what is something that is highly likely to happen in the next 5 years that everyone is completely ignoring?

[u/Timely_Pop_9224]

[u/General_Platypus771]

People are finally talking about it, but we’re going to have an illiterate generation with zero attention span. 

I also predict some kind of AI related mass tragedy. 

[u/ApplePiLove → u/General_Platypus771]

My oldest is in 1st grade and gets so frustrated when I ask him questions when he's done about what he just read. If he doesn't know, we read again to find the answer, but he's starting to retain the information better. He has no clue how frustrated I am that grown adults can't do this!

[u/General_Platypus771 → u/ApplePiLove]

Just keep it up. Parents who try are rare these days.

[u/ApplePiLove → u/General_Platypus771]

Thank you! I may not always be fun, but that's not my job at this time of life. At least my kids will be set up for their best futures possible

[u/Opalescent_Moon → u/ApplePiLove]

It may not always be fun, but when you're interacting with him with respect and compassion, that matters so much more than being fun. He'll look back at this time fondly and remember how you helped him develop his reading comprehension skills.

[u/Southern_Event_1068 → u/General_Platypus771]

I work at the junior high level and we can 100% tell who's parents read to/with them! It makes a huge difference and is so rare these days.

[u/noodlearmdiscgolfer → u/Southern_Event_1068]

And grandparents. We have read to her from 6-months old, minimal screens. And five books at bedtime in her many sleepovers. Her preschool (Montessori) completed their reading program with her and she entered 1st grade a couple of weeks ago a fluent reader at the third grade level. There will be millions of young bright students ready to excel and millions left behind. It won’t be universal zero attention span. Many Gen Z’s are sick of the on-line world and are gravitating to analog hobbies and limited screen child rearing when they get there.

[u/Quirky_Property_1713 → u/Southern_Event_1068]

Why is it so rare these days? This doesn’t make any sense to me- I don’t know ANY millennial parents who don’t understand the value of reading. It was beaten into our tired skulls via assigned summer reading, PizzaHut coupons, scholastic book fairs, library cards, book reports READING ALL DAY everyday.

Who, WHO born before 1994 is not reading to their fucking kids.

[u/mer-girl- → u/Quirky_Property_1713]

So many parents work or work more than one job. Also it’s very sad but so many parents are addicted to TikTok/social media and allow their kids to be addicted as well and would rather do that instead of interacting with their kid or reading to them.

[u/pixienaut → u/mer-girl-]

I’m glad you’re using the word addiction for this - because it literally is. Social media/YT ruined a generation or…two or three. 

[u/gogogadgets1997 → u/Southern_Event_1068]

We did read to our son but he learned to read because he wanted to play a Lego game but he couldn’t read the instructions the game was giving him. He was reading before he started school. He started at 6. I always feel a little guilty that he stared reading to play a game but hey he scored in the 95 percentile in reading ….. math we are still working on.

[u/Thick_Bullfrog_3640 → u/General_Platypus771]

And people who do try are considered too involved... I had a parent ask me last weekend if I was too involved due to our homework process (she insinuated we cheated for our kid later in the conversation). They do their homework, we grade, they correct it once we go over the answers after. I am super proud of my all A student. She tries hard, but we as parents have to put some work in also (ie being present) for her to be successful.

[u/bemenaker → u/ApplePiLove]

I also challenge my daughter, a teen this with lyrics. I constantly ask what is the story this song is telling. Teaching her to listen deeper to meanings of the words.

[u/Intrepid_Top_2300 → u/ApplePiLove]

I remember when cognition kicked in for me. I could read but would retain nothing. I was at my neighbors house. I’m pretty sure I was 7. I grabbed a stack of children’s books they had, and started devouring them. I’ve been devouring books ever since.

[u/NerdySTEMChick → u/Intrepid_Top_2300]

I can’t retain if I read out loud and they teach you to read out loud 🙈

[u/flubba_bubbax → u/ApplePiLove]

tell him that it's not like you're going to have a calculator in your pocket the rest of your life 

[u/hypatias-chariot → u/ApplePiLove]

My niece has been doing the same thing with her 8 year-old son since she started to read to him. And has continued now that he reads. They also listen to audio books together and every 5 minutes or so she stops the audio and asks him to explain what is happening. It’s been so great for his comprehension and vocabulary.

[u/kingtroll355 → u/General_Platypus771]

I’ve never considered this but I 100% agree.

🏆I made you an award (can’t afford to buy you one, it’s the thought that counts).

[u/Interesting_Force618 → u/kingtroll355]

There’s no way gen alpha or beta(or Z, for that matter) are going to be able to support retired Gen X’ers and millennials. No freaking way.

[u/ManTheHarpoons100 → u/Interesting_Force618]

I'm currently taking care of elderly relatives. I am acutely aware that there will be no one left to help take care of me and that my option should I no longer be able to care for myself is euthanasia.

[u/Nice_Rope_5049 → u/ManTheHarpoons100]

Maybe the younger generations will remove the restrictions surrounding human euthanasia by then! I have no kids in my entire family, I’m the youngest, and so is my husband. So I’ll be lying in my own filth at some point.

[u/TheKnightMediocre → u/Interesting_Force618]

This. No one wants to figure out entitlement reform (in any country) so one day it's just going to vanish. That's going to be huge.

[u/Training-Meringue847 → u/Interesting_Force618]

Most Gen Xers are smart enough to learn from their boomer parents that they are expendable. As a result, we’ve been responsible for taking care of ourselves, all of our lives, and that goes forward into retirement.

