Issue 17 - 2024 Predictions 🔮

Welcome to issue seventeen of the Eco Punks Gazette, our predictions issue. Who would have predicted that we’d be where we are today?

The paradox is that we embrace the methodology of improvisation, while also touting ourselves as futurists. While we believe this radically increases our accuracy and entertainment value, it also means we generally avoid predictions. Yet as a genre, it is a fun one to play with, hence why it tends to trend around the holidays.

A big shout out to Eco Punk Dr. Sherida Ryan, our resident guru on trust, who was successful in helping to recruit a new punk. Welcome Molly!

And a second shout out goes to another one of our Eco Punk Bubbies, Ann Pohl, who also helped recruit a new punk. Welcome Tom!

More info on how to help us grow and how you can earn a shout out can be found at the end of this email. If you’re new to the Eco Punks, welcome! We’re here to serve and stimulate you, so please let us know if there are subjects or topics that you would like us to cover. We can always be reached by replying to this email or contacting us via email, [email protected] or [email protected].

Upcoming Events

Tues Jan 2th at 11am EST - 2024 Predictions Salon

Let’s start the new year by looking ahead to what we expect to be the trends, key events, and opportunities that we should be keeping a close eye on. This Gazette issue is largely fodder for the salon, but we’ll definitely touch upon predictions not mentioned here, as well as potentially ignore predictions mentioned here.

Tues Jan 9th at 2pm EST - Advocacy in the age of AI

If you’re not already participating in these salons, email [email protected] to get the details and join in.

Ageism and Misperceptions

Right before the holiday break we convened our growing council of elders to further explore and unpack the scourge of ageism and surrounding misperceptions of ageing. As noted in our last issue we’ll be spending time in 2024 exploring this topic, and the larger ecosystem of ideas and knowledge emerging as a result of shifting demographics.

Some 2024 Predictions

The following predictions are not meant to be exhaustive, but rather offer some conversation starters and provocation for you, your family, colleagues, and strangers you meet at some NYE’s party while sporting your sexy N95 mask.

While Jesse deserves most of the blame for these poor choices, the Eco Punks in our Signal group also participated in helping to craft this list:

1. ✊🏼 AI Inclusivity and Philosophy: Who gets a seat at the table? Where is the table? There is no table?! Philosophers, Eco Punks, and many more include themselves in the ongoing debate surrounding the role of AI in our society.

2. 🦹‍♀️💰💻 Widespread cybercrime: Both Murley and Sumit offered this prediction which is the closest we have to a sure thing.

3. 🗽🤖 AI Elections and Synthetic Media: This will be the year of AI elections, some even say it will be the last where humans are in charge? Nonsense, but who are we to predict? Here’s a quick list of elections coming up:

• Taiwan’s presidential election on 13 January

• Indonesia’s elections on 14 February 

• India’s general election sometime between April and May

• Mexico’s election on 2 June

• The EU’s parliamentary elections on 6-9 June

• USA’s presidential elections on 5 November

• And South African and UK elections with dates still tbc.

4. ‍‍🐱‍👤🤳 Fascism vs Antifa: Expect both to be features of the coming year. Can we articulate an alternative to effective accelerationism?

5. ⚖🎙 Court of law vs court of public opinion: The former POTUS and aspiring fascist Trump will spend the first part of the year attempting to subvert the rule of law by rallying the court of public opinion. His success or failure will shape the future of the US legal and political system.

6. 📱🧠 TikTok and narrative control: The Chinese owned social media juggernaut is effectively preventing Western nations and media from controlling public narratives with Israel’s war on Gaza being one of many examples.

7. 🎶📉 Music Industry in Crisis: Not a new story per se, but TikTok is helping to change the narrative around the music industry, in particular exposing decades of corruption and sex abuse stories.

8. 📰📷 Threads and ActivityPub: Meta’s alternative to X/Twitter is going to continue to gain momentum in 2024, especially as it uses open source technology to connect to other platforms like Mastodon and Bluesky.

