Flipped Forecasts

Ok yes this is just dystopian fiction and not likely reality.

In the year 2030, Disney's influence expands beyond entertainment, infiltrating every aspect of daily life. With control over major media outlets, they shape narratives to align with their vision. Disney's ThoughtHub is introduced, a platform claiming to enhance creativity, but it subtly molds minds to conform to a sanitized worldview.

By 2035, Disney acquires works with neurotechnology companies, enabling them to influence and 'read' thoughts directly. A US wide project begins that automatically copyrights all thought that Disney reads as their own and citizens unknowingly consume tailored content that reinforces a curated reality.

In 2040, Disney's Thought Suppport Agency is established, employing advanced AI to identify thought value of humans. This allows them to sort away low value humans so as to not waste resources.

By 2045, Disney's Thought Monopoly Act criminalizes unauthorized creative expression. All artistic endeavors are channeled through Disney, stifling diversity of thought.

In 2050, the once vibrant tapestry of human expression is replaced by a homogenized cultural landscape. Disney's control over thoughts and creativity reaches its zenith, erasing the very essence of individuality and critical thinking.

The world is now a monochrome canvas painted with the singular brush of Disney's corporate ideology. The concept of rebellion becomes a distant memory as the world succumbs to a manufactured utopia, where every thought is a product of Disney's meticulous curation.

F.Y.I: This is a copy from another one of my posts.

Statement: Most Social Media platforms are funded through advertisements.

Flipped Statement: In ten years most social media platforms aren't funded through advertisements.

2024

• Economic pressures cause more social media companies to push for a greater return on investment which in turn causes them to push for more ads, higher premiums, and more actively blocking loopholes.

• The fediverse continues to grow in numbers and more organizations start using the platform as their main base of operations because it gives them more control over how they want to present themselves and a more fine-grained look into user data which they in turn use to optimize their content.

• The US presidential election causes a lot of turmoil on social media platforms as there becomes a more active effort to push people's opinions in one way or another causing some burnout and pushing people to either move to alternative platforms where there is less active interference or a general downturn in social media use in general.

2025-2026

• An increase in data breaches worldwide causes a renewed effort to make self-hosting data servers cheaper and more accessible for customers which leads to some development in personal hosting of data.

• Social media platforms that mainly run through creator-based content begin to start changing terms of service to extract more revenue from the creators, such as changes to how much of a cut the platform gets when a creator is being sponsored among other things. This leads to a backlash among creators who in response put in more effort to move into paid subscription services like Nebula.

• Some drama happens between For-profit companies joining the fediverse and some servers colluding with such companies which in turn causes some major user pushback and a shift in the user distribution among the servers. This also causes servers to more explicitly enshrine an attitude against for-profit companies in their code of ethics. Servers are still run on donations but donating is more encouraged than before.

2027-2028

• There is an ongoing resurgence of indie creators who start gaining traction and decide to start moving to alternative platforms such as Nebula to gain a more direct stream of revenue. This in turn draws some attention away from mainstream social media platforms. These alternative platforms also allow creators to start setting some of their videos to be free to watch so that the platform itself gets more traction and viewers.

• Software and hardware developers are creating better networking solutions so the burden of traffic becomes less of a problem over time allowing for hosting services to handle higher traffic more cheaply.

• Companies who are trying to streamline their business to gain more profits start trying to find where they can make budget cuts. After seeing smaller businesses succeed with more direct social media advertising and AI technology has advanced a bit decided to try and automate the promotion of products at the right time and right place using fake user accounts. As a consequence, they significantly reduce their spending on direct advertising on social media sites.

• After more election shenanigans happen but this time more supercharged than before there is a push for more walled-off communities where it is easier to have relations with users and identify bad actors. This second surge affects the admins of the fediverse, who after dealing with some interference before decide to take a more cautious approach in accepting new users and setting up ways of monitoring the effects of the choices they make (the admins' choices not users') PS: This is assuming US elections still take place at this time but even if it doesn't I believe these techniques might still become more common anyways.

2029-2030

• The user experience of the fediverse has improved a lot as there are more features for users, it is easier to moderate, and hosting servers are much cheaper. The fediverse would now be considered semi-mainstream.

