I figure it can’t hurt to put down a list of predictions just so I can see how wrong I actually was later! So here goes…
– Final USA death toll will be 500,000 from COVID-19. This is close to my original private back-of-the-envelope calculations from February 2020 before I downward estimated because I really hoped the death toll was going to be lower and Americans would change their behavior enough to reduce the R0. I think January and February will be dark months in the US.
– The vaccine rollout in the US will improve and we’ll get back on the originally projected schedule. The initial rollout of vaccines is demonstrating that incentives matter. When money and prestige were put behind vaccine development, the scientific community exceeded all expectations in terms of timeline. A similar dynamic will apply to vaccination velocity. Current projections will be pessimistic, but at some point, shame and embarrassment will motivate the bureaucracies to move much faster.
– 2021 will be a weak year for ancient DNA papers. I hope I’m wrong, but I am hearing that the world-wide shutdown in travel has had some issues on the science pipeline.
– But there will be an uptick in “historical” DNA. That is DNA from historical, not prehistoric eras. Think Roman era or thereabouts.
– Though the Biden-era American elite will be uncomfortable with the trajectory, the decoupling between China and the USA will continue. The dream of globalization as a flat world is over. Topography returns.
– Speaking of China, no one will do much about the Uighurs, though after the coronavirus fades I bet some attention will turn back to that issue. There will be more write-ups in The New York Times Magazine and The Atlantic.
– Hong Kong is over. It is now Chinese. The rest of the world is going to avert its eyes.
– Political polarization in America will worsen in 2021. The Obama era will seem like an era of “Good Feelings.”
– Digital media will continue to consolidate as more small players fold or are swallowed up.
– Some papers on ancient DNA and Britain will come out. I say this because that’s what I’ve heard from people. High confidence.
– BREXIT reality will be boring. So many exceptions and so much earlier adjustment mean that it’s really more a symbolic thing at this point.
– President Trump will not be a major political force by the end of 2021, but Donald Trump Jr. will be a party kingmaker, and perhaps even signal that he’ll run in 2024.
– Many Mendelian diseases (e.g., cystic fibrosis) will be successfully treated with CRISPR and other technologies such as stem cells.
– In 2021r the negative economic impact of having children miss much of 2020 schooling across the world will be discussed and measured/quantified extensively.
– USA will shut down TikTok and Zoom in 2021.
– Differences in short-term economic trajectory between regions and nations will be due straightforwardly to how quickly they can get their populations vaccinated.
– In Georgia’s split decision on the Senate races, Warnock will win and Ossoff will lose. 51 Republicans in the Senate.
– The crime increase in 2020 will be recognized to be due to de-policing, and 2021 will probably see no further increase in crime rates as the Democrats rediscover law & order.
– The Reich lab ancient Middle East paper will finally be published. Basal Eurasians will be identified more concretely (not as in a ‘pure’ individual, but better theoretical understanding of that stream).
– Conferences will be back by the second half of 2021. So I will go to ASHG 2021 in the flesh, and load up on genomics swag (again!).
– The “Great Awokening” will not break, and the Biden administration will operationalize “Critical Race Theory” (personnel is policy).
– Modi and Erdogan will deal with massive economic issues but retain popularity (or power) due to their cultural alignment with the mood of their nations.
– Outside of the US, the pivot away from Pax Americana will be palpable as America licks its wounds while the dragon coils around small nation after small nation.
– DNA will prove European descent from antiquity.
Note: My predictions for 2012. Quaint.
Can you clarify European descent from antiquity? Which historical figure in particular?
Also hope you are right regarding Georgia. I want Warnock to win and Ossoff to lose.
Why would you shut down ZOOM? It’s an American company with an American CEO. Is it because “they” can’t be trusted? What a joke.
What do you think happens to Taiwan?
“A similar dynamic will apply to vaccination velocity. Current projections will be pessimistic, but at some point, shame and embarrassment will motivate the bureaucracies to move much faster.”
Can’t beat France when it comes to bureaucratic good intentions gone stupid.
Shipment of the vaccines here are allocated by country on a strict population basis, as it was Europe as a whole who purchased the vaccines.
Four days after the vaccine arrived, Germany (population 88M) had vaccinated almost 131,000 people. France (population 67M) had vaccinated 332.
The reason is simple: to avoid anti-vax reactions “they’re going to force us to take the vaccine!”, it is required to provide informed consent to the vaccination. Initial target population is the 80+ elderly in nursing homes, most of which are no longer in a position to provide informed consent, thus you need to obtain written permission from the family.
Re vaccination and returning to normal, at the moment it looks like Iceland, Israel are the winners so far in covering the relatively small population segment that will cut out about 99% of mortality, and then 99.9% mortality. Which is what its really all about.
Elimination and “herd immunity” through vaccination, maybe, but getting excess mortality down to noise levels so economies can return to normal without these death tolls that create legitimacy crises, that’s kind of the key.
This should be proportionately much easier in younger countries, despite the challenges of lower economic capacity. If you’re Bangladesh, it seems like the right thing is, you get the Astra-Zeneca, vaccinate to cover your relatively small fraction of population over 65, which is only 5%, some other vulnerable younger citizens, and then you “Let ‘er rip” a bit more, rather than keep on with these very costly NPIs in place (which maybe never really made sense for poor, young countries in the first place).
(For a rank list of ease of vaccination see – https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.65UP.TO.ZS?most_recent_value_desc=true. UAE has 1% of population >65. This should be easy for them!)
