Philosophy Now Forum

1) Politics
A) Trump won't be impeached
B) The Democrats will pick up 40 seats in the mid-term elections
C) The US economy will continue to improve

2) Technology
A) EV charging stations will slowly increase
B) A universal vaccine will be announced
C) 5G technology will make further progress throughout the world
D) No quantum supremacy announcement
E) CRISPR announcements

3) Major hurricanes and wildfires plus earthquakes

4) New wars will break out

If you don't like the predictions, don't kill the messenger. Put up your own thread.

PhilX

I think Trump will resign some time after Allen Weisselberg goes before a grand jury, and trump Jr or Jared is put in cuffs.

There will be a debt ceiling crisis before the end of 2019, because the budget deficit will first hit a trillion dollars under a Republican president. the number means nothing, but US politicians love grandstanding over big numbers and that one is too juicy to pass on. Democrats don't need to pick up very many seats for that as, if Trump is still in power at all a year hence, he will be a lame duck by then, so fiscal conservatives will join in just to distance themselves from him.

The next global shitshow is probably going to start in China with a debt crisis. Nobody's economy will improve when that happens. Most predictions over the last decade have estimated it is due around about now. Trump's Mercantilist Beggar-Thy-Neighbor trade policies could in theory amplify that into a global depression, but it is hard to do all that in a single year, so perhaps the US economy will roll over nicely for 12 more months.

A universal vaccine will not be announced.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Mon Sep 17, 2018 2:46 pm I think Trump will resign some time after Allen Weisselberg goes before a grand jury, and trump Jr or Jared is put in cuffs.

There will be a debt ceiling crisis before the end of 2019, because the budget deficit will first hit a trillion dollars under a Republican president. the number means nothing, but US politicians love grandstanding over big numbers and that one is too juicy to pass on. Democrats don't need to pick up very many seats for that as, if Trump is still in power at all a year hence, he will be a lame duck by then, so fiscal conservatives will join in just to distance themselves from him.

The next global shitshow is probably going to start in China with a debt crisis. Nobody's economy will improve when that happens. Most predictions over the last decade have estimated it is due around about now. Trump's Mercantilist Beggar-Thy-Neighbor trade policies could in theory amplify that into a global depression, but it is hard to do all that in a single year, so perhaps the US economy will roll over nicely for 12 more months.

A universal vaccine will not be announced.

I don't see Trump resigning until it becomes evident to him he'll be impeached.

The alleged debt ceiling crisis has often been talked about in history. Haven't seen anything come from it and I don't think we ever will.

The flu vaccine from all reports is in its final stage. We will have to wait and see.

PhilX

1. Epidemiology: new virus outbreak, a mutated form of migrant rhesus monkey virus, carried in coconut husks by African Swallows to Europe, from where it will spread throughout the known world. The signs you got your virus: blood coughed up, left ear shrivels up into a dark bloody mess, and you incessantly hum tynes by Spice Girls and Justin Bieber.

2. Epistemology: Plato's Forms will be discuvered orbiting the star constellation Alpha Centaury.

3. Epidermiology: cure for the painful rectal itch will be discovered, then lost in the basement of the builing that houses the New England Medical Journal.

4. Epstein's credo: new music will be discovered in Madagascar, that will take the world by storm, and the four Mbwangis: Stewie, Stig, Plud and Shringle will be knighted by the queen of England.

5. Eisensteinism: movies technology will force the issue of three-dimensional movies, but fail at the finish line, and therefore lap dancers ($3940.99 plus tax) will be mandatory in drive-in movie houses.

6. Essayism: The North American literary trends will conbine into one huge massive mother of a trend, and will drop all words that end with -cycnicide.

7. In Canada, the Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs will be assassinated by a special force when he or she announces that the discriminatory and human-rights insulting practice of "Native Status" will be abolished, and all people of Aboriginal Native origin will be made into ordinary Canadian citizens.

8. A new continent will be discovered between Africa and America. It will be named Atlantis after the ocean in which it has been hiding for millennia by now.

1) 'Social democrats' take a sweeping win during the midterms

2) We enter a recession shortly before the next presidential election, which trump will be blamed for because he wants to live in this idiotic fantasy of having full culpability for our economy.

3) Bitcoin will not get an ETF

4) People will die

Philosophy Explorer wrote: ↑Mon Sep 17, 2018 9:33 amD) No quantum supremacy announcement

Yeah no. Try next century. Because after we actually learn how to use the ones we supposedly have already, it's going to take many more years after that before we have optimized software capable of utilizing the power of a quantum computer. A lot of software still isn't optimized for quad-core processors even though it's much faster in theory and has been common place for about 10 years.

Well, optimizing for quantum computers will be infinitely more complicated and problematic than that, even if we're just using it for simple computations. I'd also imagine very few programmers will be capable of working with such a thing.

Sir-Sister-of-Suck wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 4:52 am

Philosophy Explorer wrote: ↑Mon Sep 17, 2018 9:33 amD) No quantum supremacy announcement

Yeah no. Try next century. Because after we actually learn how to use the ones we supposedly have already, it's going to take many more years after that before we have optimized software capable of utilizing the power of a quantum computer. A lot of software still isn't optimized for quad-core processors even though it's much faster in theory and has been common place for about 10 years.

Well, optimizing for quantum computers will be infinitely more complicated and problematic than that, even if we're just using it for simple computations. I'd also imagine very few programmers will be capable of working with such a thing.

Not to knock you, but it's easy to say this after the fact when quantum supremacy was forecasted to occur last year in one article after another. What makes it more difficult is the situation is complicated (what is a quantum computer? what is quantum supremacy?) and I'm sure there are trade secrets involved as normally would happen with big projects like this.