• Due to shifts in marketing spending, mainstream social media companies decide to pivot their funding strategy and instead tap into their massive pre-existing databases, advanced algorithms, and knowledge of social phenomenons to produce more directly profitable products for other companies like creating their automated promotion bots, advising on distribution techniques based on detailed user data, etc.

• Some creator-driven platforms have started to implement a format where they make all of their videos free to watch and it is now a platform where you subscribe with how much you want to subscribe and the profit is distributed based on what the viewers watch.

Statement: Donald Trump isn't the President of the USA.

Flipped Statement: In the future, Donald Trump is the President of the USA.

F.Y.I: I don't want this to happen and it isn't a prediction of the future but this is my thought process on how Donald Trump could become president and I think it is good to understand how it might happen.

2024

Jan - March

It is the beginning of the year and Trump is beginning to face multiple legal challenges. They tackle both his eligibility to run for Republican primaries in a few states and his many accounts of criminal behavior.

Donald Trump and his team are pushing for delays and stop gaps wherever they can to stop any possible backlash.

The cases that question his eligibility to run for primaries are ruled out by the Supreme Court on the basis that states can't unilaterally decide whether Trump broke the 14th Amendment and it needs to be handled by Congress.

A few of his more serious cases are to be pushed back until after the election, but the Stormy Daniels case and others are still able to work through.

It doesn't make much of a difference amongst his base though as they see this as political persecution.

Hunter Biden also begins his legal struggle on Jan 11 and due to all the scrutiny that Trump has been having Republicans push through a negative ruling on his tax evasion case to bolster their rhetoric on Joe Biden being involved in shady things as well.

All of this is happening as a lot of internal and foreign actors begin building up their social media campaigns where they advocate for/against candidates and try to influence people to view the world as getting better or worse.

April - June

Things are still bad for the average consumer as food and housing prices are still high relative to wages causing people to be more dissatisfied than they have ever been before. Joe Biden's poll ratings are going down.

In response to this Joe Biden has been going on a spree of good deeds and encouraging news agencies to publish news stories about the things that he is doing. He is also doing more symbolic gestures as well like going to more strikes and advocating for companies to change.

Social media at this point is fraught with battles of outrage and people trying to influence other people.

It has been slowly intensifying over the past few months and news has essentially diluted the space with media pointing out that Trump is a fascist however most people have become normalized to this kind of rhetoric and consider it normal political jockeying.

China and Russia have been colluding and see this as probably their best chance of dethroning the USA from being the sole hegemon because they believe that if Trump loses this election there would be more safeguards put in place.

In response, they have decided to help stoke tensions worldwide to put more strain on the USA as the world's defender.

July - September

This is where social media campaigns have hit their peak and all platforms are rife with people advocating for/against Trump or Biden.

Most people have started to become burnt out on the constant arguing and have either taken active efforts to avoid any political information or lessened their social media usage.

In anticipation of another "election steal" many die-hard Trump fans create plans to set up encampments where they watch election booths to feel certain that there isn't any tampering going on.

This also is intended to frighten anyone who might've wanted to go vote in person that wasn't certain already.

By this point, a new war is being heavily covered by Western media which adds to a general sense of unease that tends to help people who present themselves as strongmen get into positions of power.

October - December

As election day approaches die-hard Trump fans enact their plans of setting up camp just outside of where they are legally allowed to be and call what they are doing a protest.

Most police don't engage with these people because of biased perspectives and justify their decision on the fact that what they are doing is technically legal.

Left-leaning protesters see this as unfair and decide to engage in a counter-protest. Things start getting heated between the two groups and now the police are starting to intervene to try and calm down the tensions.

All of this discourages wide swaths of the population from going to the polls in person and instead most decide to vote through the mail or just not vote at all.

All of this interference leads to Donald Trump being voted in as president.

Hey everyone. This is a community for forecasting how the future might differ from today.

The basic format is that you have to choose something true today and flip the statement so that it isn't true in the future.

Example:

Statement: Earth has more water than land.

Flipped Statement: In the future Earth doesn't have more water than land.

After you do that you have to create a plausible story of how the flipped statement becomes true in the future. The story can be in any format like a short story or timeline. It cannot just be a reason.

Other than that let your imaginations run wild and have fun.

P.S. Make sure to follow the rules in the sidebar.