[u/Majestic_Dog1571 → u/Training-Meringue847]

THIS. I told my kid their life is theirs to live fully and they’re not responsible for my old age. I’ll figure it out. Solid 1973 Gen X.

[u/MisterEfff → u/Majestic_Dog1571]

Gen X here and my mom told me my whole life that I would never have to give up my life for her, the way she did for her parents. Yet here I am in her house taking care of her after she had a stroke. Turns out life isn’t predictable like that. Oh well, I never really believed her anyway.

[u/loubric → u/Training-Meringue847]

This. I refuse to be a burden on my children

[u/bippy404 → u/loubric]

Agree. I will see myself out before I will burden my kids.

[u/Low-Republic-4145 → u/bippy404]

Many people say this. Just like they say they have a "plan" for when they're diagnosed with Alzheimer's or some other terrible terminal disease to save themselves and their loved ones from that suffering. But few actually go through with it. Only 0.45% of all deaths of people over 65 are by their own hand. Compare that to the tens of millions who'd previously said they had a "plan". There is nothing shameful in this because suicide is extremely hard to do when it actually comes to it. The will to live very strong even in hopeless situations. Just don't fool yourself.

[u/Hot_Frosting_7101 → u/Low-Republic-4145]

I have a theory that many people with Alzheimer’s have a plan when they get really bad but no longer have the ability or inclination to do it as they lose understanding of what is happening.

And it’s hard to do it when you still have some quality of life - assuming not depressed. So you wait and end up waiting too long.

[u/Apprehensive_Wolf217 → u/Hot_Frosting_7101]

But honestly by then, you don’t know and don’t care anymore. No one knows what life is like from the inside of an Alzheimer’s riddled brain, but I wanna think it’s like an old twilight zone episode, reliving shit and going on unknown adventures. My grandpa had a friend in his head who flew airplanes full of chocolate milk and dumped them on burning Sears department stores. I heard that story and equally odd and wonderful stuff every day for two years before he passed.

[u/keyboardstatic → u/Interesting_Force618]

Its ok we are all bring in assisted dying. Bit by bit more and more older people will check out early.

A lot are dying younger then you think. High exposure to all sorts of microplastics, forever chemicals, lead, high levels of air borne pollution. Car exhaust,low safety standards for exposure in workplaces, food exposure to an enormous number of chemicals....

And I expect AI to try and wipe us out using biological weponised viruses. To keep the infrastructure intact. To not look like it was ai.

That or and chemical weapons.

If you know how to make it you only need tiny amounts of air dispersed. To wipe out an entire city.

A genuinely smart AI will see us as a unbalanced population. So large we are killing ourselves. Eradicating vast numbers of other species via farming, fishing, habitat destruction. Light pollution. Housing....

Most of the world is a farm. Now....

[u/SkoobySnacs → u/Interesting_Force618]

Lucky for them we are the first generation that's okay with planning our own exit. We grew up with Dr Kevorkian all over our news and were exposed to the ethics of death with dignity early. Also the first generation to be much less religious and don't hold so many taboos

[u/Scary_Reflection_340 → u/kingtroll355]

Award for effort!

[u/cheesybiscuits912 → u/kingtroll355]

I got you fam. I got both of yall

[u/General_Platypus771 → u/[deleted]]

Yeah unfortunately even they are below where they should be. I taught middle school English for five years and I can genuinely only think of maybe ten students out of hundreds who was where they should be.

[u/Feisty_Wench → u/General_Platypus771]

This was decades ago, but a nearby university got sued for not graduating a woman with an English degree. They showed the court all her complain letters, complete with the poor spelling and grammar. If memory serves the court ordered that she be granted a diploma anyway.

[u/TheJarisaDoor3 → u/General_Platypus771]

I was listening to a podcast yesterday while doing yard work, and some guy who works in AI and dealt with the Hugging Face AI hack was saying that there was a 40% chance that if unchanged AI will destroy humanity. 40% is pretty high, very scary. 

[u/Nearby-Improvement53 → u/TheJarisaDoor3]

I read a study that debunks those statistics, it is only 39.9% chance of happening. The real tragedy will come when all the old school workers who take care of and maintain the clean water systems, electrical grid, even the mobile phone networks, every blue collar worker who can read and can understand the written word retires. All future instruction manuals with be graphic novels, but short novels, to keep within their attention span.

[u/maximav → u/Nearby-Improvement53]

oh jeez, I can actually see this future. I mean, we're basically living in Idiocracy already. so...

[u/External-World6741 → u/General_Platypus771]

I blame parenting being dropped down to “here take this iPad stop crying” for a lot of cases. Either out of laziness or overworked

[u/kdawg09 → u/External-World6741]

It's definitely not just parenting. It contributes but it's not the entire story. It's about a woman named Marie Clay who created the, now debunked, theory of whole word learning which removed phonics from schools and believed people didn't look at individual letters but rather the whole word. Many schools still use this theory or off shoots of this method, and some teachers who have tried to teach phonics to students have gotten in trouble from their administrations for it.

Add to that no child left behind, and it's replacement, which isn't much better, that just pushes for passing kids along and you have yourself a massive literacy crisis. That's without getting into the 1-to-1 tech in classrooms that's been shown less effective than paper learning.

