Scandinavia and the World
Scandinavia and the World

Comments #9867206:


2022 coming up 9 1, 10:50am

Not Serious Prediction:
Someone will point out that farts contain methane, and Shell Oil will begin a new porn industry as a result.

Serious Prediction:
We will get another variant of COVID that will spread even faster, but be slightly less deadly, than Omnicron. It will also evolve enough to where every vaccine will be ineffective. Nearly every human will get this variant, there will be no stopping it. However, it will become so omnipresent that it will be followed by another strain where it gets horizontal gene transfer from a more deadly virus. This next wave will cause a global drop of productivity and loss of life that will grind many third world nations to a halt, and slow many first world nations.

As workers continue to die, businesses will be strained beyond breakingpoint, we'll have mergers, buy outs, and going-out-of-businesses of some big names, especially ones notorious for not paying well, and we'll see some other names that we don't recognize take center field. This will result in one of the biggest changes in current markets: Amazon will start to show some serious chinks in its power. The first online worker-owned-general-purpose-co-op will come up (likely WinCo adding an online presence), and be a major contender against Amazon. As this business, being employee-owned, actually gets loyalty from its workers, unlike Amazon, it'll see a quick boost initially, then followed by users who prefer a very mild inconvenience in exchange for moral superiority. This will let them improve their service offerings, and begin to compete with Amazon on all levels. They will catch up with Amazon, and proceed to crush its marketshare. Similarly, every industry in the U.S. will see a surge in the return of Unions.
As corporate businesses start facing threats at every corner, business control over the U.S. will begin to waver. Extreme voting rights bills will pass. This will result in an economic revolution in the U.S. The U.S. will then (finally) join the other first world nations in measures such as universal health care, strong social safety nets, and might even become the first nation to institute a Universal Basic Income. This, in turn, will weaken business-strength-over-people further. These changes in the U.S. will drastically affect its external policies. A lot of the more oppressive military & economic actions will ease up, and the U.S. will begin to lure Russia, China, and the EU back to the discussion table. This will *terrify* Russia and China, because it will signal a return to U.S. leading economic policy. However, these policies will generally be positive from the perspective of the EU. Civil unrest in China and Russia will increase. China will respond by turning its attention to 'other-izing' the Muslims, and violence in the middle-east as China continues to expand its territory will increase. Rising escalations by China will raise concerns in Russia, EU, and US, and a new joint organization will be created in order to contain China's expansionist tendencies. This will culminate in the death of Dictator Winnie-the-Pooh, which will trigger a rush of influence-attempts between Russia, EU, and US as attempts to gain access to the country's resources shoot up. However, China will be in the midst of their own worker's revolution at this time (similar reasons of the US workers revolution that will happen earlier in the year). This will result in the French the influence war, as they are honestly the best country when it comes to social upheaval. At the end of the day, France will be standing as the world's penultimate super-power. Near the end of 2022, there will be talks about the U.S. and EU entering into some sort of alliance that will basically turn the EU/US into effectively one economic/social unit. Although neither side will admit this is what happened, and US and EU will remain distinctly named, you'll be seeing their names in conjunction much more frequently.

During this time, Britain will finally have exited the EU via Brexit. It will begin the process of re-entering the EU. However, it will be taking this opportunity away from the EU's rules to try and 're-ignite' the British Empire. However, the days of the empire are long past, and the mentality is archaic, and most of its targets would be better off focusing on EU/US relations. This will result in a small amount of sabre-rattling that results in Britain quietly backing down while its sphere of influence shrinks even further. Really, by the time we reach June, people will forget that Britain even exists, for the most part. Except, for, of course, to the British, who will continue to go on about how 'important' they are on BBC.

There will, however, be a big conflict that arises, and it will be very messy. While everybody VS China is escalating, one place will come into laser-sharp focus: Hong Kong

Due to China, France, Britain, and U.S. all being nuclear powers, this will not be a direct war, and it will never be a direct war. Direct war is off the table. However, the amount of sabre rattling will have the entire world on edge as Hong Kong becomes vitally symbolically important, and an establishing point of perceived world dominance. As such, this is where France will begin its rise to world's top super-power status. Expect impressive things from Hong Kong rebels trained by the French. This rebellion will spark the end of Dictator Winnie-the-pooh, and the People's Republic of China shift from communism to an *actual* republic. In fact, it will be the world's first direct democracy. This revolution will cause China's fall in 2023, and subsequent rise in 2025.

All this happening will cause the first collapse of a nation (without a a subsequent replacement) that happens purely as a result of climate change to go underneath everyone's radar. Heck, they won't even update the maps. They'll just say the region is "in turmoil" and leave it at that. It will be the first time since the Agricultural Revolution that humanity as a whole has lost territory. It will be merely a blip in international news.