Rule No. 1’s New Year’s predictions

Well Ladies and Gents. It’s a new year. A time when people like to look to the future. A time when we seek out predictions — whether to quell our lizard-brain fear of the unknown or out of whatever urge for entertainment makes some people read Harlequin romance novels.

Of course, no self-respecting consultancy can let an opportunity to prognosticate (or end a sentence with a preposition) slip by. But the “Here are our predictions for the coming year” thing is so overdone. So trite. And so 2022. Not to mention that the predictions are always either vague, wrong, or just laughably stupid.

At Rule No. 1, we’ve tended to avoid the prediction game.

But the people have spoken. They want predictions. So, predictions you shall have. But we’re going to do it RN1 style. Instead of sharing with you our predictions for 2023, below are our predictions for 2022.

By our estimates, this approach will lower the error rate by at least 17%. And let’s be honest — at least amongst ourselves my friends. Pretty much nobody has fully adapted to 2020, let alone 2022. Do we really need more shit on our plates? Our approach at Rule No. 1 is so much more manageable. Heck, you might even enjoy it. I mean, it happened already — you don’t need to do anything about it.

So sit back, relax, grab a drink or a handful of sprouts and enjoy…

1. COVID will still be amongst us as an endemic virus. People will still get sick but fewer will die. That’s good. Mostly, people will go back to how they lived before — because apparently not even the pandemic of a century can get people to change. That’s not so good. On that note, some assholes will continue to politicize COVID and science more generally. That really sucks.
2. Climate change will still affect life and business — and the trends will continue to be concerning. Some people will rend their garments and wail that the sky is, like, literally falling. Others will call it a hoax. Most people will take some additional steps to reduce their impact on the environment; businesses will mostly move forward at exactly the pace that is required — by their investors and the law.
3. Society will continue to be riven by the politics of ego, greed, and record-breaking stupidity.
4. Blockchain and crypto will continue to plant the seeds of future disruption. And still, nobody will understand what the actual fuck a bitcoin is.
5. War will break out in Ukraine. It will be horrible. Sadly, the most innocent people will pay the price for the cruel ambitions of the most evil people. And everyone else will be shocked, shocked! at man’s inhumanity to man. Again. Plus ça change…
6. The future of work will continue to be a hot topic. Notably, everyone will pretend that the future of work is something that might happen in the future and not something that is already happening. Work from home, flexible work arrangements, and hybrid work will be spoken of with greater frequency. Businesses will make policy changes to accommodate the demands of workers and, well, reality; they’ll tout these as great benefits and claim the mantle of progress while remaining stuck in the same mindsets that have pervaded and defined big business since the dawn of the industrial era.
7. The major social-media platforms will experience some turbulence as their leaders and owners continue to pursue their aspirations of becoming the most hated people since forever.
8. The economy will go up or down. Or both.
9. Purpose will continue to be hotly debated and deeply misunderstood.
10. The Kardashians will still be a thing. Don’t ask me why. I just work here.

I hope you’ve come away with more confidence and clarity about what is going to happen last year.

And you know what? Since I’m feeling so generous, I’m going to throw a bone to those of you who still yearn to know what’s going to happen in the future.

But why predict just a year ahead? That’s hardly ambitious enough. So here are my predictions for 3023.

1. We will finally have our flying cars!
2. There will be other awesome new technology.
3. It will make our lives better. Also, it will also make our lives worse.
4. The moral arc of the universe will have bended more toward justice — but not enough.
5. People will be just as certain as they are today that their values are the right values — and that everyone who came before them was morally blinkered. They will be equally certain that their uniquely wonderful moral compass will — for the first in human history — not be called into question by future generations.
6. Tribal in-group vs. out-group hatred will continue to exist. Hopefully, we will have moved past today’s known hatreds: race, sex, religion, nationality, sexual preference, political beliefs, etc. But humans will remain remarkably resourceful and will invent new reasons to hate each other. I’m expecting animosity bordering on violence between the attached and unattached earlobe populations.
7. Still…nobody will know what the fuck bitcoin is.
8. Business will have moved on from the bizarre blip-in-time period of mass, soulless, corporatization. The debate about the role of business in society and whether purpose matters, will have been settled. The soulless will have lost. You can expect to see them take out their anger on the people whose earlobes are different from theirs.
9. People will be free of the odd pressure to write lists of 10.

Happy New Year everyone!