by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
My birthday is coming up and I’d like to be able to celebrate it without the nation I love being brought to its knees on that date. But, lulz! So it does, however, look like the next 48 hours will be pretty dramatic. I can’t predict the future, though, so, lulz. Maybe it’ll be next week when enough Americans are sick that we can’t ignore what’s going on around us. Maybe it’ll be April. Maybe it will never happen.
But let’s going through a back-of-the-envelope threat assessment for COVID19 right now.
The Global Order
Just like until 1914 there was the world order established by the Congress of Vienna in 1815, it’s definitely looking like the world order setup after WW2 about to faceplant. If things improve with COVID19, then Trump will end it in this second term. If they don’t, then COVID19 will do it and something new will take its place. My best guess is we’ll have four major regional wars in the next year and we’ll sort out the New World Order after that. A lot depends on how crazy Trump becomes and how much of a tyrant he finally goes along the way.
Italy
I don’t understand what’s going on with Italy. How it is that just northern Italy is imploding and not taking not just the rest of the country with it, but the rest of Europe as well is a bit odd to me. Should all of Europe be consumed by COVID19 in the next few days (maybe a week or two) then that will definitely cause otherwise blase Americans sit up and take notice.
Hollywood
As I’ve written before, I think Hollywood, as an industry, is a dead man walking. You can’t stop all movie going — or production — for about a year without there being some consequences. It seems as though MX (VR & AR) will fill the void left by traditional passive entertainment and the era of “immersive media” will have arrived. The process through which this happens is going to suck and be a tragedy to such extent that no one will be happy about it.
Iceland
I still think Iceland — or some other small nation near the US that is a major tourist destination — is going to be the canary in the coalmine about how bad things really are in the USA.
There definitely is a general trend towards a pandemic everywhere else. But things could also get a lot better pretty abruptly and we will look back and chuckle at how ready we were to freak out.
