Our bipolar future

Looking for sunshine in the approaching stormy year

The optimist says to the pessimist:
What’s your problem?!? This is the best of all possible worlds!!!
The pessimist replies: I know……

After all my posts of disappointments, you may think that I am a bitter pessimist, but I can assure you that I am an incurable optimist. I live with a pessimist, who insists that she is a realist. I can’t argue with her. She can see my points, I can see hers, but that is not enough to change them. Attitudes lie somewhere between emotions and reason, reconciling and guiding our reactions.

Here we are, at the end of a year looking forward to another one.
Well, “looking forward to it” may be too optimistic to say. My cautious optimism is tempered by some serious trepidation. We are living in what the (fake) Chinese curse calls “interesting times”, blessed with promises and fraught with dangers.
It is in our nature to have stronger feelings about the unknowns of the future than the facts of the past, but I see our present as more important than any I can remember in my past.

I am a short-term pessimist and a long-term optimist. Our world will get much worse before it can get any better, but the promises of the future are truly wonderful.
One of the foundational concepts of the I Ching and Taoism is that decay leads to rebirth and renewal, and we should see all changes in this framework.
I expect a bad year ahead of us with the budding promise of a better future. And when I say bad, I mean really bad. We will see ruin, decay and hardship; economic and political collapses; but they will all come with the understanding that they are inevitable prerequisites of a better future.

The Unipolar world is coming to an end.
The hypocrisy of the “Rules based International order” is getting exposed.
The mistreatment of the ‘third world’ is coming to an end.
In the end, this will turn out to be a good thing, as the BRICS led multipolar new world order will unlock the economic potentials of the rest of the world.

The reserve currency status of the American dollar is coming to an end.
This will be a harsh awakening for the USA, and quite possibly affect even my life in Canada as well. It will be a major economic collapse.
In the end, this will turn out to be a good thing, as it will force the Americans to rediscover their constitutional roots and cleanses the country from the socialist, globalist woke rot that is responsible for its present state.

Canada may fall apart.
This may happen all on its own, but an American economic downturn would make it far more likely to happen. Alberta is itching to leave for some time and Saskatchewan has already declared to join them if they do. Once those two are gone, BC will have to either join them or go on its own. If Alberta, the milk-cow of redistribution is gone, Quebec will have no reason to stay. If Quebec is gone, the maritime provinces will be cut off with no options but to join together.
In the end, this will turn out to be a good thing, as it will liberate a lot of economic potential in each of the successor states.
(It may even compel me to move to Alberta, to be closer to the real hills😉)

The Western liberal social democracies are coming to an end.
Western democracies are all built on the promise of the free lunch. All of them are Ponzi schemes predicated on constant growth of new payers into the system; but as Margaret Thatcher pointed out:
“The problem with socialism is that sooner or later, you run out of other people’s money”
Most liberal democracies are nearing that point, and trying desperately to hang on to the idea without much success. Some will fail, some will backpedal, none will succeed to hang on for long without major adjustments to the attitudes of their electorates.
In the end, this will turn out to be a good thing, as it will force them all to live within their means.

The European Union will fall apart.
Today, half of the European Union countries could not meet the Maastricht treaty criteria to join the Union (<3% budget deficit % <60% debt to GDP ratio). The EU is dying by failing to meet its own criteria. Everything they do today is designed to keep up the illusion of the viability of their existence. It is a bureaucratic monstrosity of economy suffocating rules and regulation. Productivity growth is flatlining and the leading economies are deindustrializing. While the majority of the EU electorates are still supporting the EU’s promise, there is a growing conservative opposition to it. This opposition may break through in national politics in several countries in 2026.
In the end, this will turn out to be a good thing, as nation states will be far better equipped to adjust to their new demographic, economic and global realities than a heavy-handed central authority. (I linked several videos at the end to give you more detailed information)

The Ukraine war will end.
… most likely with an unconditional surrender.
… which will be a major embarrassment for the collective West.
Donald Trump will try to spin it as a victory for peace, he may even bully the world into giving him a Nobel prize for it, but nobody will be able to avoid the consequences.
Especially not the European and American tax-payers who will end up paying for it.
In the end, this will turn out to be a good thing. Peace is a good thing. A new global security arrangement is a good thing. Forcing political reform in Europe and the US is a good thing. Not pleasant, but good in the end.
Also, it most likely will be the event to trigger the collapse of the European Union. A real double whammy for the globalists.

All of the above can easily happen at least partially within the next year. I framed them all in the opti-pessimist dichotomy of short-term pains for long-term benefits.

There are, however, plenty of other, ongoing conflicts with less clear outcomes.

• The AI bubble will burst, or hopefully, sort itself out.
  The hype of AGI must die so that pragmatic AI, such as robotics, self-driving, medical diagnostics, scientific research can flourish. (I am hopeful)

• The threat of AI used to control, manipulate, censor, cheat and defraud us is tremendous. (I am seriously alarmed)

• Politics will get more conservative, but the left will not go down without a fight.
  (…still, I am cautiously optimistic)

• The culture war will heat up in most of the Western World and it will quite possibly get bloody. We can already see the rebirth of the ‘new’ “Irish Republican Movement Declaring a war on migrants and woke politics.
  (I am quite pessimistic and alarmed about that.)

• No real political change will happen in the next year, not even in the next five.
  Only total collapse or a revolution can make political change happen.

None of this sounds really optimistic. What gives me hope, is the tremendous range of possibilities given to us by science and technology. We are in the middle of a technological and scientific revolution; surpassing in scope and importance the industrial revolution. The possibilities are truly awesome.
The Chinese are building high speed trains with a speed no Western country can match. The Chinese are building the belt and road initiative (BRI); the Russians the Northern Sea Route (NSR), Egypt is creating a sea in the Sahara, New, upgraded canals are planned to replace both The Suez and the Panama canals, We are heading back to the Moon and eventually to Mars.
There is an energy and energy storage revolution going on. Intense battery chemistry research, various deep-well geothermal projects, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors; dozens of different wind energy projects; nuclear powered airplanes and submarines; various large desalination projects, and we could go on. Our problems are dwarfed by our possibilities. If we can only keep the politics out of them…

We have the ability, the knowledge, the potential. All we need to do is NOT to f*ck it up. Do you think it is possible?

As for our immediate future, there is only one constant for the coming year:

Donald Trump will remain predictably unpredictable.

Sorry, there is another one:

The average voter will be just as stupid next year as he was in the last one.

We do not need a curse. We are already living in interesting times!

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References

• Keeping Up with the US: Why Europe’s Productivity Is Falling Behind |

• Germany Is Breaking: €1 Trillion in Debt, NO Growth, and an Economic Collapse

• Why Italy Can’t Grow (The Curse of The Lira)

• 3000 Spanish Villages are uninhabited - I drove deep into “Empty Spain”

• The Euro Deception: France Built a Cage for Germany... and Got Locked In!