January 3, 2023

23 things Vox predicts will happen in 2023.

Do you have predictions? Surely you don't have 23, that is, 23 worth saying. You can always predict obvious things.

Here are Vox's, perhaps padded by obviousness — e.g. "The Supreme Court will rule that affirmative action is unconstitutional (70 percent)."

29 comments:

Maynard said...

I agree that the Eagles will be in the Super Bowl and beat the KC Chiefs.

The rest of the predictions? Eh.

Kai Akker said...

Tried to read the article you linked. The first two predictions were that Biden will be Presidential frontrunner (before any primaries and still 23- to 11 months before the election) for his party, and Trump will be frontrunner for his.

Click. Gotta do better, fella.

That fella writes under the heading "FuturePerfect." Another contender for the time capsule. When Fox Mulder leads the Martians to the remnants of the human world, those aliens deserve a smile.

robother said...

The stock market will fluctuate. (J.P. Morgan's timeless and ever accurate prediction.)

Enigma said...

I saw the Vox 23 list earlier today, indeed thought they were the most obvious predictions possible. Just conventional wisdom really.

My main expectation for 2023 is that the final outcome of the left-right political realignment will come into focus. The Trump red mist is fading, and natural associations will emerge. Party priorities were ambiguous and self-contradictory. That can't continue into 2024. People will start to accept their new group identities.

WK said...

It’s a sign. Didn’t we just learn that 23 means to “get away, get out”?

Wince said...

Aren't they really talking about a return to the original definition of "affirmative action"?

All nine members of the Court agreed, on the other hand, that racial preferences should not be necessary to cure discrimination in most cases, and should not be used routinely or simply to create a racially balanced work force.

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION UPHELD BY HIGH COURT AS A REMEDY FOR PAST JOB DISCRIMINATION
By Stuart Taylor Jr., Special To the New York Times
July 3, 1986
https://www.nytimes.com/1986/07/03/us/affirmative-action-upheld-by-high-court-as-a-remedy-for-past-job-discrimination.html

retail lawyer said...

The homeless problems will increase on the entire West Coast while the Homeless Industrial Complex will become more destructive and entrenched. Yes, its obvious, but not so obvious that politicians and voters change any policies.

Spiros said...

Futurologists are obnoxious and their predictions are always wrong. In the 1930s, the New York Times predicted that Hitler was “not genuine” about anti-semitism. In 1903 the Times insisted that it would take at least one (maybe even ten!) million years before humans invented airplanes. A few years later they opined that space travel was literally impossible.

This one prediction though, especially given it's historic milieu, was pretty dead on -- "[i]f you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever." (George Orwell)

Lurker21 said...

Obviousness or obliviousness?

Make a prediction and God laughs. I wouldn't assume that Biden or all the Supreme Court justices or Putin will still be alive 12 months from now.

Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism?

I won't support anything that sounds so Orwellian.

gilbar said...

so, there's a 30% chance, that the Supreme Court will rule that Racism is Constitutional?

Butkus51 said...

Inflation will exceed "3%". 60% chance

They lie about it now. Show me one thing that has only gone up 10% this past year. Gas doesnt count. Putins war has driven up the price of gas.

Wait, what?

Ill get back to ya.

Butkus51 said...

Inflation will exceed "3%". 60% chance

They lie about it now. Show one thing that has only gone up 10% this past year. Gas doesnt count. Putins war has driven up the price of gas.

Wait, what?

Ill get back to ya.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

In 2023 Trump is going to be tried and convicted of something.

Dave Begley said...

Creighton will be in the Final Four.

He's correct about 10 million illegal aliens. But the NYT, WaPo, CNN and MSNBC will never report it. Fox had a story that the average Dem thinks Biden has only let in about 100k illegals.

Yancey Ward said...

Was uninterested in most of the choices for predictions in that Vox article- whoever was making the predictions spent too much time examining his lower colon close-up.

My take on the ones I did find interesting:

(1) Biden will be the front-runner at the end of the year, but he will be challenged by someone in the primaries who will have a chance to defeat him. I think it will be Newsom.

(2) Trump won't be the front-runner by the end of the year for the GOP nomination. I think it will be DeSantis.

(3) SCOTUS will rule against racial quotas and affirmative action in a 6-3 decision, and it won't make any difference at all- the universities will just stop using all other criteria which will make it impossible to prove reverse-discrimination.

(4) The writer is very, very, very confused about the conservative stance on using the Commerce Clause of the Constitution- he/she is basically fucking ignorant. The case discussed is exactly the sort of thing the Commerce Clause was designed to address, and the conservatives on the court have no problem applying it correctly, and will overturn the California initiatives rules against out of state producers.

(5) Inflation will exceed 3% by the Fed's favorite measure, which greatly understates pocket-book inflation already. No recession, however, will ever be declared, no matter what happens next year. The BLS will simply understate inflation to ensure whatever GDP # shows up can be used to get "real" growth. They are already, according to the Philly Fed, making up jobs numbers, and have been for at least a year.

(6) One or more SCOTUS justices dies under mysterious circumstances, or is assassinated. This prediction from me covers 2023 and 2024.

William said...

The future is just like the past only more so. That's the way life unfolds. But there's always a few unforeseen, WTF events that louse everything up....Who could have predicted Hitler or Stalin, let alone Trump or Biden?....2022 both personally and globally was a fucked up year for me. It's a low bar, but I'm predicting 2023 will be better. There's always the outside chance of runaway inflation, a deep recession, and a thermonuclear war, but I don't predict it. If you don't die, things the trend line in America is for things to get better.

Rusty said...

California will declare itself in financial freefall and demand the federal government bail it out.
Elon Musk will sell Tesla.

Michael K said...

Anything Vox predicts will favor Democrats. How's that for predictions ?

Saint Croix said...

my stocks will be higher!

Lance said...

This post deserves the "Annual Nonsense" tag.

Saint Croix said...

I have three predictions for 2024.

Ron DeSantis will be president

my stocks will be a lot higher than they are today

I will not be living in my apartment.

Historically I can predict the future with 60% accuracy, which means one of those predictions is wrong.

Saint Croix said...

I made my 3 predictions in November

In December I realized Joe Biden will still be president throughout 2024.

so that's the wrong one

hopefully!

Humperdink said...

Did Vox make any predictions last year? Why yes did. Here are the top two:

1) Democrats will lose their majorities in the US House and Senate (95 percent)

2) Inflation in the US will average under 3 percent (80 percent)

Just like the two Paul's (Erlich and Krugman), Vox's predictions are worthless. Some might label them negative worth.

Ted said...

They're predicting that things that are close to happening will happen, and things that aren't close to happening won't happen. That's some cogent analysis!

I prefer the sort of weird predictions they used to have in the supermarket tabloids -- like "Ben Affleck and J-Lo will be replaced by lookalike space aliens." Prove me wrong!

boatbuilder said...

Power line had a great George Eliot quote:

“Of the many forms of error, prophesy is the most gratuitous.”

Known Unknown said...

Author claimed Everything Everywhere All at Once as overrated. Article and author suck.

wildswan said...

By the end of the year one city somewhere in the US will have done something about the fact that de-policing has led to a huge increase in homicides with the increase concentrated in the black community. This is exactly the opposite of what was intended and some mayor will act. But the city will not be Milwaukee; the mayor will not be Cavalier Johnson and Black Lives Matter will not assist in evolving the life-saving policy.

Tina848 said...

I always like to look back at the predictions from last year or 5 years. They are usually hilariously off.

Kirk Parker said...

Ted,

You're wrong!

Your error lies not in the "aliens" part of your statement, though, but rather in the "replaced by" part.