still CRUD, and the average person doesn't understand the difference between a SPA and a server-rendered app. Most of the engineering effort that goes beyond that is probably a waste of time unless you really plan on doing things beyond CRUD. So the best thing is to actually understand the fundamentals, learn to do a good job at those, and use the tools that make sense for said job. That means that maybe, just maybe, your WebGL game doesn't need to use React.
  • TrueGeek 7y ago
    It's no mistake that 7 and 8 and next to each other
  • crucialfelix 7y ago
    But Rails and Django are for midsized websites only. Node is used in big companies for Microservices and serverless. Its impossible to scale Django to say 3000 developers.
    • grumple 7y ago
      Github, Shopify, Airbnb, Hulu and more are built in Rails, so clearly it does scale. You can do microservices with Ruby/Python as well. Ditto serverless. And my own company does this. But comparing Rails (a framework for complete web dev functionality) to entirely different paradigms and use cases seems kind of silly. These frameworks don’t solve everything, but they make it far easier and cheaper to develop a website with under, say, 500 million users. Once you get that large you can start exploring paying more devs for better efficiency.
    • orneryostrich 7y ago
      Uh... Instagram is a Django app...
• sushisource 7y ago
  I have most reason to doubt 8. I think it'll mature, but I doubt a fully "standard" stack will come about. I suspect WASM will lead to a lot less stuff being done in JS.
  • taurath 7y ago
    I'd rather bet that react/the react ecosystem will be have a >60% share than WASM being extremely common.
    • repsilat 7y ago
      There's a bit of a push to get everything that isn't rendering out of the render thread, and if you're going to do a bunch of logic in a web worker I guess it isn't a big jump to do it in Go/Rust/whatever. I agree with your intuition, though -- I don't think it'll become too widespread. Projects will start in all-js in the front-end, and no language will provide sufficient benefit to motivate rewriting half of the client. I'm less sure about back-end development trends but I think "less standardised than the front-end" is a gimme. Maybe Node/Express or similar will pick up, but I feel like they've been waning the last few years. Go servers seem trendier.
      • zachrose 7y ago
        I’m optimistic about Elm or something like Elm that represents a minimal core of today’s emerging best practices (virtual DOM, static types, functional core & imperative shell) while cutting off the fat (mutability, type coercion) and providing valuable affordances and guarantees (educational compiler messages, no runtime exceptions.)
    • rpastuszak 7y ago
      Why?
  • rimliu 7y ago
    WASM does not fix DOM manipulation, so…
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• boulos 7y ago
  Care to enter into a bet on #1? (Particularly with your phrasing, it seems like Waymo in Phoenix already counts)
  • air7 7y ago
    Actually I really do. I'm wondering how I could, in terms of investment, without risk of pivoting of specific companies etc.
    • tim333 7y ago
      You'd have to be careful with your definition of level 4. https://www.synopsys.com/automotive/autonomous-driving-levels.html https://www.synopsys.com/automotive/autonomous-driving-level... has Waymo as already being there.
  • chubot 7y ago
    I posted something similar and I would bet money on it, if there's a good mechanism to do so. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21942100 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21942100 I've invested in rideshare companies with the assumption that humans will still largely be behind the wheel in 10 years. (Because nobody's going back to taxis; rideshare is more backward compatible than public transit buildout; it's harder than you think to start a new rideshare company, etc. Also once something becomes popular, people underestimate how long it sticks. Similar to somebody predicting on the 2010 thread that Facebook would be gone by now.) Side note: I've made bearish predictions about self-driving on HN for at least 2-3 years if you check my comment history. I'm don't want to be negative, just realistic. I'm bullish on the software industry in general and video in particular.
    • impendia 7y ago
      > if there's a good mechanism to do so. Have you ever seen longbets.org? My favorites: http://longbets.org/362/ http://longbets.org/362/ http://longbets.org/382/ http://longbets.org/382/
    • tempestn 7y ago
• bcrosby95 7y ago
  For #8, what does "accepted" and "standard" mean? Do you mean front and back end, or just front end? If you just mean front end, maybe. But if you're including back end for web properties, there's lots of enterprises out there that this will never come close to becoming true.