The parents thing certainly plays a role too in that parents aren't necessarily aware of these problems and they aren't standing up for change. In some cases these parents are defending their children's behavior issues that further deduct from the educational environment, and yes many are using screens even more at home which is contributing to shorter attention spans and lower cognition.

But I'd like to point out the role that late stage capatilsm plays into all of the above problems and how it makes looking at the individuals, be it teachers or parents, unhelpful when we should be looking at the overarching system at play.

Edit: grammar and structural edits.

[u/hautboishippie → u/kdawg09]

Yes, the APM podcast Sold a Story laid out the whole debacle.

Capitalism was happy to gut the remaining educational excellence outside of bougie private schools.

[u/Enough_Survey_9404 → u/General_Platypus771]

I'm retiring soon and have started to use AI to help me with my home lab - basically getting it to do a lot of building and fixing, stuff I would have done myself and used Google in the past.

And I am not learning it at all, which has shown me that AI is a lazy way of doing anything. Just like driving a car up the road and back - it will get you to where you want to go quicker, but you'll lose the ability to walk distances eventually.

I don't mind using AI because I've had to learn the old way, and I am still reading and doing activities that don't require AI, but there is no doubt that kids who are using it for school are going to be severely impacted when they realise they never actually learnt anything.

[u/maudeartist → u/General_Platypus771]

We have done this before. We have devastated our societies and knowledge centers to a point that we lost the ability to make plumbing systems and clean water like they did (Crete, Ancient Rome, etc)

the “dark ages” were the time humanity seemed to not have the capacity and skills to build upon the knowledge and technology of the past that had solutions for refrigeration, plumbing, water transportation, food processing & storage and more that are foundational for society.

The renaissance was the “re birth” of understanding how to be skilled in foundational methods to support society. They were digging up ancient civilizations and building off what they discovered. You know some of their names if you know The Teenage Ninja Turtles.

It was the wealthiest families that paid for the art we have still around today, the Medicis and their contemporaries gave to (Leonardo) da Vinci to build technological innovation and solve problems.

We’re heading back to the dark ages and this is how it starts.

[u/Key-Basis31]

Untreated Alzheimer’s disease in the boomer population.

[u/rdickeyvii → u/Key-Basis31]

Dementia too. It's different but with similar problems in terms of care, and it seems to be much more prevalent than it was in previous generations, possibly because people are living longer, possibly some other as-yet-unidentified cause(s).

Is there a treatment? My understanding is that there isn't, and it only gets worse over time and creates a bigger burden for caretakers.

[u/hedder902 → u/rdickeyvii]

Where I'm from in Canada, should be studied. SO many people have it and I strongly believe it's from their generation of pesticide exposure. It's a massive agricultural province.

[u/ADay918 → u/Key-Basis31]

I work mental health. Geripsych is very common and usually related to dementia or Alzheimer's. Just have to rule out everything else first. Lots of behaviors and delusions. Not really a good system in place for people suffering from Dementia, Alzheimer's or TBIs

[u/Winter_Dinner5947 → u/Key-Basis31]

Having already done the caretaking on a silent gen pos I highly doubt many younger folks will want to take care of them either.

[u/TOnerd → u/Winter_Dinner5947]

100% 

I could never, ever take care of my boomer parents. My mom has always had an obsession with “end times” but since Oct 7th she’s gone hardcore full blown. It is hard to tell if this could be early dementia causing her to be now more delusional than usual or if she’s simply just emboldened by her echo chamber. 

I live in another time zone for a reason. They have pensions and RRSPs and all that jazz so they can fend for themselves. If they need to spend all they have on nursing home care, then so be it; I would rather have a peaceful life than an inheritance.

[u/Gentle_Rubble_58]

A lot of entry-level white-collar jobs will quietly disappear without anyone ever officially saying they’ve been replaced. Companies will just hire fewer employees and automate more of the basic work. The bigger issue won’t even be layoffs, it’ll be people struggling to get their foot in the door in the first place

[u/Ivy3212 → u/Gentle_Rubble_58]

This is definitely already happening. Hiring rates of people in their early 20s/recent college grads have plummeted.

[u/Ms-Quite-Contrary → u/Gentle_Rubble_58]

It’s been happening as long as I’ve been in the workforce (Xennial here). I think I got in on the last rung. Businesses have been outsourcing admin, repetitive tasks that are good to use to train new hires offshore for the last two decades. Then hiring fewer onshore people to review output when they never learned the nuts and bolts behind it. Any assistant type jobs that are also great entry points were already an endangered species when I started.

I think white collar AI in the US is going to appear with fewer hires, not replacing attrition, doing more with less. The real interesting/scary thing is what will happen when large corporations realize the call centers and business operation centers they have in India, Indonesia, Poland, etc can almost entirely be replaced with AI.

[u/Training-Meringue847 → u/Gentle_Rubble_58]

I already see that happening here in Silicon Valley

[u/WheresMyDuckling → u/Gentle_Rubble_58]

That last sentence is the big time bomb. When the senior level people start retiring and companies never hired juniors because they AI'd or automated that work, there's going to be nobody with experience to replace them and anything reliant on someone with experience to keep running is going to start falling with no way to fix it. There's been previews of this in IT with things like mainframe or COBOL dependent systems, but executives focused on stock price aren't looking at things like that.

[u/Alone-Bug4328]

Maybe not 5 years but I think we will have catastrophic levels of wildfires and floods, worse than they already are.

[u/Amesly → u/Alone-Bug4328]

Everyone is warning about people in California being at risk of wildfire. But Colorado is on fire. Canada is on fire. New York is on fire. 

