Predictions For Two Thousand Six

Much more fun than resolutions.

The first byte-code translator between python and ruby will result in a mass exodus of programmers from python to ruby. Okay, more a suggestion than a prediction, but what's wrong with self-fulfillment anyway? Aren't all memes just self-fulfilling predictions? Okay, I ramble ... ahem.
Russia will commence reassimilating Eastern Europe using natural gas threats as its scourge.
- Putin didn't even succeed in assassinating Yushchenko. Note that walking dead isn't dead dead.
the US East and West coast housing bubble will burst leading to a recession; scared Asian investors will run on the banks and the USD will plummet.
if the housing bubble doesn't burst on its own then the USD will fall due to the US trade deficit, causing interest rates to spike and bursting the housing bubble
the USA's military occupation of Iraq will continue and continue to be a nightmare
the USA and Israel will attack Iran. WW3 will commence shortly after.
the US Army will not meet its recruitment targets even after inflating their recruitment numbers by drawing on pre-recruited people, even after lowering standards of intelligence, and even after reducing its targets
the peace movement just might figure out that CounterRecruitment is the way to go; the US army already knows it
the WTO trade talks will collapse, hopefully
the Bush Administration will officially gain lame-duck status and so be unable to start any new wars like it had planned
Shiite-controlled Iraq will continue allying itself with Iran and there's nothing the USA will be able to do about it
the Iraqi guerilla forces will completely shut down Iraqi oil export (and whenever the Iraqi guerillas win eventually, they'll export their tactics to Saudi Arabia to bring the world to its knees)
a full-scale civil-war in Iraq probably won't happen, yet. Just a half-ass one this year.
oil prices will not fall
the US will have increasing problems with torture and its plans for permanent super-bases in Iraq
Iraq will become a stable, peaceful, educated nation; and Sunni's will take our IT jobs. Care to make a bet on this issue for 1000$ USD? I'll offer any odds you like.
another massive hurricane will hit the USA's east coast and Al Qaeda will be hiding in it. Same here.
Bolivia probably won't nationalize its resource industries but it will have a Constituent Assembly that will remake its constitution and pave the way for such nationalization
Venezuela will keep shaming the USA and building ties with other Latin American nations
- Well, it just announced a plan to eradicate poverty by 2020
Cuba probably won't join the OAS, yet, but will continue to improve relations with all of Latin America
Asia minus India will further integrate regionally around China
- The Japanese might have something to say about that. In addition, many smaller Asian nations have little desire for either Japan or China dominating the region -- being highly distrustful of both -- and will be happy to play one off against the other (and both off the US).
- The Japanese are in favour of Asian integration, but they can't afford to express this openly because the USA loathes it.
- can you provide good references for this? Everything I've read about the Japanese places them in favor of integration only if they're on top; otherwise they are quite insular.
- I'm sure they're dreaming of coming out on top, and they can keep on dreaming. Can you honestly say there's any chance at all that they'll stay on top? And hell, even if they do what does it matter? It will still be Asian integration at the expense of the USA.
- I'm not referring to the odds that Japan actually does end up on top, I'm referring to the claim that Japan favors Asian integration, given the odds of a China-dominated combine. Are they ignoring this possibility, or are they accepting a second-banana role under China?
- ''You may be right. The only reference I have dates to before China was acknowledged as a major power. http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=9411)
- And apparently it is NOT going to happen. Damn Koizumi.
every South American country that's up for Presidential elections will shift leftwards, either the right-wingers losing clout or the left-wingers actually coming to power
the European Union will develop a Core Group of nations which make up all the rules which everyone else is expected to adhere to
Europe will continue regional integration
life will continue to suck for Africans
AIDS will spread in Africa, more people will die
Shaq will become president there and take an African nation to the top of the world. Care to take a bet on that?
Ratzinger will turn out to be more right-wing than JP2, though that may not actually be possible
- Sure it is. JP2 was quite reasonable on many points.
- Ratzinger was JP2's right hand man and enforcer. He was the power behind the throne.
people may actually start talking about the beginning of the end of the American Empire
more people will be worried about PeakOil, it will make the mainstream news more often
Bush will be impeached, though maybe not successfully
- If Bush is impeached in 2006, he's toast. Such an action will require Republican support, after all. More likely is the Dems gain control of Congress in 2006 and vote to impeach in 2007 -- in which case, like the Clinton impeachment, a highly partisan vote (resulting in acquittal, as the Dems will not win 67 Senate seats in 2006) will result.
RIAA will continue to whine about the Internet cutting into its profits, and not Wal-Mart which is the real culprit
professional journalism will continue to become irrelevant ever so slowly, its mendacious lies will become all the more apparent in 2006
- That is why we have the double-checked fine-tuned accuracy of bloggers instead.
- Well, that demonstrates a massive misunderstanding of how objectivity is achieved in science. Objectivity in science isn't achieved by every scientist committing to some "objective" belief system but by having a sufficiently diverse range of passionate opinions (see AgainstMethod, OpenMindedScience?). Contrary to the institutional censorship that masquerades as "professionalism" in journalists (and Catholic theologians), bloggers have a sufficiently diverse range of passionate opinions. Objectivity in science isn't achieved by professionalism but in spite of it.