• acvny 7y ago
  I like your number 7. It looks like this kind of beliefs come in waves.
• amelius 7y ago
  > 9. Global carbon emissions are not reduced, mostly because of lack of initiative by China and 3rd world countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China
  • CyanBird 7y ago
    You should have pasted the one of renewable energy in China, they are investing far more than any other country on the planet, as they know first hand the damage it causes from not doing so (pollution, acid rain, etc)
  • cjbprime 7y ago
    This doesn't look positive: > However, few plants have commenced construction since 2015, and it is now unlikely that this target will be met.
    • amelius 7y ago
      Probably just a typical short-term hiccup in construction planning. China has much bigger plans for 2030, as the article says. Also, take a look at the bar-charts on the Wikipedia page.
      • busymom0 7y ago
        China just built and started operating their longest coal transporting train 2 months ago: https://twitter.com/globaltimesnews/status/1153589979534073856 https://twitter.com/globaltimesnews/status/11535899795340738... Meanwhile also claiming "China says it has already hit 2020 carbon reduction goal". https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/472224-china-says-it-has-already-hit-2020-carbon-reduction-goal https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/472224-china-s... I don't think they can be trusted with anything they say.
  • adventured 7y ago
    China is building more new coal power output than currently exists in the entire EU combined. There's no indication they plan to stop there and that doesn't count the coal plants their companies are building in the rest of Asia. Adding renewables or nuclear while you massively increase your world-leading emissions output, won't actually improve anything. "China Is Still Building an Insane Number of New Coal Plants" https://www.wired.com/story/china-is-still-building-an-insane-number-of-new-coal-plants/ https://www.wired.com/story/china-is-still-building-an-insan... https://www.npr.org/2019/04/29/716347646/why-is-china-placing-a-global-bet-on-coal https://www.npr.org/2019/04/29/716347646/why-is-china-placin... https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/years-after-freezing-new-projects-china-is-back-to-building-coal-power-plants/2019/11/20/b9075baa-0b38-11ea-8054-289aef6e38a3_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/years-afte...
• cmstoken 7y ago
  Interesting predictions. I don't think I'll be surprised if I come back to this thread in 10 years ;)
• linuxhiker 7y ago
  #6 is spot on.
• mshockwave 7y ago
  I love #6
• IgorPartola 7y ago
  I disagree strongly on number 6. Offliners would be as popular as people who still carry flip phones and lecture you about it. You can’t become mainstream without some kind of media. Vegans talk about veganism all the time on social media. That’s why everyone knows about it.
  • maxaf 7y ago
    There’s power in negative space. People will maintain meatspace connections that won’t be mirrored online, which will create a sense of mystique and intrigue. People who aren’t immediately connected to off lines IRL will seek them out in a kind of pilgrimage.
  • verisimilidude 7y ago
    I can easily imagine influencers Instagram-ing about their awesome "offline" lives. You're assuming the offliners are going to be honest about it. [Edit] Also, I could see being offline becoming a kind of cultural prestige or aspiration, like something only rich people could do by delegating their online presence to hired guns, etc.
    • rikroots 7y ago
      > I could see being offline becoming a kind of cultural prestige or aspiration This reminds me of the 1970s, when being 'ex-directory' - paying to not have your phone number included in the telephone directory - was seen as cultural prestige.
  • TimTheTinker 7y ago
    > You can’t become mainstream without some kind of media. All it takes is a series of stories about offliners from a couple of major news outlets.
• suyash 7y ago
  #2 : I agree on still no AGI - from even 2 decades from now however job looses I disagree with, just like Industrial Age job losses will happen with more and more automation but at the same time new types of jobs will be created (not as many as the ones lost).
  • godelski 7y ago
    I found it odd that the OP included AGI and job loss in a single point. COTs electronics becoming cheaper is a big driver to automation. ML not required.
