Predictions, Anti-Predictions, Fears & Reflections for 2025

There are many things that I hope will not come to fruition in 2025. Overall, my fears outweigh the positives. I don’t see this as a pessimistic perspective so much as that society, Democracy, the planet’s very existence, remain in the balance.

Note: I’ve been thinking and reflecting on all this too long inside the walls of my own head so it’s time to put this into the world and open up discussion.

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Turns out…

People were oddly positive about 2024.

“Despite the cost of living crisis and conflicts around the world, fewer people say this year was bad. Two-thirds (65%) say 2024 was a bad year for my country, the lowest figure since 2019.”

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Globally, to my surprise—

“Global optimism for 2025 is showing positive trends across several key areas. A majority of people surveyed (71%) believe that 2025 will be a better year than 2024, a slight 1-percentage point increase from the previous year's outlook for 2024. Historically, optimism levels have fluctuated between 75% and 80% over the past decade, suggesting a potential return towards these higher levels.”

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Sadly…

“Only 33% globally believe people in their countries will become more tolerant of one another in 2025, a 2-percentage point drop from last year, reversing the positive progress we have seen on this issue since its lowest point in 2021 (28%). Singapore (-15pp), Türkiye (-12pp) and the Philippines (-12pp) all saw significant declines.”

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“Expectations for a four-day working week are low, with only 32% globally predicting its widespread adoption. Asian countries show the highest expectations, while European countries express less optimism.”

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Trump 2.0 Fears

Will Trump carry out terrible plans he’s either ranted about or are included in the Project 2025 playbook? Unfortunately, it’s a coin flip.

There are too many disturbing potentialities to even list.

Here’s one: Tariff wars (aka. trade wars,) would be disastrous.

The Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930

Major players: United States, Canada, Europe and other nations

Tools of the trade (war): Thousands of imported goods

“President Herbert Hoover originally set out to deal with a farm crisis during the early years of the Great Depression, proposing tariffs on agricultural imports. But Senators Reed Smoot and Willis C. Hawley offered their own legislation, and added a slew of industrial tariffs. This was despite a petition signed by 1,000 U.S. economists calling, unsuccessfully, for Hoover to veto the plan. The world responded with tariffs on U.S. exports, adding more strain to the already-devastated economy.”

“Consequences: Considered a disaster by many, the Smoot-Hawley Act led to retaliation from other countries, including Canada. It contributed to U.S. exports falling by 61 percent in 1933, and stalled economic recovery during the Depression. Thanks largely to the failure of Smoot-Hawley, Hoover lost the next election to Franklin D. Roosevelt (Smoot and Hawley were also ousted) and Roosevelt’s Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934 replaced Smoot-Hawley, allowing the president to negotiate tariff reductions.”

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The Next Big Illness?

“Bird Flu” (H1N1) becomes pandemic-like and starts spreading from human to human creating a flu-like scenario.

Update (1/6/25): This is already seeming increasingly likely…

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We Reach AGI (Artificial General Intelligence)

We’re not ready. We’re just not.

Sam Altman (OpenAI, Chat GPT) thinks AGI will be reached during Trump’s presidency. This is very bad news. The issue relates to the concept of “lock in”. A reductive explanation of this concept is that when something new arrives (technologies, information systems, innovations) it matters who is in power. These new systems tend to get harnessed and shaped by those in power at the time of arrival resulting in cultural and ideological shifts in step with the power structure and agendas.

Imagine the Taliban was the first to create a sentiment AI agent. This AI agent would be shaped by the Taliban’s ideologies as those concepts would be programmed in and the tech would be put out into the world in a manner that, in theory, would bend to the whims of those in charge. You can imagine how Trump, Putin, Kim Jung Un, Xi Jinping might shape the technology differently and want it deployed in a particular manner for specific purposes of control.

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AI Agents

Ugh. Yes. They are coming for us.

Will they be AGI? It might be hard to tell.

Yuval Noah Harari talks about this. It’s going to be difficult to determine authentic AI “agency” and empathy… If, a big if, we get to a point (singularity of sorts) where AI agents are determined to be sentient, well, then people are going to start talking about “AI rights” and that will lead to considerations of giving AI legal “personhood” status. We have precedent. We’ve already done so with corporations. Harari points out that we’ve already provided legal pathways that put humanity at risk. It’s better if you hear Harari discuss this instead of me paraphrasing.

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WWIII

Too many people are frothing at the mouth and seem to think there’s no other way.

There is another way. There is always another option.

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TikTok Ban

I accept I don’t know enough about this. Acknowledging that, usually the problem you know is better than the one you do not.

YouTube Shorts is actually the most popular platform for certain audiences, not TikTok.

Instagram Reels is also more popular than I realized.

If banned, a variety of TikTok copies will be created not unlike Threads and BlueSky arrived to replace Twitter (X).

Influencers will find another platform. Many of their followers will follow.

There is a concern with international spying. That’s a legitimate reason for concern.

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Things I Don’t Think Will Happen (or Get Fixed)

The End of Smartphones in Schools

Jonathan Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation, made a bold prediction that smartphones will be banned in all American schools by Fall 2025. While this would be mostly for the best, I doubt it will happen across the country that quickly.

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Rent keeps rising

I doubt the Trump administration is going to help the housing crisis.

