Cars – hybrid cars will peak, partly because of a change in subsidies. The US will go their own way…
PHEV will make huge gains. Once battery technology improves further, pure EVs will dominate, maybe from 2028 onwards. There will be a death spiral for gasoline, and it will be effectively dead by the mid-2030s.

Trump – it has taken a while to kick in, but in early-2026 all of America will know that inflation is worse, unemployment is worse, and new industry has not taken off. The mid-terms will go very Democrat and Trump will double-down on everything bad he has done.

AI – the bubble will burst, but only for some. It will be enough to drag down the stock market for the entire year (US but also most where). However, those who have not gone all-in (Google, Microsoft, Meta) will come out as winners.

War – Trump will do some good in places like Nigeria, but his claiming of oil and resources will be bold and embarrassing. After “conquering” Venezuela, he will try to intimidate Greenland and fail terribly.

Everywhere – immigration will slow substantially, and it will be the #1 election issue. After that, “qualified immigration” will be important, because capitalism doesn’t work with fewer people.

Fertility – one country will make the boldest plan ever to boost births and the rest of the world will follow suit. Babies will be the most important asset.

BRICS – or something like it, will create a stablecoin based on the average of the group’s currencies, and they will go ballistic due to first mover advantage. Because it will be state-run, no competition. In the US, a USD stablecoin competition between numerous parties will lead to a lot of fraud and corruption.

Drone terrorism – will affect enough major events to make people fearful of mass attendances.

Drugs – one smart tourist destination will make certain psychedelic drugs legal in accredited clinics.

TRUMP

One is blindingly obvious – China won’t back down on tariffs, they will just keep matching any that Trump adds. They will end up back at square one, the bully will be vanquished OR the global economy will be destroyed. There is no win for Trump possible.

Talk of Greenland and Canada will disappear.

The Ukraine war will keep going. The US will end some support, but keep their hand in. The US will end Russia sanctions. Europe will keep giving Ukraine enough money and weapons to keep it at stalemate. That is until they give Ukraine enough to win, in exchange for

• mineral rights (ha ha Trump)
• economic agreements
• no Ukraine in NATO
• contracts for rebuilding

When the Russians have been pushed back to near their own border, a ceasefire will happen. A DMZ will happen covering both sides of the border, but patrolled by non-NATO international forces like Australia.

The US will of course have a recession by early 2026. The dollar will drop more. Another country or group will make a minor, but meaningful move towards making their currency more global.

CHINA

China will withstand Trump’s shenanigans and become more like a sensible, reliable, trustworthy superpower. They’ll keep expanding overseas economically and start building overseas military bases just as the US starts closing some.

AI and privacy will continue to be huge issues and China will more than ever be shut off from the rest of the world for anything that is more tech than a TV panel. Some countries will ban Chinese EVs because of privacy concerns, and then more countries will, and then sooner-or-later China will start bricking their overseas cars in retaliation. Well, they will do what they call “ending updates” but the cars will stop working.

OTHER

Austria will get a far right-wing government, and they will become good mates with Hungary.

Non-war drone attacks will become a serious problem. Gang fights, assassination attempts (especially officials who do not have high security, and families of officials). Drones will be used for robberies and kidnapping.

Africa will become the place to be. Lots of 100-year-leases to foreign powers. The new land of cheap factory workers. A few private micro-nations.

Businesses offer 5% off for cash for anyone carrying the Cash5 card. That person also gets points and bragging rights.

The business itself saves 0.5-2.5% in transaction fees, but incurs cash handling costs.

Plenty of businesses are happy to pay a 5% reward fee for anything that gets customers in the door. But also, regular customers might take advantage of it.

All Cash5 transactions are recorded, so no tax dodging is possible. However individual businesses could offer it “off card”.

Why it works:

• Doing so makes a statement against the digital now
• Keeps cash alive
• Like-minded people will frequent the same businesses

The last point is pertinent. Such businesses become venues where counter-culture folk can meet. A lawyer offering Cash5 is perhaps more likely to understand your situation.

It has real world value but ultimately is a way of connecting people, not unlike the African-American barber shops.

I cannot find any reason why this is not a widespread thing. It comes down to the simple premise that nobody sets fire to or otherwise deliberately damage their own home. All insurance does is return it to its prior state, but with lots of paperwork, delays and annoyances.

Those that do not get house insurance, typically it is because they cannot afford it versus other things like food and electricity, so they take a gamble. They need help. Everyone else, well the value of the house is probably vaguely connected to what you earn, so increasing taxes by 0.05% would cover everyone’s insurance. Whatever the figure, it will be low. The net result will be the same – what you save from insurance you pay for in tax – but we cut out the middlemen and “loss adjusters”.

Hand in hand with this comes preventive measures, like making sure roofs are well attached. This interesting paper goes in depth about how housing resilience agencies (HRAs) would work. The state will spend on fixing up homes proportional to the risk and cost of bailing them out. Everybody wins. And it is a great election bribe.

A very obvious component of AR glasses is mapping/GPS and businesses. That is where immense profits lie – basically McDonald’s offering you two hash browns for $2 when you walk by. It will literally pop-up on your glasses. Next level marketing.

Google and Apple already have mature maps operations. The upside of AR is so great that if a partnership forms between Meta and either of those, then it is very win-win.

However, Apple and Google own the phones. It is more profitable to buy staff from Meta and make their own AR glasses, and then use their own maps infrastructure.

