2022 Predictions!

an episode that is our predictions? It's really not my idea when people ask, so this this was Sophie's idea. That she's been Sophie's idea alone. It's sprang fully formed from the sight of her head, like Athena from Zeus's skull. Um, and we all agreed it was a good idea for an episode, and that I did not come up with the prediction. Did you get you know? So that's a minute of time thinking about not second not even absolutely love the Athena Zeus reference. That's how I tell people

I got Anderson. Yeah, Well, my prediction for the year is that I'm going to keep making references to Athena whenever I do something that pisses Sophie off, so that I will it will absolutely work. Yeah, that's my prediction for prediction. Okay, okay, okay, wait, before we go into the to the to the big, bigger thing, I want everybody to give one word prediction for how you would

describe this coming here. One word prediction. Borning, n F t H. I was just gonna say fucked, but I don't think because it's going to be hot too, I don't think it's going to be that fucked. Actually, I think I was gonna say mediocre. Yeah, I'm I'm was seeing a lot of blandness, a lot of blandness. My here,

here's a prediction I'll make. I think that one of the things that we were seeing last year, especially in the streets, with like the far right being so much more uh active, um than the left in a lot of places and in a lot of ways, is UM really tired. A lot of people on the left out, a lot of organizers, a lot of street level people. UM not just like oh I'm tired, but like I was injured, Um, I'm fighting charges my funds were depleted.

I had to I couldn't keep going out because I have a family and I had to deal with that sort of ship. Um And I think, I don't think that energy is back yet, but it always ebbs and flows, and it does on both sides, because at the end of the day, whether you're a fascist or a progressive, people have x amount of energy, you know. Um And I think we are, I leave, we are kind of at the beginning process of folks on the left starting

to recover some of that energy. Um And I think that that is a process we're going to see building throughout the year. UM. I agree with that. Yeah, yeah, and it will be a multi year process. And I'm I'm kind of hoping folks are ready to throw down again. But but we'll see, like where that goes. We might have like a few days of people throwing down in the streets for some reason, like something bad may happen,

like like late summer. I I can I can definitely see like a few days in July or August where it's like, oh, is the thing starting again? And it goes on for a bit and then it kind of peters out. I kind of I definitely see that being a decent possibility, um, because yeah, I think there will be more energy for that this year and more mental like like like ability to to do to do that

this year than yeah. But overall, I don't see anything super eventful, and I hopefully just doesn't like anything and then we get no. I mean, my my big eventful prediction is that. And I will explain what this is based on in a bit. I think we are going to see a significant sized urban metropolitan area be rendered uninhabitable either permanently or for a significant period of time in the United States due to climate change. And part of what this is based on is the December wildfires

that just destroyed a significant chunk of Boulder, Colorado. Right, not talking about like New York City gets swallowed by the waves, but like a place where there's a couple hundred thousand people living, they're not able to be for either ever or an extended period of time because a climate based disaster hits. Um. Maybe it'll be a heat dome type thing, Maybe it'll be like a wet bulb event. Maybe it'll be um fires. Obviously always possible, Hurricane Tornado.

You know, we we saw enough just in the last couple of months in terms of those like record hurricanes that killed like a hundred people in um in the south, or the fires sweeping Boulder right now and again fucking December. Um. But but I do think there's a pretty good chance we see something like that this year. I think my big one is that, I mean, okay, so the the obvious free B is that we're going to cross a million COVID deaths or like the the the official count,

we were like we we've had war count. That's that's the free b. The not free B is that like it's not even a prediction. If that's that's that's that's what I think. It's going to be warm in the summertime, yeah, like you know, and the warm in the summertime is probably like a bigger gamble at this point then yeah,

very very warm. But yeah. But but but I think the real thing is that like there there is never going to be never locked down the U S never like you of the United States could die and there would be no lockdown, like and this is you know, and I think this this is the result of I don't know, I wonder what you do. This my thesis for what was going on, was that, Like I actually think the like the like liberate Wisconsin stuff, I think

that actually worked. Like those number umber they were all those giant like like a mount of people show up with guns to captain. Absolutely it worked. Yeah, yeah, it worked, and it was like but but they did. They did. Usually works. It's a very effective way to get things done well. And I think there's an important lesson here though, which is that, like, so the state will never like very very rarely will the state ever like directly like

