What are yours? (You can also dispute others' predictions -- this is TGD -- but I'm especially interested in hearing new ones, and the reasons for them.)
They can be contingent on events (if so-and-so gets elected... if EU keeps the Euro...).
Here are some of my own.
* We'll start seeing longer wait times and higher prices for medical treatment, as we have a growing doctor shortage. Could be fixed if Obamacare became TrainingMoreDoctorsCare. See the "Insurance Revisited" thread near the end for a source on that.
* The beginning of a trend, which won't be noticed yet, toward less technical development, as universities meet new White House Title IX guidelines the only way they can: by shedding male engineering students. This will greatly reduce the number of engineers. It'll take a while for this to hurt those who aren't college-age, but we'll all feel it later. Maybe we'll be fortunate and would-be engineers can be educated abroad. Or maybe Congress or the courts will intervene.
* The recession either continues -- it would be surprising based on past recessions; this one should be over, but the unprecedented explosion of regulation can be expected to have some unprecedented effect -- or, if it recovers, we'll get inflation, as the money printed for TARP and the past 4 years of deficits starts being spent.
* Europe continues to put off the collapse of the euro until Germany's debts start looking like Spain's, and then it collapses, and we get a double-dip.
Permalink Reply by JonEdanger on How many of them are left to post here (or even to lurk)?
I'll bite: How many?
Permalink Reply by KermitKebab on Very few. Why you, Jon, have only been here a few months...
Permalink Reply by JonEdanger on Sorry. I thought you were going to provide an enlightening statistic.
Permalink Reply by Jack Bauer on Why would you have thought that?
JB
Permalink Reply by JonEdanger on *whispers*
I was being facetious.
*normal voice*
I started to launch into how, even though I've only actively posted for less than a year, I've been reading content on AOM for much longer. (I wish I could remember how long but can't). But I decided it wasn't worth it since he didn't have any statistics to back up his position anyway.
Permalink Reply by KermitKebab on *snickner*
Permalink Reply by Liam S. on You're speculating on why they never became active members, and projecting your own feelings onto someone else's behavior. For one thing, we have no idea how many of them would have been active members under other conditions to compare. My guess is, roughly the same percentage.
This is a common enough behavior on internet forums. There is a core of active members, that rarely fluctuates much - with a large group of transient newcomers and occasional visitors who had to become members in order to get a chance to win a bag, or other prize (or get one question answered)... and had little intention of joining the community proper.
Permalink Reply by JonEdanger on Well said.
Permalink Reply by KermitKebab on In general I would agree. Except that here on AoM, especially in the last few months, some members are so caught up in ego-gratifying displays of one-upmanship and insults (veiled or otherwise) that those who sincerely desire to have rational discussion and make well-thought-out contributions get lost in the ocean of insignificant and pointless debate or tsunamis of pseudo-intellectualism that geniune interchanges of ideas or meaningful opinions are really discouraged. There are many people who have passed through this site (and some who are still here) who might have preferred that it be otherwise.
Now, having said that small piece I await the sarcastic diatribes that will only prove me correct.
Permalink Reply by Liam S. on No sarcasm. You are still speculating, and again, I think those represent very small numbers of individuals overall.
Many might have preferred it otherwise. Many might prefer it as it is... we have no meaningful metrics by which to know the effect. Just suspicions and preconceptions of what we each personally want the site to be.
Clearly it is not what you want. Good for you for sticking around to try and change it. Please don't put your personal preferences onto unknown others and hold them up as evidence that the current tenor is somehow damaging the website or community without actual metrics or other data to demonstrate it.
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