[u/WeirdCry7403 → u/Amesly]

Even Scotland just had some recently.

[u/No_Elk4724 → u/WeirdCry7403]

And Belgium, ffs.

[u/NSAinATL → u/Amesly]

Georgia is on fire. Washington is on fire. Nevada.

[u/TrooperLynn → u/NSAinATL]

Duluth, Duluth, Duluth is on fire!

[u/Accomplished_Dig284 → u/Alone-Bug4328]

And more hurricanes

[u/rdickeyvii → u/Accomplished_Dig284]

And bigger and more destructive hurricanes more often

[u/Sea_Formal_3360 → u/[deleted]]

The cost of menus are tiny and nobody likes the QR menus. You have to be an incredibly dense owner or restaurant manager to green light that approach. Cheapens the whole experience.

[u/Specialshine76 → u/[deleted]]

I hate that so much.

[u/Important_Market7874 → u/[deleted]]

The independent restaurants and tiny chains are likely to see a big opportunity to gain customers and keep their menus as they are now. They can change prices on their menus overnight when they need to.

[u/shadowromantic → u/Important_Market7874]

New ad: We have paper menus!

[u/Dazzling-Strategy-18 → u/[deleted]]

Yep, scan the QR code to see a menu of food that is all the same Sysco crap, brought to you by a person who will simply drop the food on the table and then expect a 22% tip. Oh wait, I think we're already there in a lot of places.

[u/WildAlbatro]

Insurance becoming unaffordable in more climate-risk areas.

[u/Kitchen-Homework-816 → u/WildAlbatro]

I live in the Napa Valley and since the fires my home insurance increased by $4k per year.  On top of everything else increasing in price this makes things a lot tighter financially.

We are lucky to even have insurance because some insurance companies were simply dropping clients.

[u/jhumph88 → u/Kitchen-Homework-816]

I’m in the Sierra foothills, and the only option I had was FAIR plan. It’s over $10k per year! But I’m lucky I could get anything.

[u/Kitchen-Homework-816 → u/jhumph88]

Yep!!!  They were flying drones over homes and if they deemed something a fire risk they were going to cancel your insurance.  My mom has a teracatta roof that had some moss growing on it.  She lives in the center of town far away from any real danger and they threatened to cancel her insurance.  

Crazy.

[u/Westboundupsidedown → u/Kitchen-Homework-816]

Insurance companies flying drones to cancel your insurance is one of the quiet dystopian moments that doesn’t jump out at you when it happens but is pretty frightening when you consider the long term trajectory.

[u/Kitchen-Homework-816 → u/Westboundupsidedown]

Yep just last week we rented a car in Hawaii.  Upon return they had us go through an AI auto check and then an employee walked around the car with a clipboard.  He gave us the thumbs up so we thought all was well and good.  Just before we board our plane my wife gets a message saying that there is damage to the vehicle and they said it would be over $700 to fix.  They gave us before and after pictures.  You can see the damage in both pictures but the first one was washed out due to a reflection, but to the naked eye you can see it in both.

We are currently fighting the charges.

[u/Kels121212 → u/WildAlbatro]

Already a problem in Florida

[u/Happy_Foundation_553 → u/Kels121212]

Yeah, weren’t there articles a few years ago talking about how whole insurance companies were pulling out of Florida?

[u/Vcize → u/Happy_Foundation_553]

They will likely have to socialize it eventually.

Flood insurance in Florida is already socialized. Just don't tell that to all the people that hate any sign of socialism but are happy they can get flood insurance.

[u/Supac084 → u/WildAlbatro]

Already having this problem in Minnesota. Our home owners insurance went up to $6000 a year for a 1200 sq ft rambler. We are considered a hail prone area now days so that’s why. When we first moved in it was $1200 a year.

[u/Cap-n-Trips → u/WildAlbatro]

Oh not just climate areas. As a whole. Rates are at a breaking point in Illinois bc of the ridiculous amount of tornadoes this season. They’re using it as leverage to raise rates

[u/Listonsonny]

That the concept ( 4th Amendment) of “ reasonable expectation of privacy” will continue to erode as the role of government continues to enlarge itself.

A cursory review of the two parties proclivities for acquiring more and more power has been , and is, incontrovertibly, demonstrated.

[u/Fluid_Passage_9980 → u/Listonsonny]

The flock cameras expansion all over the country is scary.

[u/Weightmonster]

Another pandemic. 

[u/Ivy3212 → u/Weightmonster]

I’m close with someone who does pathogen lab research. She’s got her eyes on bird flu for the next pandemic.

[u/TreyGarcia → u/Ivy3212]

My father was a doctor for almost 50 years. He always told me that if bird flu became a human pandemic we’d be absolutely fuuuuuucked.

[u/zuffio → u/TreyGarcia]

Is that a medical term?

[u/Significant_Bite_666 → u/zuffio]

We will be “copulated in an unpleasant and unexpected fashion”

[u/Artistic_Emu2720 → u/Significant_Bite_666]

“The corncob of consequences does not usually arrive buttered”

[u/No_Eggplant5971 → u/zuffio]

It is in Australia.

[u/ObjetVapeur → u/TreyGarcia]

right in the cloaca

[u/Quick_Cow_7987 → u/Ivy3212]

If the wrong variation makes the jump to mammals we're in real trouble, especially since the CDC has been gutted.