they they won't immediately back down, right. What they'll do is like they'll make an enormous show about how they didn't grant any concessions, and then they will grant concessions. Like I know. This is the thing with the riots, right, It's like people are talking about why do we not there's not gonna any more stimulus checks? Right. The reason there's not gonna be more stimulus checks because nobody's rioting. And you know, like what kind of stimulus checks you

get if a couple of targets get redacted? Yeah, like you know if if if you burn down another police station,

we will up more stimulus checks. It's just that you have to you know, there has to be in a police station burned down, right, but like this is and this is the this is the you know, the the right was extremely effective at this right and in a way that people just don't really talk about, which is that it is now politically impossible in the US, Like no, no one, no one will ever do anover lockdown because people will show up with guns and they don't want

to do that, and they've decided that just just just kill, just kill. Look, you know, we we've already killed the entire population of Seattle, like they're dead. Like we'll just keep killing more people, more people, and just never. I think people often are going I think people on the left attack the Biden's COVID response for a lot of

the wrong things. Like the thing that I I would go after him for is like, yeah, we didn't he didn't just say here's a bunch of money, don't go to work, We're not going back to school, Like stay

at home. Here's a pile of cash, which might have worked, it was worth a shot, But past that, a lot of this was beyond By the time he came into office, the the armed militant cultural movement against the idea of COVID precautions was so advanced that like what do you what what what more could have been realistically done other than trying to give people enough money again to actually stay home, which again is the thing I think it's most fair to attack him on. Like okay, I mean

like ships beyond Biden and a lot. Yeah, but like like I don't like, okay, it was like, well, what

could have been done? I don't know, like if you're looking from the perspective of the state, they could actually have deployed the intelligence services against them instead of doing like one dumb and trapment plot, right, Like well, sure, but that's that's also that starts before Biden and by again by the time, I mean it's like you know but like like yeah, I called her bluff, right, have want people show up to the capital, and then it's like, okay,

here's the FBI like like that that that's a thing that like if if you're a liberal status you could do and they just don't want to because like, partially I don't want the conflict of partially because it would actually it would look like it would look really bad

for them heading into the midterms. It would look so they're bad and and also I think this is less The FBI is kind of much more centrist in terms of their politics as an agency, but like there were a lot of federal state Yeah, well, I mean the most federal and state. Like I don't know that they can rely on them like they do that they can. Even even the FBI, it's like, yeah, they're using the proud ways informants like on Higgins synechists like yeah, so yeah,

like they're not they're not, They're not. Like I have an appreciation. What I will say is I have an appreciation for the fact that by the time Biden was in office, it may have been an unsolvable problem, which doesn't let him off the hook for things that were objectively bad decisions like not doing ship for stimulus, um, like pushing to open the schools, like you know, a

number of other things that he's done. But also like if he had done all of the right things, we still might be at exactly this death toll because there are cultural issues here that were very advanced by the time he took office. UM. And I do think like it's whatever, I'm not I'm not saying this to let Biden off the hook or support the Democratic Party. I'm saying this because people need to have an accurate conception

of the problem. Um, and the problem is so much deeper than what a technocrat could have handled by making smart policy at break break Yeah, we're back. Actual prediction Republicans will win the Senate. Yeah, which seems pretty I think there's a decent chance Democrats can keep the House. Um, but I'm pretty sure it's going to go back to the Republicans. I mean, they are damn near in control of the Senate as it is. Yeah, but they did. Yeah,

but I I do believe that's gonna happen. Um. And let's see other which, yeah, it does, does not seem that's not that far fetched of a thing. And I don't know. There'll be some other kind of tech faccory the space between Elon Musk, Peter Thiel Silicon Valley, there's gonna be I think there's gonna be some worsening development of like tech like technocratic stuff, possibly in like possibly with like the mask of trying to like fix climate

change or something. But I think they'll be a decent growth of tech power and possibly they're like um cooperation with the state or the state like fund giving more explicit like funding and permission to tech power to like do terror forming or like some geo engineering like that. There's there's gonna be something related to that sphere that is a it's going to get a lot more visible