    • tsimionescu 7y ago
      OP specifically said 'no job losses from AI automation' - the point was, not only no AGI in some singularity sense, but in general, no AI 'general enough' to take over significant human jobs.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• gremlinsinc 7y ago
  All great thoughts, here are my takes: > 1. Still no level 4/5 autonomous cars anywhere in sight. The promise of being "just around the corner" fizzles down and people just forget the hype. I think this is about 50/50, but will take infrastructure changes to really bring about level 4 -- think smart roads and moving pedestrian walkways above/below street level, or possibly every car as a mag-lev/car hybrid. Leaving mag-lev turns into manual. > 2. Same with AI. The panacea hype dies down. No AGI at all. No major job losses due to AI automation. I disagree AI will not die or have a nuclear winter, it'll have tremendous leaps/bounds, but nobody claimed AGI would happen in next 10 years, most estimates put it at 2060 or greater > 3. Facebook (the SN) still exists but ages along with it's current user base. i.e it's the "old people's" SN. Facebook (the company) is still going strong, with either Instagram or one of it's acquisitions being the current "hip" SN. This is definitely how I see it playing out, FB will monopolize any social media sphere that looks like it's going to 'explode' and be the next thing through acquisitions until they get a monopoly ruling by the gov't and get split up (if/when I'd say 40% likelihood). > 4. Google still dominates search and email but losses value and "glory" compared to today. I think google won't lose too much value, assuming they go all in on cloud. I think GCP is where they'll make the most money. Possibly also Google Business accounts for email/etc. > 5. Majority of people still don't care about privacy. Not until the country enacts a social credit system like china, which I'd say is a 60% likelihood but it'll be 'privatized' not state ran, so that makes it better right? > 6. But a small yet growing culture of "offliners" becomes mainstream. Being offline is the new "Yoga" and allows bragging rights. I don't think this will happen, except either among extreme hippies (and I'm a progressive) but I mean the live in a van off the grid types or the other side live off the grid but right-wing survivalist types. But there's already folks like this. > 7. Increase in adoption of non-scientific beliefs such as astrology/anti-vaxx/religion/flat-earth as a counterbalance to the increased complexity of everyday life. God save us from this future. I hope we can educate the dumb out of people, with some free college and better public school systems. Maybe end home-schooling unless we can make sure this doesn't propagate as a result. > 8. Web development matures and a "standard" stack is accepted, all in JS. HAHAHAHA HAHAAHA HAHAHA. Wait, are you serious? If anything it'd be probably rust/web assembly for it's speed/benchmarks but I don't see anything in web ever becoming one solid framework or stack. If anything it just keeps splintering. The problem is devs are WAY too opinionated about the 'right' way or 'better' way or 'familiar' way of doing things. > 9. Global carbon emissions are not reduced, mostly because of lack of initiative by China and 3rd world countries. This depends on 2020's election. If we see Bernie or Warren win, I think we could lead the world in curbing emissions. We won't win > 10. Still no hoverboards. Never will be. Nor hover cars (except maybe mag-lev).
• safog 7y ago
  I think these predictions are way too safe, to the point that they aren't predictions at all. These are all very widely accepted views already (in the tech community / HN atleast) which explains why this comment is top currently.
  • QuixoticQuibit 7y ago
    This comment from the recent thread reflecting on HNers’ predictions from 2010 made me realize how little can change in a decade: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21942143 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21942143 IMO, OP’s predictions may be safe, but that says more about reality than OP’s lack of imagination.
    • xixixao 7y ago
      But note that looking for predictions that worked out leads you to “safe” predictions. I would like to see a list of things that were big that no one predicted. (Uber?)
      • AznHisoka 7y ago
        You shouldn’t make outrageous predictions if you don’t sincerely believe they will become true though. Otherwise you will get what we see in TV everyday. a bunch of people making outrageous predictions just to sound exciting. Then when the prediction comes true, they will claim all the credit. when it doesn’t, they will say “haha I was just kidding of course”
        • yellowstuff 7y ago
          People should state predictions where their view of the probabilities differs from conventional wisdom. EG, if most people think there's a ~20% chance that level 5 SDCs will be available in 2030 and you think it's a 1% chance then that's a valid prediction, even though it's not that exciting to predict something won't happen. If people think there's a 0% chance of hoverboards and you think it's 10% then that's an interesting prediction, even though you still expect it not to happen. Any serious prediction should include a probability estimate that differs from conventional probability estimates. Almost not one actually does this, because everyone is doing it wrong.