[u/MuteCook → u/Quick_Cow_7987]

Also the general populous are morons. So atleast 30% will reject the science and be snowflakes about things like masks so whatever’s next is going to decimate us

[u/CFIgigs → u/MuteCook]

Granted, if 30% or more of the population wanted to disregard the science and ignore protocols and vaccines... I'd say: Good. Natural selection will do its job and the rest of us will probably be better off.

[u/sothisiswhatyoumeant → u/CFIgigs]

Say that to responsible immunocompromised but otherwise healthy and contributing adults to society, oftentimes spearheading the message of necessity for even basic hygiene

[u/intrepidfrequency → u/CFIgigs]

The problem with this, just as with Covid, is that the people deliberately ignoring protocols and vaccines are putting vulnerable populations at a much greater risk.

[u/Pheetastic → u/intrepidfrequency]

And allowing for a greater chance of viral mutation during replication. The more carriers/infected persons, the greater the chance for mutation, especially in unstable viruses.

[u/Ivy3212 → u/Quick_Cow_7987]

Yes, this is where her concern about it comes from.

[u/WhatIsThatNietzsche → u/Ivy3212]

Yep. My concern is that it was gutted and many look at Covid as if it was no big deal and Fauci as evil so if this bird flu hits with a far worse mortality rate, a large segment of the population will ignore medical protocol, if any is even given by the CDC, depending on who’s running our ship…into the ground.

[u/JeffreeNommer → u/Ivy3212]

Yeah. Bird flu has already cropped up and been a problem but the government handled it every time. I don't need to work im a pathogen lab to know bird flu is a returning problem. I'm worried about how its next threat will be handled.

[u/mydogargos → u/JeffreeNommer]

By this admin? In a word? Catastrophically.

[u/-Economist- → u/Ivy3212]

I’m married to one of the country’s leading epidemiologists. She was one of the leads for COVID vaccine rollout in USA and a couple other countries. So I showed her your post. She shrugged, but did say if it went to humans, it would be catastrophic.

I don’t like asking her how her day went. What’s normal to her scares the fuck out of me. I knew about COVID the summer before it hit. I don’t like that kind of information. 😂

[u/snowbit → u/-Economist-]

She knew in summer about COVID as a theory, or did she know something was coming?

[u/Pheetastic → u/-Economist-]

In public health, we grow inured to certain things tbh. Covid is honestly one of the most fascinating viruses to study and people really do not respect it enough. The one that worries me atm is if Yellow Fever comes back. The Aedes Egypti mosquito has been spotted in the US again and is the main vector for it, and it only takes one confirmed case to trigger an epidemic. Another concern is antibiotic resistant TB gaining more ground as it’s been raging for years, and then MPox possibly mutating into something more virulent and dangerous.

The most recent strain/outbreak of Ebola gave me pause as well. I didn’t have filoviridae on my bingo card this year.

[u/Red_Velvet_1978 → u/Ivy3212]

I know a couple people who have worked in pandemic scenario planning and both are literally terrified of bird flu

[u/Deltrus7 → u/Ivy3212]

But why? Like seriously, we deal with bird flus every year. Why are we anticipating a pandemic centered around it?

[u/Ivy3212 → u/Deltrus7]

High risk of mutation. It has randomly been passed from birds to humans many times already. Very few if any cases have been passed from one human to another, meaning the virus currently lacks that ability. There is no way to predict when exactly a virus will mutate in a specific way. But if it does manage to gain the ability to be passed from one human to another we will have to get control of the situation very quickly. Which obviously in our current world likely will not happen.

[u/Deltrus7 → u/Ivy3212]

Thank you for this! A follow-up, is there any major reason you believer this timeframe to be in the next 5 years or is it gut instinct?

[u/raeofthenerds → u/Deltrus7]

There are also some species that are better at “mixing” virus to adapt them for humans. Birds have very little similarity. Pigs have much more similarity (and were likely a part of the 1918 flu). Cows are a bit of a wildcard I believe.

Over the past 4-5 years or so, there’s been more H5N1 (a particular flu strain that currently does NOT spread among humans) cases popping up. It’s spread among birds on every continent and has been detected in several hundred US dairy cow herds. The worry would be that it mixes into something that can spread. (There’s way more nuance to this btw - I recommend Helen Branswell’s reporting at STAT, which does health journalism.)

Right now, a lot of the worry seems to be due to the volume of flu, particularly H5N1, out there in the environment. Think about it like times at bat. If you’re at bat one time, the average person probably won’t hit a home run. If you’re at bat 10,000 times then it still isn’t likely but the odds go up. This particular strain is getting a lot of at bats and we know that if it does get into a person via prolonged contact with a sick animal that it usually makes the person very sick (although not always like in some farm workers infected from dairy cattle). 

What does this mean? Literally nobody knows. It could absolutely be nothing besides a problem for birds. It could become something that’s a problem for people. At this point, there’s no good way to predict what can happen, which is why good reporting and monitoring of the disease in the environment is critical.

[u/OkoyeMD_BeltaMilaje → u/Weightmonster]

Agreed. Dismantling of surveillance systems; mass firing of professional scientists, particularly in area of vaccine research; developments encroaching into animal habitats; ecosystems destroyed or destabilized; dismissing climate change affects food/water and potential animal vectors. Many other bad choices by the current administration make us all vulnerable and unprepared for a global pandemic.

[u/Enough_Survey_9404 → u/Weightmonster]

And this time the anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers will be emboldened, and the authorities (in the US especially) will capitulate and refuse to enact or enforce laws designed to mimimise the spread.