9. 🔥 Unprecedented Heat: Another easy prediction. It’s gonna be hot.

10. ♻ The word ecosystem is everywhere: Now that you know it, you’ve been primed, you will see and hear this word in all sorts of unexpected places.

11. 👨‍👩‍👦‍👦 The word community is overused and abused: Eco Punk Chris Irwin points out that the word will be a legitimate response to the fatigues of globalization, however it will also be used disingenuously, even maliciously, as a means of creating false empowerment and false inclusivity. Also see glocalization.

12. 🧪🔬 Unprecedented scientific breakthrough: Eco Punk Greg Majster a/k/a Stro1 predicts we’re gonna see something seismic discovered in 2024. Not literally, but you know, earth moving.

13. 💩 Ongoing enshittification leads to a revolution: Eco Punk Vass Bednar argues that the phenomenon popularized by Cory Doctorow will lead to massive social change and interesting new public policy.

Do you have a prediction you’d like to share? Join our salon!

Checking Past Predictions

A couple of years ago while doing work for a modestly dysfunctional ad agency, we were asked to come up with predictions that the firm could use to promote their forward thinking. While they announced these predictions, they never actually published them, not because of the content, just because they never got around to it.

As an exercise in accountability let’s look at how accurate they were. Each prediction will be followed by an emoji grade and/or comment.

1. Niches become the norm and only grand events and powerful myths will transcend insular social circles. 💯

2. The user will become the protagonist through their interactive personalization and narrative customization journeys. 👎🏼👎🏼 not even close

3. Digital identity systems will amplify culture wars as our conception of identity becomes more fluid for some and more rigid for others. 👍🏼 abstract but accurate

4. Attention will increase in value while methods to obtain it decrease in effectiveness. ✔

5. Loyalty marketing will bring big brands and substance to cryptocurrency and web3. 💩😂 what a joke

6. Inflation will hurt supply chains as people rush to buy before prices rise higher. 👍🏼

7. High-demand items on perpetual wait lists will cause a shift from instant gratification to expectation management, increasing brand communication with customers. 👍🏼

8. The semiconductor shortage will continue and fuel rapid acceleration of technological change due to massive investment in fabrication facilities. 👍🏼👎🏼 Yes and no. Investment yes, but years before pay off.

9. Electric vehicles will go mainstream but begin stressing rare earth supply chains. 👎🏼 Not even close to mainstream.

10. Super mobility apps will emerge making it easy for people to travel using the most sustainable transportation modes. 👎🏼😂 Also not even close.

11. Climate volatility will threaten ageing infrastructure and accelerate rapid innovation and human adaptation. 👍🏼👎🏼 Infrastructure yes, innovation no.

12. Global famine will focus attention on food security and emerging agricultural technologies. ✔

13. Telehealth combined with AI will shift from reactive to preventative medicine. 👎🏼

14. Led by the European Union, AI will face regulation, creating rules that protect users, and requirements to ensure fairness and accuracy. 👍🏼

15. Automated media like gpt-3, Dall-e and deep fakes will become indistinguishable and indispensable as distinctions between the physical and digital dissolve. 👍🏼

16. DAOs will offer new kinds of community and new important forms of network leadership. 👎🏼

17. Influencers will continue to gain power, reconfiguring the media landscape. 💯💩

18. TikTok will continue to rise in power, emphasizing the value of the interest graph over the social graph. 👍🏼📈

19. The metaverse will be led by audio: our ears tell us what our eyes see and more importantly where our imagination goes. 👎🏼

20. The insecurity of the Internet will get worse, the cybersecurity industry will need our help to sustain itself. 💯😂

Signal group for Eco Punks to share links, ideas, and get a friendly reminder about salons and events. If you’d like to join us on Signal, email [email protected]. If this is the first time you’ve heard of Signal, or if you’re not already using it, this video will bring you up to speed and explain why Signal is the choice for Eco Punks:

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