Ask HN: Predictions for 2021?

In any case, I think that what the executives and CEO want will trump what the individual workers prefer.

I mean, it existed before, just not at this level. The difference is that it won't be weird or fringe. You're applying for a job, but you want to work from home? For the majority of places, that was a deal breaker before. Now it won't be.

This is older

NI is now effectively separated from the rest of the UK, so will rely on Ireland a lot more for trade. For sure there will be more cooperation between the two countries, but in the last survey only 20% of NI residents favoured a united Ireland. [0] I doubt Brexit has shifted that number too much. I'd more expect NI to become an independent country, but Scotland will be first.

In terms of Ireland I think this is good for them, as it'll give them more opportunity to be more independent. At least when I was there (nearly 10 years ago, in Dublin), it felt like 'the UK but slightly different', i.e. very different from the rest of Europe. Online retailers often didn't have an IE store, but most UK retailers would ship to IE for extra shipping.

Now it will probably be the other way, IE retailers will ship to NI for a little extra. The combined markets have a population of nearly 7m people, so it's bigger than a lot of European countries.

As OP says it might be painful to begin with (for NI and IE) as they adjust to the new position. Ireland drives on the same side of the road as the UK, and uses UK plugs, so cars and consumer goods will most likely become more expensive too.

[0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Northern...

If Northern Ireland is following the Republic of Ireland/EU commercial regulatory framework, and not the rest of the UK's as that quickly diverges, there will be a new pragmatic argument for Northern Ireland to leave the UK.

I'd give it at least 5 years, though.

In that scenario, the UK will have no influence in the EU and not a single person in the EU will think it's important to protect Britain's political interests.

The ever-expanding massive pile of debt robs the economy of dynamism, which prompts an economic heat death. That's what happened to Japan and it's exactly the reason US growth keeps trending ever downward and will continue to and why the Fed has been doing crazy shit and can't spur the expected inflation result. The US has begun to suffer a debt-based heat death economically, where the cost of debt and the (mis)allocation of capital to low-return (de facto junk) debt robs the economy of the capital required for investment to expand effectively. And the more debt piles up the worse the effect gets, until you get to a point where the bureaucrats in charge just start doing direct currency chop-downs (aka mauling the population's standard of living), which is the point Japan arrived at several years ago. You end up with tens of trillions of dollars tied up yielding zip, heat death. Covid accelerated the dire fiscal situation for the US by nearly a decade, which is about to hand China the keys to taking superpower charge of half of the planet (if you're in Asia, you're particularly about to be screwed, as the US is going to be increasingly forced to stand-down there; before the decade is out, a transfer of hegemonic power will occur in Asia). The US is now blatantly bankrupt and spiraling (not just slipping toward it, the US is sprinting at it), it will be forced to pull back. The US jumped right to print to fund everything mode (there is nobody to buy $1.5-$2 trillion in junk debt every year other than the Fed), which will speed up the heat death by a lot (and as that gets worse, the politicians will want to spend ever greater sums to attempt to offset the stagnation to placate the angry voters, which will make it worse even faster; spiral). If China didn't release the virus on purpose, strategically it would make perfect sense to do so (and hell, if you're them you might consider doing it again given the amazing results, their global export share is now the highest for any nation since the US in 1981).

And to throw a new wrench into the economic disaster, the American population has had enough of it all. The clowns in charge in DC can no longer throw around bailouts without having to pay off the public with magic printed money too. They'll never be able to do bailouts again without throwing large sums of money at the public (all via debt and currency destruction, adding to the previously mentioned economic heat death scenario). $2,000 stimulus checks? $463 billion, 2/3 of the military budget. You see the choice that's coming very soon? The bureaucrats can feel it at this point, their senses are tingling; this, or that; this, or that; which will it be? For a bit yet they can pretend we can do both, but that won't last much longer at the rate Rome is fiscally burning. Then all hell breaks loose (already begun) as the factions start to eat eachother over priorities.

Europe is enjoying much of the same effect, including the intense economic stagnation (for 13-14 years now Western Europe has seen zero net GDP growth, and it'll continue). Trillions of euros held in garbage paper yielding negative, their economies have been in the freezer for a long time now. Nothing like paying a government to eat you.

Inflation will once again surprise the clown economists. Golly gee, what magic is this such that 0% rates aren't causing a lot of inflation. Golly gee it worked before, what's different now versus...

FTFY

Quantum internet is different than QKD. The best analogy I can give is its like the difference between Morse code and the internet. Things like quantum teleportation, superdense coding and distributed quantum computing through a quantum internet will be revolutionary.

(You don't know about that because the MSM is concealing it from the public.)

It sounds like Pence is the one that counts (or doesn't) the electoral votes, so depending on the circumstances it could result in neither candidate getting 270, which results in a "contingent election" - one vote per state, from the House of Representatives, which would be majority Republican, for the president. The Senate would choose the vice-president in the same way - so if this actually happens, it's apparently possible (if absurdly unlikely) to get a Trump/Harris or Biden/Pence outcome.

One possible reason Pence could do that is if the contested states send two sets of electors - one certified by the governor (how we usually do it) and one by the (Republican) legislature. My understanding is that if both groups of electors are correctly certified, either Pence would have to choose which to count, ignore both, or the Supreme Court would get involved. Key phrase for finding more on this is "dueling electors"; a lot of places are saying the legislature-certified ones wouldn't be valid, but a handful say it's possible.