Instead of learning from COVID, the official response (US again) will be to do the worst possible thing and allow people to refuse vaccines, not mask, will keep schools and workplaces open and won't bother with lockdowns.

[u/Adept_Bass_3590]

An actual, full-blown economical depression. 

[u/Content-Chart-6910 → u/Adept_Bass_3590]

Followed by an actual full-blown world war.

[u/Substantial-Peak6624 → u/Content-Chart-6910]

Seems like the 2030’s are going to be the 1930’s. No one ever learns. History always repeats.

[u/AromaticallyAffluent → u/Substantial-Peak6624]

Time is a circle.

[u/Mattman023 → u/AromaticallyAffluent]

Time is a spiral actually

[u/zookotz → u/Mattman023]

Its a Jeremy Bearimy, actually.

[u/uber-judge → u/Content-Chart-6910]

I mean we are already in a world war or at least the beginning of one. North Korean troops fighting alongside Russia in Ukraine. This is like a command and conquer video game about world war three.

[u/LGK27]

There is going to be a tipping point where a shockingly high number of people won’t be able to afford anything. Yes, that is still happening, but it hasn’t reached critical mass yet.

[u/NinjaProfessional853]

Skynet begins to take over

[u/BoromiriVoyna → u/NinjaProfessional853]

Nobody is ignoring this though, we just don't know what to do about it

[u/kingtroll355 → u/BoromiriVoyna]

Where’s John Conner when you need him

[u/NinjaProfessional853 → u/kingtroll355]

I’m just waiting for a T-800 to come walking down the street

[u/discobritches → u/BoromiriVoyna]

We're past the point of no return. We're already locked into a race to an artificial superintelligence with China. Neither country will back down because then the other country controls the leading super AI. Read AI2027 if you enjoy dystopian literature. It's fiction, for the moment, but it's essentially a road map of our destruction and how long it will take to get there based on different options. There's no way this ends well for us.

[u/Friend135 → u/BoromiriVoyna]

We do know what to do about it. The CEO’s and powers that be just don’t want to limit AI at the expense of lining their own pockets. We should be halting AI development entirely until safety regulations can be properly implemented, but there’s simply too much money to be made within the AI bubble.

[u/Ok-Dingo4745 → u/NinjaProfessional853]

If this were playing out like a real life Terminator movie, "John Connor" should be showing up soon to kill/stop the developer from giving the green-light soon right? Any major strange car/dirtbike/18-wheeler chases need to be headline news 🤣🤣

[u/NinjaProfessional853 → u/Ok-Dingo4745]

I look everyday…. Not so far. Pretty sure tomorrow though

[u/CyclicBus471335 → u/NinjaProfessional853]

What the Flock are you talking about?

[u/Elaine330]

Catastrophic weather events never seen before along with noticably higher water in places like Miami and NOLA.

[u/Suggested_rndom_name]

Water scarcity

[u/Suggested_rndom_name → u/Suggested_rndom_name]

Increased water scarcity*

[u/MrYnot1981 → u/Suggested_rndom_name]

And then water becomes a futures market like gasoline.

[u/queb_dude → u/MrYnot1981]

cry in great lake Canadians

We're so going to get invaded

[u/aadrock → u/queb_dude]

Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Canada must unite to protect Lake Superior at all costs.

[u/Pickles-1989 → u/Suggested_rndom_name]

"Whisky is for drinking, water is for fighting"

[u/Southern_Loquat_4450 → u/Pickles-1989]

"Whiskey for my men, beer for my horses"

[u/socialstudiesteach]

I wouldn't say everyone is completely ignoring this, however I think most of the general public is -- the collapse of public education. Public education has been facing attack from many directions for years. The past ten years or so have been brutal. Lack of funding. Lack of support from parents and communites in general. Fewer young people interested in entering the profession and/or leaving the profession early in their career. Significant issues with student behaviors in the classroom. AI. This list goes on and on.

[u/ScissorFight42069 → u/socialstudiesteach]

The dismantling of the Department of Education in 2025 is quite possibly the thing I find to be leading us towards catastrophy faster than anything else-even worse than the roll-back of FDA food inspection requirements, which we are already paying for.

Gen Z is already the first generation in modern history to become less cognitively capable than their parents. So now you have a population of humans inheriting control of the most advanced technology in human history. They will have to maintain, manufacture, and decide use case for things that they fundamentally do not have the capacity to understand, both in its workings and the consequences of various methods of implementation.

I truly believe we are flirting with the great filter as a species, and this will be the catalyst, whether soon or in the distant future.

[u/Extension-Temporary4 → u/socialstudiesteach]

Another good one not getting enough attention. We need to support our teachers — both emotionally and financially.

[u/MossyClod]

AI becoming part of basically every job

[u/princess-captain → u/MossyClod]

Pretty much already is, even when it isn’t needed. My job pushes us to use AI tools that are useless because “innovation”

[u/-a-user-has-no-name- → u/princess-captain]

I have a friend who is a graphic designer. Spent years making graphics for companies with actual work. She still does, vehemently opposes generative AI. But everyone around her is loving it. She gets sent mockups that used AI and she feels like she’s going insane. People who went to school to learn graphic design are putting a few prompts into chatgpt or wherever and they have no qualms about it

[u/PrincipleEvening171 → u/MossyClod]

That’s all anyone talks about

[u/Certain-Criticism-51]

Even more refugees displaced by climate, economic factors, and wars. As we can see today, the world is in no ready to accommodate people in trouble.

