Legalizing weed was supposed to create a bunch of new addicts and turn our towns into slums. Turned out just fine.
1. Obesity pandemic
Ever since Ozempic came on the market, it seems like we’re slowly getting a handle on it.
2. Overpopulation in Africa/Asia
Automation is causing them to stop having children as more jobs require higher education and there’s less jobs around altogether.
3. Poverty in Africa/Asia
Related to overpopulation. China has lifted itself up completely.
India is also doing better every year.
Famines in African nations have severely been reduced these days and all of them are now war related.TV was becoming too good, it was becoming impossible to keep up with all the great stuff coming out. Good thing we managed to avert that, now theres maybe 1 good season of tv every year.
Human cloning becoming common. That would be around the time Dolly the sheep died IIRC.
That was 1997
So about 15 years ago? Right?
It might be very country specific. But gambling houses.
They started to proliferate in my country around 10 years ago, and they said they were going to be the end of our youth. I, myself, went to a lot of actions to stop them.
We failed to stop them.
And 10 years after… Nothing happened. There are no mesurable increase in social problems due to the massive increase in gambling I was told it was going to happen. Also the houses themselves are always empty, people gamble mostly online anyway. But they put so much pressure on us to stop the opening of the physical buildings and cause rhe closure of the ones already opened.
I’m in principle against them still. Just because I don’t like people making money out of people addicted to gambling. But I’m also kind of mad that I spent to much time, effort, and even got sued for what we tried to do to stop them, just for them not really being as much as a threat as I was told they were. And my efforts would have been much better spent elsewhere.
At least I learned a very valuable lesson.
Is it possible you were successful?
What was the lesson?
None of the objectives were met.
We tried so hard and still were unable to stop any opening, cause any closure or push the legislative changes we wanted (limiting the amount of gambling houses that could be opened). They just opened as many houses as they liked.
My lesson was to not follow anything blindly even if it was said by people I respect. Always analyze by myself and be skeptical of everything.
Y2K
Oh shit, what year did you just say it was?
People really gloss over that there was a lot of work done to make sure y2k wouldn’t be a disaster. It wasn’t exactly a hoax, it was averted
My friend told me there was a shit ton of work done to find and fix every instance if the bug, and they managed to do it, which is why things kept going smoothly.
I’ve also heard that in some places virtually nothing was done and no problems occurred anyway.
There was a vast amount of work that went into mitigating it so thinking it was a whole noise about nothing is disingenuous.
That my job is too easy. I having too much time to play video games, reading, travelling, watching TV, dating.
That my job pays too good. I having so much money that I not knowing what to buy.
That AI is too well developed and be morally used that I having nothing to do. (Well it kind of is given how easily I could be unemployed)
Ebooks for the book industry
Discovery of the Higgs Bosen. People thought it would trigger the end of existence.
Nobody I’d trust to vote or drive a car believed that.
Maybe it did and that’s why we’re in hell
The ozone layer hole. Managed to barely dodge that one, just to have fossil fuels eat all the climate benefits that brought us.
The ozone layer hole.
Managed to barely dodge that one
This was a problem. We just acted to ban CFCs, which solved the problem. Now the ozone hole is recovering. I wouldn’t say it turned out not to be a problem though. The human race just had the brains and corporation to come together and deal with it.
The human race just had the brains and corporation to come together and deal with it.
Why does that sound like such an absurd and faraway fantasy nowadays
There are some that were fixed, but fixed with great effort. The hole in the ozone layer for example.
My final answer will be overpopulation. Personally though I think the population should be about 1 billion just so I don’t feel quite as much existential dread at my own insignificance.
fixed
The hole in the ozone layer for example.