Remember? Kamala had a plan, Trump has “concepts of a plan”. Trump wants to keep everyone guessing and on edge, as usual.

Note: The “concepts of a plan” was specifically with regards to medical coverage and the ACA (aka. ObamaCare). If able to, Trump will repeal the ACA and likely replace it with something worse or nothing at all. Recall that the ACA is not as effective because GOP lawmakers gutted the original ACA infrastructure leaving it a shadow of original intentions.

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Loneliness epidemic continues

Society is struggling to get on top of this.

Loneliness is related to “deaths of despair’ which are increasingly leading causes of death in the United States.

At times, it feels like we are not eager to fix this problem faster. The reality may be that we’re failing to give the right people funding to set potentially effective plans in motion.

Polls suggesting that drug-related deaths have sharply decreased appear to be a cause for celebration but the truth is that addiction is complex, like people, and is good at jumping from person to person (like ebola). It might sound drastic to compare addiction to ebola. One appears to kill faster but the end results can be all too similar. Tech addiction is the new drugs for many.

Big Tobacco realized vaping was taking off and knew where to invest. Big Oil knows renewable energy is the future and so they are placing their bets. Big Tech knows they will eventually find themselves in a lawsuit in the vein of Big Tobacco and they will stave off this inevitable for as long as possible. But, in the meantime, these industries pivot and find ways to keep stacking up profits. In this case, you can hate the player and the game.

We trend towards what is socially acceptable. As pressure increases to tamp down alcohol use in the U.S., pay attention to where people turn next.

Similarly, as GLP-1s like Ozempic and Wegovy take off and have limited consumption of junk foods, note how companies like Kraft-Heinz, Campbell’s, Mondelēz, Conagra, Hershey’s, Nestlé (and on & on) will find ways to pivot.

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Water Wars

We’re not here yet. Thankfully.

Water will eventually become a highly coveted commodity and sadly wars will likely be fought over this most precious resource.

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Things I Hope Will Get Addressed

Gambling App Addiction

There are a range of apps (from sports betting to investing) that are extremely addictive in the vein of slot machines. Ever since highly skilled developers figured out how to hack the human mind we ended up with corporations seeking to leverage these tools to obtain personal data. Data that can now be used for LLMs (large language models) like OpenAI’s Chat GPT. Meta (owner of Facebook, Instagram) is believed to have access to the largest amount of data due to data collection (we learned about this, in part, from the Cambridge Analytica Scandal)— an amount of data greater than scraping the open access internet. A scary thought. This is believed to give Meta an “unfair advantage” (which is good in the business sense) in the AI race.

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Cannabis use is declared a serious problem

People are aware of vaping.

There’s a movement to address the health concerns related to alcohol. Seriously, America’s “drinking culture” has been extreme.

People are becoming increasingly aware of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) being a problem.

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Nuclear Energy

This could be really positive.

People are looking for ways to find the energy needed to run massive data centers. I know this is all very disturbing in the context of climate problems. Nuclear energy has statistically low levels of problems. Of course, the problem is that there is very little room for error. No one likes that.

There are no forms of “clean energy” that has absolutely no downsides.

I have an overall good feeling about us investing in nuclear power. Humans gonna human. We’re going make stuff that requires more energy and sooner rather than later we need to find more sustainable sources of energy. Let’s embrace what we have on hand in the here and now. It’s a matter of life and death.

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Misinformation / Disinformation

Huge problem. You already knew this.

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Manosphere

Huge problem. Did you know this? My sense is the manosphere remains somewhat siloed.

Remember MRAs (Men’s Rights Activists)? This is the direction these days.

People like to talk about Incels. These are a minority group among a greater societal problem.

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The U.N.

This is considered one of the greatest human achievements in modern history. That’s part of the reason Brexit was such a big deal, reason to be upset, and concern that something larger was emerging as a problem.

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What IS going to happen???

There will be some kind of ceasefire deal brokered between Russia and Ukraine. Ukraine will likely have to forfeit an unfortunate amount of land to make Putin feel like he had a win and can save face.

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Elon and Trump will still be “friends” until the midterm election, at least.

“Expect him [Elon] to stick around at least until July 4 2026 — the day his and Vivek Ramaswamy’s “Department of Government Efficiency” expires.” (Financial Times)

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Elon Musk may acquire Warner Brothers Discovery (WBD). It’s a theory I’ve seen from multiple sources. Elon, like Trump, loves attention and dominating the media cycle. Owning a network will provide him with another inroad to dominate the airwaves.

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Will Iran obtain nuclear capabilities?

It sure sounds like it. Will the U.S. and Israel intervene?

I do not think it’s wise to trust Iran with nuclear capabilities. Do I trust the U.S. with nuclear capabilities? Of course not. We’re the only country who has actually deployed the bomb.

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The Economic World Stage

There’s a lot of speculation about whether or not India will become a more significant world player in 2025. It’s possible India’s GDP will overtake Japan (according to the IMF). Other economies to watch include China, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, Brazil.

Note: GDP really isn’t the best metric but it’s one people know and use so…

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Tell me if what I shared sounds wacky.

What do you think will happen (or fear will happen) in 2025?

What do you hope will not happen?

What positives do you foresee as potentialities in 2025? What gives you hope?