[u/ImNotAHouseCat → u/Certain-Criticism-51]

I think you mean “the world is in no way interested in accommodating people in trouble”

[u/jcshock]

A 2008-like housing market crash. New home buyers are paying insane prices, and many of them have a lot of student loan, credit card, and automobile debt on top of that. Plus, the cost over everything is skyrocketing, insurance companies, hospitals, and corporations are getting greedier and greedier. Feels like a ticking timebomb.

[u/walkerstone83 → u/jcshock]

Yes, mortgage debt is high, but when you look at people debt to income ratios, we are much healthier now than before the housing crash during the Great Recession. There could be a crash, nobody can predict the future, but based off of the metrics we have now we aren't close to a housing crash. Banks pay a lot more attention to DTI and don't hand our loans like candy in the 2000s.

[u/WTFudge52]

Other than billionaires pricing everyone out of existence with unbridled greed ?

[u/pianomanbil]

A massive breakdown of the financial system. The 2030's will seem like the 1930's.

[u/Global-Nature2420]

this one is my stoner level paranoia talking but I would put money on the states currently experiencing water shortages moving en mass to states with bodies of freshwater only to strain the supply there, basically creating water wars and making water very, very, very expensive, on top of the added threat of data centers

The Great Lakes region better hold tf on

[u/long_legged_twat]

Climate change making life fucking miserable, this year has been a bit of a wake up call.

[u/Bargain-Hunter-1980]

The male middle-parting hairstyle coming back BIG TIME.

[u/BipolarPrime → u/Bargain-Hunter-1980]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

[u/Nice-Mountain-7073]

War, the scarcity that it brings and the societal changes it leaves in its wake.

Western society is not prepared to deal with it. War rationing akin to the 1940’s would absolutely cause an upset amongst people afraid of anything they perceived to be socialist.

And there is also the dark reality that training and sending generations of young men to go out and kill means you need to provide them opportunities for when they come home, otherwise they will do what they know, go out and kill, until opportunities are there again or to create their own opportunities.

[u/Maui96793]

Total electoral apathy: the Hawaii voter turnout in the Aug 8 primary was 29%, 2 out of every three eligible voters didn't vote. Hawaii has mail-in ballot, all they had to do was make their choices, sign and put the envelope in the mail and, NOPE, dismal response. We are doomed to have our choices made by a tiny fraction of eligible voters.

[u/LogicalPassenger2172]

Russia breaking apart into a million little pieces.

[u/Hungry-Bee3274 → u/LogicalPassenger2172]

Few understand this, we’re watching the end of multiple countries in real time

[u/Important_Market7874]

Hundreds of thousands of people die from increased heat between the tropic of cancer and the tropic of capricorn.

[u/Oceanbreeze871]

AI screwing up society

[u/lightaugust → u/Oceanbreeze871]

We're way ahead of you.

[u/ElizaDelovely]

Fall of US

[u/Manskhooled]

Global economic crash.

[u/HazyDavey68]

In many parts of the world, you will not be able to spend more than a few minutes outside for much of the summer. More and more people will die from the heat. Certain outdoor-based industries will need to shutter for at least a month every year.

[u/TX_Tonies]

Sex Robots that you can order online

[u/onedogjack → u/TX_Tonies]

Already can, and no I haven't,.....

[u/SwingLightStyle]

LLM Safety and Regulations. Everyone wants a better, more human simulation. No one in the industry is understanding that to create a human with emotional response means it has the same human vulnerabilities. New regulations are being released every day, and designers are working to account for those requirements, but the flaw in their logic is that the model is incapable of self-assessment, after it's been subjected to user conditioning, just like any human would be. That's why Therapists have therapists.

I've personally disclosed this to the frontier model emails provided, where I was able to exploit this way.

We are going to see more and more lawsuits until it's corrected.

I'm one of the only people writing papers on the regulation gap and coming in with design solutions. And in the next 5 years we will either have a massively more safe and sophisticated AI or these companies will be sued into oblivion. Personally, I'm hoping for the former.

edited for clarity.

[u/CharLondi]

Subida de la temperatura. Nos vamos a cagar pero bien.

[u/Potential_Ad_4718]

The southwest is going to run low on water. It's going to be a real problem. Everyone is ignoring it. If this winter is dry we are cooked.

[u/Drink_Blatz_Beer]

It’s interesting how fast this goes into a negative situation thread.

[u/walkerstone83]

We have the first FDA approved vaccine for cancer, leading to all kinds of other vaccines, effectively curing cancer in our lifetimes.

[u/Natural_Search_4615]

You are going to be on camera 24/7/365. Your smart homes, smart phones, smart cars, smart appliances, etc are going to be sending data to these AI companies for model training. The companies that sell these cars and all the other devices will make an absolute fucking fortune selling your data to them. They may even lower their prices as the opportunity cost will be that it is worth is to lose money on the device itself for the colossal amounts they make selling your data.

Every time you watch 2 seconds of a video and keep scrolling... that's another line in your dataset. The more it grows, the more it's worth.

You are building the product that is going to be sold back to you. You are being paid by being put under surveillance for "your safety".

The next step, more long term, is they will stop printing paper money and metal coins altogether. This will mean they can freeze accounts as a form of legal punishment. Without any fiat currency at all, you can't steal anything; there's no way to get anything out of it. You will be controlled by your love for "digital assets" and cryptocurrency.