Slight worry that the WHO and media (our pointy-haired epikakistocracy) will try to insist that poor, young countries get to herd immunity and virus elimination via vaccination before returning to normal. Given the Orwellian reversal of WHO messaging on herd immunity to suggest that it can only be achieved through vaccination, and how the WHO bounced poor countries into lockdown with some questionable, probably harmful effects to begin with…
Incidentally this is one of the things I wonder about with the PRC; they’ve kind of gone all in on how China is the only country that can “clear to zero” (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/china-tests-millions-of-people-after-covid-19-flareups-in-3-cities – “In the entire world, only China has the ability to get to zero. Other countries don’t have this ability,”… “‘Clearing to zero’ is actually the most economically effective way to do epidemic prevention. If you don’t do that, then this problem will get more troublesome,”). But since they have only 11% of the population and maybe a bit more to vaccinate with SinoVac (assuming the 90% efficacy) before they can get to what would be pretty low levels of deaths relative to an uncontained outbreak, will they hold on to “clearing to zero” and the measures required to do it, or will they give up on “clearing to zero” once the death rates are reduced by vaccination?
Ohio State beats Alabama. Dabo puts Ohio State Number 12 on his final poll ballot.
“The Reich lab ancient Middle East paper will finally be published”
Are you referring to the Dzudzuana pre-print from over two years ago? I hope part of the reason that paper’s taken so long is that they were able to get their hands on other ancient samples from the region and had to re-calibrate their original findings. It’s going to be super disappointing if the published paper just has a few new Admixture graphs not icluded in the pre-print or something.
Can these both be simultaneously true?
– The crime increase in 2020 will be recognized to be due to de-policing, and 2021 will probably see no further increase in crime rates as the Democrats rediscover law & order.
– The “Great Awokening” will not break, and the Biden administration will operationalize “Critical Race Theory” (personnel is policy).
Are you referring to the Dzudzuana pre-print from over two years ago? I hope part of the reason that paper’s taken so long is that they were able to get their hands on other ancient samples from the region and had to re-calibrate their original findings. It’s going to be super disappointing if the published paper just has a few new Admixture graphs not icluded in the pre-print or something.
big laz said they had lots of new samples a year ago. so i think that’s the issue
Bob: “Can these both be simultaneously true?”
Speaking as a Portuguese with a probably a very low understanding of the details of American politics, I imagine that “yes”; you could easily make a law-and-order policy with “woke”/CRT rhetoric (“We can’t abandon the afro-american neighborhoods”, “defund the police will harm mostly people of color, including many police officers themselves”)
Has anyone heard about that big Egypt paper coming out with samples with the OK, MK and NK? Apparently it will show single digits of SSA ancestry for Egyptians across all three time periods. This might end Afrocentrism forever.
Also will we ever get that paper supposedly proving lots of SSA ancestry in Ancient Egypt? I’ve been hearing about this paper from Afrocentrists for years. Will this be the year? Or do we need to wait 10 more years?
OK A-M13 L3f
Ok A-M13 L0a1
OK B-M150 L3d
OK E-M2 L3e5
OK E-M2 L2a1
OK E-M123 L5a1
OK E-M35 R0a
OK E-M41 L2a1
OK E-M41 L1b1a
OK E-M75 M1
OK E-M78 L4b
OK J-M267 L3i
OK R-M173 L2
OK T-M184 L0a
MK A-M13 L3x
MK E-M75 L2a1
MK E-M78 L3e5
MK E-M78 M1a
MK E-M96 L4a
MK E-V6 L3
MK B-M112 L0b
http://www.egyptsearch.com/forums/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=8;t=010195
@Bob
Wokeness will probably transform from actual policy (like police consent decrees and DoE guidance on disproportionate impact in school discipline under Obama) into just cosmetic trainings, de facto quotas in publicly visible political appointments (Kamala is already looking like a co-President), and its linguistic tics becoming the default mode of talking amongst Democrats; the party has long been a big tent party as opposed to the fairly lock-step alignment of military/Evangelicals/rich people/free marketeers/foreign policy hawks alignment of the GOP for the past 50 years.
If the Democrats are going to no longer be the oppositional, catch-all party of the non-privileged, as they have been since the 1930s, they need an ideological litmus test, and the ability to speak wokese and go to all the right trainings and classes will serve that purpose. There’s every sign that the party’s elite, its wealthiest donors, and the sub-age-45 college-educated women who have become the party’s activist base want the party to signal ideological wokeness on cultural stuff, and not accept non-woke views. But as far as actual impactful legislation and executive orders? They won’t go any further than Obama did, and will probably be less woke.
I want to know if we will see many reports of findings about human genetic variations that are actionable by individuals. Like what does my genetic profile tell me about toxins I can’t easily detoxify and what to avoid eating or being environmentally exposed to? Or which drugs to avoid or use?
When will genetic understanding become useful for embryo selection for intelligence, personality, athletic traits, and other things?
I’m kinda disappointed on how unactionable individual genetic profiles are so far…
Can you clarify European descent from antiquity? Which historical figure in particular?
no, i linked to it so i didn’t have to explain it.
i linked to it so i didn’t have to explain it.
I was stumped by the link too. The general idea is to try proving that some lineage from after the early Dark Ages are male line descendants of someone famous or influential in the Roman times, but who are the specific dynasties and celebrities you have in mind? How much is known about the attribution of the Roman-age bones? The Wikipedia page concentrates on the hard-to-believe legends rather than on the specific ancient remains…
To be clear I think Razib will turn out to be correct on the Woke Biden Admin, and wrong on the Crime.
Very much disagree with Trump Jr. being relevant within the republican party, and I find it unlikely that “The crime increase in 2020 will be recognized to be due to de-policing”. Also very much disagree that zoom will be shut down. Nothing else stands out to me as being a particularly bad prediction though.