• godelski 7y ago
  > Still no level 4/5 autonomous cars anywhere in sight. > No major job losses due to AI automation First off, #2 is really 2 predictions. 1) No AGI 2) No major job loss due to AI automation. There can be job loss due to automation without AGI (which I'm EXTREMELY bearish on AGI, bearish for the century actually). Second, here's a scenario I think we could see job loss due to autonomous vehicles. Trucking. If we get level 3. We're defining level 3 as > In the right conditions, the car can manage most aspects of driving, including monitoring the environment. The system prompts the driver to intervene when it encounters a scenario it can’t navigate. Driver involvement: The driver must be available to take over at any time. I see this as near tech and could cause disruption. We already have level 2. If regulations change, then I could see job loss. Or another scenario. Let's say that trucks are level 4 on highways in clear conditions, level 2 in cities, and level 1 in bad conditions. Regulations could change so that a driver could "drive" for longer hours and even sleep given that trucks are driving in clear conditions, automatically pulling over to the side of the road/sounding an alarm/slowing down when conditions are deemed unsuitable (with a low threshold). Such a situation seems near possible with current tech and have the potential to disrupt the market. Knowing if that's going to create more drivers or less drivers is harder to say. I'm also bearish on level 4/5 vehicles in the next decade, but I'm not bearish on driving staying the same within the next decade. Especially as we see more cars becoming level 2. I am bullish on disruption here, including regulation. Though I'm not going to try to define what the disruption is, other than increased safety (which is pretty huge). I'm not bullish on AI causing major job loss, but I am bullish on automation (not necessarily %s/AI/ML/g) creating disruption. In fact, I think we're already seeing this. And I want to be clear, I don't think we need ML to automate things. We've done a lot of automation already without it. I think COTs electronics becoming cheaper is the bigger driving force to that along with consumer preferences of using digital systems (Amazon vs store, self checkout vs cashier, movie ticket touch screens vs box office, etc).
• refurb 7y ago
  Amazingly, I'm pretty aligned with most of these!
• xiaolingxiao 7y ago
  Not to be glib but these predictions are just: nothing changes. In this regard I'm conflicted, on the one hand I agree with many of your points. But on the other hand I could not have conceived of Uber and AirbnB being as influential as they were in 2010, and they already existed!
• whatsmyusername 7y ago
  > 8. Web development matures and a "standard" stack is accepted, all in JS. I'd walk into traffic.
  • amiga-workbench 7y ago
    I can see the web being driven into the ground in the next few decades, ever increasing complexity, more extreme hardware requirements for a bit of text on a page, it's already in a silly state, after another decade of this something needs to snap.
    • grey-area 7y ago
      It doesn't have to be that way. HN for example gets by just fine with minimal JS. JS is not even required for functional websites.
      • whatsmyusername 7y ago
        Do you know what site works extremely well without js? Amazon, unironically. I did an entire transaction the other day with noscript on before I realized it. I'd never want to work for them but their tech is impressive. Only thing that didn't work was the logout button.
  • madhadron 7y ago
    I'm reminded of the old adage that "we don't know what the scientific programming language of the future will look like but it will be called FORTRAN." JavaScript today is much more usable than what came out in 1995. You still can't use the Set type to usefully contain anything but primitives, but there's a Set type!
  • twic 7y ago
    Right, but because the traffic will all be autonomous vehicles, that will be totally safe.
• ravenstine 7y ago
  > 8. Web development matures and a "standard" stack is accepted, all in JS. I laughed! > 9. Global carbon emissions are not reduced, mostly because of lack of initiative by China and 3rd world countries. I cried. > 10. Still no hoverboards. :( I wanted to believe.
