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> Prison abolition movement will become stronger.

I really want this to happen. In the past decade, we saw the first mass pardons of people in the U.S. imprisoned for drug charges. This would have been unimaginable during the height of the "War on Drugs." This gives me hope that the imprisonment rate will continue to decline.

Unless crimes are actually going down I don't see how lower imprisonment rate is good. Just sounds like criminals getting away with it to me.

So basically: imprison more people -> cost goes up -> crime does not go down -> imprison more people -> cost goes up -> crime does not go down -> imprison more people ->....

Does not sound too clever in my book.

Maybe time to try something else?

What are the alternatives? For me, punishing criminals is more important than rehabilitating them.

I think the goal should be to prevent crime.

There are lots of alternatives. Prison was not that common until recently.

Why is punishing people more important than preventing recidivism?

I want criminals to be punished for their crimes. That's justice for me. Can't explain why I feel that way but I do.

I (and I suspect victims of crime) sympathise with this POV. However, I'd encourage you to also think about it from a larger perspective, like a government: what would be the most advantageous path for a society to take in dealing with crime? If you take such a larger perspective you'll see that individual justice is only one of several important factors. I don't have time to explain further. But one analogy could that nobody likes to pay taxes themselves, but many accept that taxes in general (if well-spent) can be a net positive for a society/country.

Exactly. It’s hard to feel emotionally that prison abolition is right in the face of an individual case. You want justice! But if you look at the system as a whole you have to conclude that, on average, justice isn’t really being served. The tax burden is unjust to the tax payer. Poor conditions and long sentences are unjust to incarcerated people. Strange sentencing rules and prosecutory practices (people can get more time for petty theft than rape) are unjust to people who want justice.

Google “US prison conditions” and you will see article after article about violence, sexual abuse, and forced labour for private companies. Criminals getting away with it is better than people being kept in inhumane conditions, especially when, between non-violent offenders and pretrial detainees, most have not been convicted of a violent crime.

I agree with you regarding non-violent crimes but for violence crimes I think punishment and justice trump humane conditions.

So if someone commits a violent crime, they lose their right to humane conditions? This isn’t an abstract question. Incarcerated people in America are actually forced to work for no pay. They are right now held in solitary confinement. They are every day subjected to beatings and rape from guards.

I have no pity for people committing violent crimes, sorry.

I think you should give the podcast "Ear Hustle" a listen. It's produced from inside San Quentin prison. I think once you hear these people, you'll see that it's a really nuanced issue. And, even if it doesn't change your opinion, it's full of fascinating stories. https://www.earhustlesq.com/

You know, it was only two years ago when I first sat down to have a conversation with a formerly incarcerated person. This was a guy who been imprisoned for over fifty years for triple murder, two of which were in self defense and one of which he didn't commit. He was only released because it came to light that the judge who ran his trial didn't inform the jury of the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard of evidence. In fact, the judge did this whenever a Black defendant was being tried, which lead to dozens of Black people being wrongly convicted. When I heard first hand what he had been subjected to while in prison, I realized just how unfair this system is. After fifty years of torture for a crime he should never have been convicted of, he was thrown out on the street with neither an apology nor any resources. No system is infallible enough to judge who has committed a crime when the consequences for making a mistake are so severe.

> • China will successfully assert itself in East Asia, OR force Japan, Taiwan, Phillipines, Vietnam, etc into a strong anti-China alliance.

Honestly, I'd probably guess the second one. China is already distrusted by a lot of countries/governments in the region.

> Retail shopping almost dies out

I don't see this happening to be honest. Online purchases will definitely increase for the foreseeable future, but there are always going to be a decent amount of offline shops and restaurants too, simply because not everyone wants to wait for products, not everyone wants to socialise online and some kinds of products are simply easier/better bought there.

It will be interesting to see which types of shops die out though. I doubt supermarkets are going anywhere, but media/entertainment shops like Gamestop/GAME/HMV might as well as start preparing for their inevitable bankruptcy.

> Entertainment is mostly online

Also question this, though it depends what you mean by online here. Buying a game/movie/TV show/music album/book online and having it delivered then enjoyed offline? Or just digital downloads?

> • America will still be a strong player, but not completely dominant anymore.

I suspect we'll still be the only dominant global power in 2040.

> • China will successfully assert itself in East Asia, OR force Japan, Taiwan, Phillipines, Vietnam, etc into a strong anti-China alliance.

The largest trading partner of every nation you listed is China. The idea of an Japan, Tawian, Philippines, Vietnam, etc forming an anti-China alliance is as absurd as mexico and canada forming an anti-US alliance. It makes no economic, political or historical sense. But anything can happen. It's more likely they'll form an anti-US alliance considering Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, Vietnam, etc was invaded by the US at one point or another. But the likelihood of that is 0.

> • India and Europe will act more and more independently of the US.

India has always acted independently of the US. They were one of the major non-aligned nations during the cold war.

> • Turkey will seek to assert itself in former Ottoman territories, possibly leading to a period of peace in the Middle East if successful.

What? You think Turkey will be able to push out the US/EU/Russia/etc from the middle east? Even if the US/EU/Russia/etc left, you think Turkey will be able to challenge Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc for dominance in the middle east?

I couldn't disagree with you more on the geopolitics. As for your technology predictions, I unfortunately disagree with you on everything. We'll have self-driving cars, there will be groudbreaking developments in computer hardware technology ( quantum computers, VR, GPU, memory, etc ) and real meat consumption will rise as more of the underdeveloped nations get wealthy enough to afford real meat.

I have no issues with the rest of your predictions as they seem more likely than your previous predictions.

I don't know why you've been downvoted. The US still commands a healthy lead, and there is a lot of political will to extricate China from our supply chain. The US isn't the only country that wants to do this.

I suspect that China lags in military and economic development, that Covid-19 is an inflection point in their growth, and that they will have too many domestic issues to solve before reasserting themselves on the world's stage. Meanwhile the US is going to steal "One Belt One Road" and do it ourselves.

I wonder why everyone predicts the world is going to be so radically different in just 20 years? What will drive that, and why hasn't it happened in the last 20 years? Politically, economically, socially, things change very slowly. The status quo is one of the most powerful forces in the world, and it will continue to stay powerful. My prediction for 2040: The world will be pretty close to what it is in 2020, which is also pretty close to what it was in 2000. Really the only major difference between my life now and my life in 2000 is that there are mobile phones all over the place, and people are glued to them.

> America will still be a strong player, but not completely dominant anymore.

What is the objective evaluation criteria for this prediction? I think this is true today.