An example would clarify. D-Wave's annealing quantum computer is often in the news. Yet some people don't regard their computer as a quantum computer (again the question: what is a quantum computer?)

While I regard myself an a analyst, I'm not going to go through technical article after technical article to figure out what's going on. In those cases I rely mainly on what their headlines read which last year was forecasting quantum supremacy (whatever that means exactly).

Yes it may take many more years simply because Moore’s Law has run its course. We'll see.

PhilX

Philosophy Explorer wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 5:01 amYes it may take many more years simply because Moore’s Law has run its course. We'll see.

Yeah, by the time we have software (or hardware in the case that we use it for more than simple computations) that's made for quantum computers, it seems likely to me that we'll have vastly superior machines using standard x64 architect.

It's just my guess, and it's not a solid one, but I think we will never have quantum computers that will be able to run any task, not even close. Because the qubits that such computers use will always have a genuinely random behaviour for all practical purposes; there will never be a magic trick that just pulls out the right answers from the superposition. Quantum computers will only excel at some specific tasks.

Atla wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 9:58 pm It's just my guess, and it's not a solid one, but I think we will never have quantum computers that will be able to run any task, not even close. Because the qubits that such computers use will always have a genuinely random behaviour for all practical purposes; there will never be a magic trick that just pulls out the right answers from the superposition. Quantum computers will only excel at some specific tasks.

Isn't that a controversial position, though? Doesn't activity in the quantum field only appear random, because we don't currently understand how it works?

Sir-Sister-of-Suck wrote: ↑Wed Sep 19, 2018 3:37 am

Atla wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 9:58 pm It's just my guess, and it's not a solid one, but I think we will never have quantum computers that will be able to run any task, not even close. Because the qubits that such computers use will always have a genuinely random behaviour for all practical purposes; there will never be a magic trick that just pulls out the right answers from the superposition. Quantum computers will only excel at some specific tasks.

Isn't that a controversial position, though? Doesn't activity in the quantum field only appear random, because we don't currently understand how it works?

Well personally I believe that the universe is probably fully entangled and all quantum behaviour is probably only apparently random (which may or may not be true). But even if it's true, to make use of the determinism behind the apparent random behaviour, we would have to have perfect knowledge about most or every particle in the entire universe, which is not possible to put it mildly. But then again I'm not sure how quantum computers actually work.

Stuff will happen.

Philosophy Explorer wrote: ↑Mon Sep 17, 2018 3:00 pm

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Mon Sep 17, 2018 2:46 pm I think Trump will resign some time after Allen Weisselberg goes before a grand jury, and trump Jr or Jared is put in cuffs.

There will be a debt ceiling crisis before the end of 2019, because the budget deficit will first hit a trillion dollars under a Republican president. the number means nothing, but US politicians love grandstanding over big numbers and that one is too juicy to pass on. Democrats don't need to pick up very many seats for that as, if Trump is still in power at all a year hence, he will be a lame duck by then, so fiscal conservatives will join in just to distance themselves from him.

The next global shitshow is probably going to start in China with a debt crisis. Nobody's economy will improve when that happens. Most predictions over the last decade have estimated it is due around about now. Trump's Mercantilist Beggar-Thy-Neighbor trade policies could in theory amplify that into a global depression, but it is hard to do all that in a single year, so perhaps the US economy will roll over nicely for 12 more months.

A universal vaccine will not be announced.

I don't see Trump resigning until it becomes evident to him he'll be impeached.

So ... that would be ... sometime after Allen Weisselberg goes before a grand jury, and trump Jr or Jared is put in cuffs then.

Philosophy Explorer wrote: ↑Mon Sep 17, 2018 3:00 pm The alleged debt ceiling crisis has often been talked about in history. Haven't seen anything come from it and I don't think we ever will.

Sure. Russian Roulette isn't dangerous, I pulled this trigger 5 times already and nothing happened. Your debt ceiling gets increased in increments following painful negotiation in which both sides sacrifice things of great importance to them. If a deal is not reached one time, a massive self inflicted dumpster fire occurs.

The next one will depend on a guy who thinks every negotiation is a competition that has been lost if the other doesn't end up regretting ever being born. It will be approaching a trillion dollars for a single year, plus carry overs from the prior year*. It is guaranteed to be by far the worst number ever, and the president's own party will find that difficult to tolerate. Supporting the Donald in this will give the opposition in their re-election campaigns tons of ammo to use against supposedly fiscally conservative congressmen who voted for that trillion dollar debt increase.

The Donald's own instincts will make matters that much worse. He always doubles down when the stakes are highest hoping the other guy will surrender rather than take the blame. So he will demand billions of dollars for a wall, maybe he will do somethig good too, like perhaps he could finally get round to having that "infrastructure week" that he tried to do twice. The Democrats will probably misbehave as well, the GOP does rather have it coming, given what they did to Obama when his debt ceiling came due.

* FYI, this year's debt ceiling problem was ignored and rolled over in order to not fuck up the mid-terms. That automatically means the ceiling needs an increase of over a trillion in March next year just in carry overs. That's without taking subsequent tax cuts into account.

What does the title mean? Are you saying that 'new wars breaking out' is 'good news'? What kind of word is 'thru'? Aren't there hurricanes, fires, and earthquakes every year?
FFS. Take some basic grammar lessons.

Philosophy Explorer wrote: ↑Mon Sep 17, 2018 9:33 am A) Trump won't be impeached

Wots Trump?

Just anuva piss in the wind.