some others:

humanity will continue to make incremental progress in most areas and basically muddle on as it has always done in others, though not all of that progress is positive
Richard Kulisz will continue to tout his vaporware 'designs' as being on the verge or replacing everything else in software

why the US economy will tank

The current economic non-boom is largely the result of the housing bubble. The housing bubble is a direct result of the earlier telecomm / dotcom stock crash. Because the economy is so ill, the criminals and the hucksters (you know, the people in the 3-piece Armani suits that work on the Stock Exchange, own mansions and don't pay taxes) can't find any place to invest all the cash they got in shady business dealings, tax evasion and various other criminal activities (this is not chump change, a few years back it was the same size as all third world nations' debts put together), so they gamble in various places in a drunken orgy. Since the telecomm casino closed its doors, they opened another one in real estate.

Now why is the economy so ill? Well it's partly the result of the 80s and 90s and 00s' assault on labour rights, wages and benefits so that CEOs and shareholders (the drunken criminals and hucksters we just mentioned) could line their pockets. When working people don't have money in their pockets, they don't have anything to spend, and of course rich people don't spend because it's physically impossible for them to consume even a miniscule fraction of the cash they have. Which is why in 2005 whatever consumption was there was fueled by credit cards and a negative savings rate. And the rich sure as hell knew this which is why they didn't invest in it. Now what's a negative savings rate mean? It means ordinary people don't get enough money working in order to live and so they're liquidating their assets, which is pretty much what you do right before declaring bankruptcy.

You underestimate the power of US hucksters. Technology is not our comparative advantage because our labor cost is too high. Hucksterism is. They will find something else to trick the masses into investing in, perhaps using oil fears to drive it. The US husksters perfect their sales pitch in the US, the melting pot and thus testing ground of the world, and then export it to overseas franchises and partners. If that doesn't work, we send our mean but skilled lawyers at 'em. We stew 'em and sue 'em. We attract the best hucksters from the world over to keep the cycle going. Sure, it is not the most noble way to stay on top, but it sure does work. Other nations chase technology and manufacturing as the GoldenHammer, but in reality that is not where it's at because it is too crowded now. It just sounds and feels, and perhaps is, more noble to take that approach. When the bigoted European Christians didn't let the Jews take up the "best" careers, the Jews became investors and bankers, fields considered dishonorable to the Christians, and ended up on top anyhow. The US learned the same lesson. -- top

You can't swindle money from people that don't have any. US workers simply don't have money.

People forget that the Jews thought being an investor or banker was highly dishonorable. They made an exception for Christians as it was okay to charge interest on money only if they weren't fellow Jews.

It hasn't begun yet but the beginning has been announced. http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=10&ItemID=9494

Perchance he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him.

Some predictions from ScottJohnson

Legislation will be introduced in 2006 or 2007 to attempt to reign in the blogosphere (in the US). The tactic employed will be undoing the "ISPs are not publishers" language in the CDA -- effectively making ISPs and website hosts legally liable for anything written by their users. Scared shitless by the prospect of huge judgments (and ordered to by insurance companies), ISPs and website hosts will impose draconian restrictions on what users can write or say in cyberspace.
- Whether such legislation will pass remains to be seen.
The 2006 election in the US will be interesting.
I'll write some more later. :)

JanuaryZeroSix

April 2007 Well, here we are Q2 2997, and Iran is sticking a thumb in 10 Downing Street's eye, and it could get ugly very soon folks. I think I will set up a firm to roll bandages and prepare iodine tablets, and prepackage dosimeters and their chargers. Also, there likely to be a thriving market in wind up TV sets- like wind up radios, they work when the power is out and the battery supply is scarce. Canned food is also a good thing to slide under the bed quietly, and some 5 gallon cans of gas in the garden shed- for the mower of course. It also may prove useful to get a glass jar with a few dessicant bags, a BIG pill bottle from a friendly croaker of something good like cipro or at least Vicillin, and close up the jar with a plastic lid and bury in in a shady spot in the back yard. Cipro is better as it is used to treat certain biowar agents, but vicillin is a pretty stable form of penicillin. Keep it cool (70-80* ) and it is good for a couple of years. First mushroom cloud is going to give the planet a psychological laxative, and The second will induce the screaming meemies, and all manner of hell will break loose after that. I wonder where those missing Russian nukes went to... If they ever existed besides on paper. hmmm...

Back in the day, there was a game: IF I WAS IVAN, wherein someone understanding the facts of life tried to climb into Ivan the Russian commander's skull and psych out what Ivan would do in X situation. If Iran manages to trigger a ugly mess, there's lots of interesting not nice people out there who might just do something interesting. what might they do? -KirkBailey