• cworth 7y ago
  > 9. Global carbon emissions are not reduced, mostly because of lack of initiative by China and 3rd world countries. Wealthy nations have produced massive emissions during their industrialization, and continue to do so on a per-capita basis. The global north has the responsibility to cut back to a greater extent so poorer countries can develop.
• haecceity 7y ago
  > 9. Global carbon emissions are not reduced, mostly because of lack of initiative by China and 3rd world countries. Ya let's blame it all on other people.
  • droithomme 7y ago
    > let's blame it all on other people Unfortunately we can't blame it on ourselves as our carbon emissions, assuming it's even relevant, have decreased massively compared to predictions.
    • haecceity 7y ago
      Companies in developed countries have been exporting emissions to developing countries. Those companies are profiting while people like you and I point fingers at each other. Pretty funny. Anyway if you look at the emission metrics per capita it's still developed countries at the top.
      • fierarul 7y ago
        ... but if developed countries are asking developing countries to reduce their emissions it means they are implicitly asking for a price raise too, no? So, why not do that?
        • haecceity 7y ago
          Not everyone can afford the price raise. Firms in developed countries would be hurt if consumption decreases due to the price raise so who’s going to support this policy?
          • fierarul 7y ago
            So could this really lead to a global depression? I doubt it.
            • 7y ago
• eitland 7y ago
  1 and 2: Based on something like the Gartner Hype Cycle I will guess that we might be nearing something in 10 year. Or it might be that these things work in a 30-40 year cycle (based on observations of the last time AI was hot). 8: For better (we can use languages that doesn't have more built in footguns than PHP) and for worse (openness of frontend will disappear) WASM will make Javascript unnecessary in the long run. I'm kind of seasoned with JS - and a number of other languages - and the only real strength that JS has compared to TypeScript, C# and Java, language wise, is that it is ubiquitous. Besides: if you get developers tp agree on a single stack in 10 years then you are dangerously good at negotiations and should spend your time in embassies not on HN;-)
  • jonnypotty 7y ago
    Doesn't typescript complile to std js?
    • eitland 7y ago
      It does. But the language is nice enough to be stand alone and in my opinion, in the long run I think there's no reason to involve legacy js and hopefully we could get a wasm compile target :-)
• bvda 7y ago
  7. any explanation why it would be caused by complexity of everyday life?
• collyw 7y ago
  6 is an interesting one. How do you see a culture of offliners developing when they can't organise by social media?
  • zxcmx 7y ago
    Maybe they're already here...
• rpastuszak 7y ago
  I find it rather depressing that 5. (privacy) is the point with most consensus so far.
• ratsimihah 7y ago
  2. Wrong, I'm nearly done!
• axegon 7y ago
  I couldn't agree more with all of those, despite the fact that 3, 5, 7, 8 and 9 are incredibly frustrating and depressing. 10 is also bumming me out to a certain degree...
• IGotThroughIt 7y ago
  > Being offline is the new "Yoga" This! But my take is it will be out of sheer necessity. Killing all my social media presence for the last 3 years or so has been more cathartic than anything else I tried in order to acquire perfect peace. That, plus completely cutting out alcohol. I have near zero anxiety since embarking on this and I highly recommend it.
  • nercht12 7y ago
    I think being off social media is very healthy. It's sad that people don't interact in person as much anymore, but maybe we'll get more social media that encourages meeting offline (e.g. meetup.com). Anyone want to make an app? It would be nice of there was an app that would help you identify locals and neighbors with common interests. auto-matching maybe? I can see an app getting really invasive (like checking your search-engine queries), but it doesn't need to be this intense... or maybe that depends on how badly you want to meet people. ... Then again, you could just go knock on your neighbor's door and say hello, but that's too easy, too natural. ;)
    • IGotThroughIt 7y ago
      > identify locals and neighbors with common interests. auto-matching maybe? Tinder for friendly neighbors /s Jokes aside, it does sound good though. I wouldn't mind getting my hands dirty for a few hours on the weekend. As far as mobile apps go, my only competence is in react native. If interested let me know how I can get in touch.