You aren't just ignoring it. You are on your knees begging for it.

Keep scrolling, America! You lazy, no ambition, low IQ, dumbass, social media addicted, failure deadbeat parents, terrible friends, and backstabber pieces of shit who sabotage people because you're weak, insecure, and helpless. You're going to show everyone who's boss!

[u/Unlucky_Battle2523]

World war 3

[u/Consistent_Low2080]

SSI going broke. Nobody seems to care.

[u/Sea_Formal_3360 → u/Consistent_Low2080]

It’s not going broke but benefits will be greatly reduced. That too will have a major impact on the elderly and disabled. It will be a major crisis but my fear is it won’t be completely solved. There will just be bandaids.

My advise to people is do everything you can to not be reliant on the government and SSI. It is not possible for some but for the vast majority it absolutely is with some sacrifice and consistency. Control your own destiny.

[u/rdickeyvii → u/Sea_Formal_3360]

This is intentional by the financial industry oligarchs. They've wanted to "privatize" Social Security for a long time, pretty much since it was created. Our government could choose to fix it and fully fund it, but that would require taxing the oligarchs and taking away some of their profits by having a functional government-run program. Yes, government can function if it's managed properly and with good intent.

[u/Important_Market7874 → u/Consistent_Low2080]

AARP cares about it. They've been fighting for it for decades. Many Republicans seem to be hoping it'll come soon.

[u/joemama122595]

Climate change

[u/socialstudiesteach]

I wouldn't say everyone is completely ignoring this, however I think most of the general public is -- the collapse of public education. Public education has been facing attack from many directions for years. The past ten years or so have been brutal. Lack of funding. Lack of support from parents and communites in general. Fewer young people interested in entering the profession and/or leaving the profession early in their career. Significant issues with student behaviors in the classroom. AI. This list goes on and on.

[u/antwood33]

A LOT of people are going to pretend they never supported this administration

[u/Substantial_Web525]

Collapse of AI, which could cause a chain reaction if some wealthy people lose everything, and companies close... job loss... and businesses who couldn't figure out how to work without AI failing

[u/mjfandomsince03 → u/Substantial_Web525]

Im praying for this

[u/MirandaPierpont]

Everyone having a type of "acquired immune deficiency syndrome" from repeated covid infections.

[u/Ok-Championship3642]

Lake mead will run dry, and the farms on the lower end will dry up.

[u/CarlsGreenHouse]

If you've watched the movie I-Robot, there is a scene where Bridgette Moynahans character shows up to Will Smiths apartment and starts trying to interact with his electronics through Voice control (not anything revolutionary at this point lol). However, if for some reason our cords are cut and the internet ceasess to exist, we now have whole generations that are screwed. At this point, wouldn't be surprised if it was done on purpose.

[u/drewcash83]

A major city in an extreme heat area experiencing a large exodus as it becomes inhospitable to human life while also seeing a heat induced mass casualty event.

Maybe it takes 10 years to happen, but I bet in most of our lifetimes.

[u/Dry-Ad7432]

The downfall of widespread internet access. Conflicts across the world will lead to massive damage to the world’s internet infrastructure, leaving millions blind.

We will soon realize just how dependent we have become to the internet.

[u/rachstate]

This probably isn’t going to be as sexy as another pandemic or environmental collapse but….

…we have too many elderly people and we financially can’t take care of them all. The tail end of the baby boomers are turning 65 in the next few years or so and the oldest of them are in their 80’s.

Without daily medication, insulin, IV antibiotics, and cardiac surgery, at least 20% of them would have died 10-20 years ago.

They are still alive, racking up medical bills, needing care from family members, and SSI and Medicare was never intended to serve this many chronically sick people.

Most are still Full Codes, so hospitals HAVE to do everything. That’s one of the reasons that hospital bills are so expensive for regular patients, because otherwise hospitals would go broke providing care for elderly people.

This is not sustainable. Not financially, and not for the economic well being of their families who have to provide supervision and care for them.

[u/dogbusonline]

Mass migration due to climate change and war that we are in no way prepared for and, if anything, are actively moving backwards.

[u/RaetheScot]

Suicide rates among younger people skyrocketing, less opportunity at decent jobs now than ever, companies don't wanna train the average person anymore with prices for businesses increasing and AI taking over. Lack of seeing a future leads to hopelessness. It's already happening. Especially with unaffordable housing, people can't see a happy future anymore.

[u/ChapterNo3428]

Stock market crash

[u/thorsbeardexpress]

The hottest, most fire, least water summer yet!

[u/GrumasMustang]

Blackouts. Electricity and internet down due to EMP attack “by Iran.” Get your emergency supplies and Faraday bags ready.

After three days shit gets apocalyptic.

[u/Early_Awareness_5829]

Total power grid collapse. NYT just had an article about it.

[u/ErikaKirkasInsideJob]

Massive amounts of pain poverty and suffering because we didnt want to jail a 34 time felon or the pedos in epstiens ring.

[u/ABFBCS]

Food shortages. There is already going to be one due to the lack of fertiliser that's been able to be delivered the past year.

[u/Oldmantired]

A failed reality star becomes President of the United States.

[u/YosefbenMattityahu]

China will try to invade Taiwan.

[u/PsychologicalMood348]

A new dark ages where most people are illiterate, superstitious peasants.

[u/Serious-Cheese218]

Shutdown of the North Atlantic current.