There will be three plays, and a market for two. Apple and Google will be ready to pounce, with both quite possibly having products ready to launch ASAP. Meta is the runt in this scenario. No maps app of their own. No phone operating system. They are already spending mega-bucks on other things (metaverse, AI), and this could ruin them if they proceeded. But in theory they could create their own maps app, or buy some weird 3rd-tier app from Germany. They could potentially venture into the phone space, getting a Chinese company to manufacture the phones in the US, with a Meta-owned fork of Android. It would primarily be a brand play, hoping to leverage the brand equity of something that has already peaked, by combining it with the trust and assurances of an old friend. No tracking, nothing foreign. A solid phone (sold at a discount because AR advertising will be bank), with minimal branding. More like a Lexus made by Toyota than a “Facebook Phone”.

Apple will win. They will avoid the gimmicky miss-steps by being last to launch.

This site began with my opinion that vertical farming of lettuce could not be profitable. The original example, SkyGreens in Singapore – well their site has not been updated in 8 years. Even so, many similar businesses are seemingly thriving. There is still a major problem – they all only grow lettuce and micro-greens – neither of which will solve hunger in the world.

The curved Apple Watch (2014) never arrived.

Stem cells are already being used to repair humans. This new discovery means it is highly likely that within a decade or two we will be able to repair virtually any damage to our bodies. 2014, and happening today.

In 2014 I kinda predicted BeReal. Well, what is next after BeReal: The next step forward would be real-time video updates – literally push a button and people you are connected to online can watch what is happening.

Spoken website navigation (2016) hasn’t happened yet, although the younger generation love Google searching with their voice

2017 – I absolutely called dark kitchens, but I called them kitchens in a box. My idea is better, they are portable.

And the same year I wrote about self-driving wheelie bins, two years before someone made one.

In 2019 I predicted the 360 Degree Mirror – it will be huge for whoever brings it to market.

The pandemic got me thinking about fake news, and I worked out a solution – truth panels.

Meanwhile, everyone is talking about metaverses (well, only Zuckerberg) and I have a way of making it work. It needs to be based on playing roles that are just like real life. A mashup of Second Life, Animal Crossing and Minecraft.

And finally, a prediction from 2020 that isn’t true yet, but we are strongly heading in that direction – governments are going to outlaw any actions derived from misinformation

Intelligent believers in democracy often have a conundrum – possibly the majority of voters are not smart enough to choose the right people. Yet they accept it, because everyone, regardless, should get to vote.

The same goes for religion. It does a lot of harm and tends to trend towards telling others how to live. But atheists allow it, because everyone should have the right to their own beliefs.

Yet as society becomes more informed, and in many lands the left and right are not getting on so well – the right tend to be religious, because they don’t like change, and Christianity is 2000 years old – there is significant tension.

The atheists, not so blindly self-righteous, and not backed by a god, are not the type to take arms. And yet they are losing, whether they are in Kashmir, the southern US, or Saudi Arabia. So what can be done, to not have the religious dictate the lives of the non-religious?

Separatism – in the US, while not easy to achieve, many will shift where they live to somewhere that does not have a majority of religious people. Meanwhile someone in Portland might move to Texas to ensure they have lots of grandkids.

Damnation – shame the wrongs of religion in social media, and out any religious hypocrites (like the many fans of banning abortions who actually had one…)

Ridicule – suggest that they adhere to everything the Bible decrees

But whatever we do, don’t take arms. We would lose a war, and the other team gets off on martyrs.

But here’s the reason I wrote this:

Parallel Societies

We all know that apartheid was bad, but that was one-sided. What if both sides decided they didn’t want anything to do with each other?

I’m not joking. Let’s have schools and buses and shopping malls and football leagues and banks that are either for the righteous or the damned.

Let’s start with an absolute schism, everything cut in half. And then let folk decide that (in most of society) they would rather live and let live, because it is easier. Learn to love and respect our differences.

OR…

Maybe start excluding religious people?

(legally)

A business could ask customers to promise to be pro-choice. That is not religious discrimination… Not any more than Chick-fil-A not opening on Sundays.

We already have couch-potatoes and drug addicts.

New Age is growing.

Scientists are starting to tap into our dreams (in a very basic way).

Lucid dreaming

Virtual reality…

Designer drugs.

High-worth-individuals.

Combine all of those and we might see a subculture, where people choose to stay in a dream state more-or-so permanently.

Imagine that.

“use your feet while you meet”

That is what feeting.app promises.

This is part of the new “working from anywhere” world we live in.

It would be nice to know the circumstances we are dialling in from…

And the status to be shown, so we know. Like:

• I am jogging (short of breath)
• I am driving
• I am at the beach (hard to see the screen)
• I am at a restaurant (mouth full)
• I am at a nightclub (background noise)
• I am putting my baby to sleep (shhh)
• I am at a nudist beach

Possibly the main factor in adopting electric vehicles is the purchase price – they cost more than their fossil fuel equivalents. The countries with the most sales also have the strongest subsidies.

Because it is quite new technology, and in the west the early models have been on the premium side of things, expect the price to gradually come down. Don’t be surprised if a $10K (USD) entry-level car is available in the next few years.

Here are the cheapest EVs currently, retail price before subsidies:

USA

Chevrolet Bolt $26,595 (was $36,620 in 2020)
Nissan Leaf $27,400
Tesla 3 $48,440

UK

Skoda CITIGOe iV £15,000
SEAT e-Mii Electric £16,000
VW e-UP! £16,000