• rimliu 7y ago
  > 6. But a small yet growing culture of "offliners" becomes > mainstream. Being offline is the new "Yoga" and allows > bragging rights. I also think this. However, where do you brag if you are offline… > 8. Web development matures and a "standard" stack is accepted, > all in JS. I kind of hoping for "going back to basics" in regards to the web. Like content sites rediscover they can work with HTML only and it must not necessarily be rendered with JS.
  • graycat 7y ago
    I agree: For my Web site, I wrote no JS at all. Microsoft's ASP.NET wrote a little for me, but it's optional. My largest page sends for just 400,000 bits. The page is exactly 700 pixels wide and has both horizontal and vertical scroll bars and is usable in a window as narrow as 300 pixels. I intend the page to look good on anything with a Web browser up to date as of, say, 10 years ago.
• Cougher 7y ago
  "5. Majority of people still don't care about privacy." "The majority of people don't draw the privacy line where I draw it, therefore they don't value privacy at all."
• dkersten 7y ago
  > 10. Still no hoverboards But they exist right now! Just not for the average consumer. https://m.youtube.com/results?search_query=flying+hoverboard+in+real+life https://m.youtube.com/results?search_query=flying+hoverboard... Same with jetpacks (Gravity Industries will sell you a jet engine based jetpack for ~400k)
• ekianjo 7y ago
  > 4. Google still dominates search and email but losses value and "glory" compared to today. Isn't that already the case and not a prediction per se? > 6. But a small yet growing culture of "offliners" becomes mainstream. Being offline is the new "Yoga" and allows bragging rights. Meh, not going to happen. On the contrary being connected will be more than ever the "new utility" to do just about anything in life. > 7. Increase in adoption of non-scientific beliefs such as astrology/anti-vaxx/religion/flat-earth as a counterbalance to the increased complexity of everyday life. That's already the case with most people have a very poor understanding of scientific principles or even basic stats. > 9. Global carbon emissions are not reduced, mostly because of lack of initiative by China and 3rd world countries. China is building more nuclear power plants than any other country on Earth.
• warrenm 7y ago
  > 10. Still no hoverboards Man! You really know how to drop a bummer for your last one :(
  • papito 7y ago
    They are testing this right now at CERN. If that antimatter floats UP, there shall be hoverboards for all. Spoiler: it will float down.
• callaars 7y ago
  > 9. Global carbon emissions are not reduced, mostly because of lack of initiative by China and 3rd world countries. Per capita, it's not the "3rd" world countries that are polluting, but the "1st" worlds (https://cotap.org/per-capita-carbon-co2-emissions-by-country/ https://cotap.org/per-capita-carbon-co2-emissions-by-country...). I'm sad to see someone still referring to countries as "1st" and "3rd" world, as that's an incredibly outdated term. Also to refer to China as a "3rd world country" is astonishing. I recommend you read the book Factfulness (https://www.gapminder.org/factfulness-book/ https://www.gapminder.org/factfulness-book/) to get a better sense in how the world works.
  • brd 7y ago
    China is 2x the emitter that the US is and it's going to get worse. China has more than doubled their per capita emissions in the last 20 years. Many other countries will follow suit. The US and other more developed economies are plateauing in terms of emissions per capita. While there's ample opportunity to begin to claw back those numbers, it is not where the problem lies moving forward.
    • cuchoi 7y ago
      China: 6.4 metric tons of CO2 per capita United States: 16.5 metric tons of CO2 per capita -- Other developed countries: Germany: 8.9 metric tons of CO2 per capita France: 4.6 metric tons of CO2 per capita UK: 6.5 metric tons of CO2 per capita Spain: 5 metric tons of CO2 per capita -- This is 2014 data (for comparability), but in 2018 China still had half (7.95 metric tons per capita) the CO2 per capita than the US
  • vorpalhex 7y ago
    > Also to refer to China as a "3rd world country" is astonishing > by China and 3rd world countries By Mary and the guys (indicating that Mary is not a guy). > Per capita, it's not the "3rd" world countries that are polluting, but the "1st" worlds From your own source, the top polluters per capita are Qatar, Trinidad & Tobago and Kuwait. Qatar is wealthy, but probably not "1st world". > I'm sad to see someone still referring to countries as "1st" and "3rd" world, as that's an incredibly outdated term The AP standard was updated in 2015. The terms "1st", "2nd" and "3rd" world are still in common parlance even though the AP prefers "Developed" and "Developing".
