25 February 2021

It's that time of the year again, when I make predictions for the upcoming year. As has become my tradition now for nigh-on a decade, I will first go back over last years' predictions, to see how well I called it (and keep me honest), then wax prophetic on what I think the new year has to offer us.

As per previous years, I'm giving myself either a +1 or a -1 based on a purely subjective and highly-biased evaluational criteria as to whether it actually happened (or in some cases at least started to happen before 31 Dec 2020 ended).

In 2020...

... I wrote a lot of stuff. (That always seems to happen when I do these.) Let's start. I'll include the full text of what I wrote in each bullet point first, then put the Result after it with whatever insights or comments seem relevant. (Arguably none of them are, but hey, it's my set of predictions, so....)

2020 is the start of a new decade, and that usually means predictors and prophets and tech pundits and other folks who think they know a bunch of stuff try to convince you that this is the start of something entirely new. (It's those kinds of folks who predicted flying cars and hoverboards, by the way.)

Let's call out the really obvious thing NOBODY predicted: pandemic. COVID-19. Lockdown. Remote work for everybody. Absolutely nobody had that on their predictions BINGO card, and to pretend even remotely otherwise is disingenuous to say the least. This past year has been simultaneously the longest of our modern lives, and the most alone most of us have ever felt together. So many things just got wiped out by the necessary health-preservation tactics (masks, lockdown, etc) that the pandemic required.

So, with that out of the way, let's begin.

I wrote....

2021 Predictions

We began the new year with chaos and tragedy, at least here in the United States. The Capitol Insurrection of 2021, fueled by blatantly-false claims of election fraud and whipped into a frenzy by a narcissist whose continued civic freedom depends on being "untouchable" by legal recourse, meant that a lot of us had things far, far more important than technology trends to worry about. It's been a rough two months since then, as well, as we struggle to balance hopes for vaccines and coordinated federal response to this damnable virus against the mess that the year-plus of deliberate neglect from the previous US Adminstration created. It was hard on everyone, and in a lot of ways we all just want to "get back to normal" for whatever definition of "normal" you care to use. Unfortunately, I don't think we're anywhere close to "normal" yet, though the massive rollout of vaccination programs will help, but I'll get to that in a second. For now, let's look at some predictions for 2021.

There's probably a few more I could toss off, but I think that's probably enough to engender some discussion and guarantee a few sharp rocks half-heartedly tossed my way. Love to hear your thoughts in the Disqus comments at the bottom of the blog, and I wish all of you a safe and speedy recovery from the pandemic in which we find ourselves; mask up, wash up, and stick with the science, so that in time, we can all go back to living our best lives similarly to how we did it in 2019.


Tags: predictions  

Last modified 25 February 2021