• dangerface 7y ago
  > 6. But a small yet growing culture of "offliners" becomes mainstream. Being offline is the new "Yoga" and allows bragging rights. Huh, I never thought of this before but you are right, seems like rejecting technology is becoming more acceptable in the mainstream with the 5G conspiracy.
  • groby_b 7y ago
    It's not just conspiracy theories. The focus of much of tech has focused from providing value to its users to extracting maximum value via behavioral manipulation. (Sorry, "engagement" and "stickiness") People who can afford to reject the services provided, or can afford to buy them non-sticky elsewhere, will. Same as it ever was - money buys freedom.
• darepublic 7y ago
  I agree with most of what you said but I'm bullish on AI and hoverboards
• hcarvalhoalves 7y ago
  > 9. Global carbon emissions are not reduced, mostly because of lack of initiative by China and 3rd world countries. Per-capita CO emissions [1]: United States 17.5 Australia 16.75 Canada 14.67 Russian Fed. 12.18 South Korea 11.78 Norway 11.71 Finland 11.53 Greenland 11.07 Netherlands 10.96 ... China 6.18 Mexico 3.91 Brazil 2.15 India 1.64 If lack of initiative is to blame we need to point the right culprits. [1] https://cotap.org/per-capita-carbon-co2-emissions-by-country/ https://cotap.org/per-capita-carbon-co2-emissions-by-country...
  • _wzsf 7y ago
    That little table is the only place where China looks good with regards to CO2 emissions. If the US had 4x the population, ceteris paribus, we'd have even lower CO2 "per capita" than China. Doesn't change one bit the fact that China emits 40% more CO2 than the next biggest polluter.
    • hcarvalhoalves 7y ago
      China is also the world's factory floor, producing most of what's bought by people in the US and Australia, and in effect taking big part of their responsibility. Considering that, the fact it's only 1.4x of US emissions is a miracle. If "1st world" were truly worried, they would stop buying or stop off-shoring. Saying "3rd world lacks initiative" as if it's a national issue is a joke.
      • deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      • _wzsf 7y ago
        > Saying "3rd world lacks initiative" as if it's a national issue is a joke. Yeah, I definitely said that. Continue being mad at me and America.
  • sarbaz 7y ago
    I think the idea is that even if all the current top emitters do take initiative, China and India's emissions are expected to grow quickly. The losses will win over the gains.
• trox 7y ago
  Feels more like 5 years away to me as many of those points are already progressing/are close to success. If you compare to the last decade (for exampet the rise of Bitcoin, Quantum Computing), we can expect many more unexpected discoveries that will change the way we live.
• jiofih 7y ago
  > Facebook (the SN) still exists but ages along with it's current user base. i.e it's the "old people's" SN. Facebook (the company) is still going strong, with either Instagram or one of it's acquisitions being the current "hip" SN. Which year do you live in? This happened already, so long ago in fact that even Instagram is already on the way out as the mid-30s social network, and TikTok is taking over with it’s real-life softporn focus.
• NotSammyHagar 7y ago
  I disagree with number 2, but you might quibble about what 'job losses due to automation' really means, what is 'ai automation' vs regular automation. There aren't any travel agents hardly, it didn't take AGI to remove them, it just took making looking through flights and buying them with the web easy. Similarly, it looks like wall street already has job losses from automating trading. Is that an ai automation? The problem is you could label any job losses due to automating things as not ai, even though actual jobs will continue to be replaced more and more by computers. Have you seen the mcdonald's where you order it yourself instead of using a panel, there must have been fewer people hired to take orders there.