than it is. My big tech prediction is that there is going to be a crime against humanity at some point this year, like on a massive scale, not like just a mass shooting, but like a state level crime against humanity. And we're going to find out that for the last like eight months, Facebook had been paying the perpetrators a significant amount of money as a result of like some ill thought out ad program that they had. Yeah, like we're going to we're going to leave to Facebook

actively funding and ethnic cleansing. Um, because some somebody thought up some sort of affiliate program that was not well conceived. Um. That's my fun tech industry prediction. My fun tech industry prediction is that, uh, Jeff Bezos will increasingly become the most cringe eest man in the world. Yeah, it is very funny that the picture him on New Year's he's

just wearing a Dan Flash his shirt. He's he's absolutely wearing a Dan Flash his shirt and that's incredibly fine, Robert, Robert, that shirt costs him three thousand dollars because the pattern is so comp very complicated, and how much the lines crisscross. I I just I just don't like you insisting that it's not as much money. But despite its complicatedness, that that photo was my version of holiday Carne said to everyone I know. Um, yeah, I think I think we're

going to see a lot more unions this year. Yeah, that does seem to be a positive trend that we're seeing is a lot more unionization and some significant successes for and and a lot more like like general acceptance of the concept of a union. Other prodiction related to to tech industry stuff, I think one of the billionaire space ships things is going to have a disastrous launch. Positive prediction of spaceship is gonna build up with people inside it as it tries to take off. That's that's

my positive prediction. That it can take some people with it. Um, sorry to the people, Sorry to the workers who are gonna be probably harmed at that, but it can take some people out, So it's gonna be funny. Um, that is that's possibility. Also, Uh, there's gonna be a there's gonna be a disastrous effect. Uh around Austin is right that that's where that's where a lot of the spacehip stuff is getting set up. No, no, no, no, it's

that's just where the offices are. It's like Chica. It's like on the coast of Texts, not close enough to Austin. Some some piece of a spaceship is gonna fly through someone's house. No one's gonna care about it. Um, there gets brought, gonna kill a family or something. No one's gonna care. Nothing's gonna happen. It'll be fine. That Those are my more my tech industry predictions related to spaceship stuff. Yeah, um yeah. I I also think on on a more.

I don't know how the current civil war in Myanmar is going to shake out, but I think there's a chance that it becomes the first kay place where there is a successful or at least partially successful revolutionary movement that is to a significant extent armed via three D printed weaponry. Um, they've all we've already seen a lot of that deployed by the rebels in Myanmar. Um. I'm interested in watching that because it's kind of the first time we've seen that technology used on a meaningful scale

by people that aren't like organized crime. Um, and yeah, I think it's still too early to tell, like how much of an actual like whether or not it's just kind of a distraction from the more meaningful aspects of the struggle, or the more meaningful like kind of deployments of weaponry and other tools and the struggle, or whether or not it will actually play a significant role in

the armed struggle. But it's it's very much worth watching if you're somebody who pays attention to insurgent movements and what is increasingly possible as a result of new technology. I have another really bad prediction. J K. Rowling is going to release a book on gender. Go orci fund

to YouTube channel, yeah something, I think. I think there's a decent chance she has been writing a book about gender and she's going to release in two I think that as an actual, actual series prediction, just go away, and a whole bunch of liberal moms are gonna buy it for each other and they're gonna read it and it's gonna be bad. And that is that is my

that's my that's my horrible prediction. She could be so beloved if she had limited her comments after publishing Harry Potter, if she repeatedly telling people that are constantly shifting their pants, if she just didn't use Twitter after anything at all, and she could have been a different person. Just it's it's the Dave Chappelle thing. Just stay off. We all we all would have loved you forever if you just just gone off and counted your money and left us alone. Yeah,

go be rich somewhere. It's fine to be done. It's fine to be done being famous and influential. You you had, you did great, you did great. You never needed to come back. She I don't she did. I'm not sure if she did great? She did? She did? She did again.

This is all colored. But if she had never back into the public eye, all it would have been as like you remember that lady who got like twelve year olds to read seven d page books that one time, Like, people would not be as critical of the actual content of the Harry Potter books. If she just hadn't kept coming back and saying ship so that and and and and then like didn't stop and then did not stop, and then was told bad, really really bad, and then kept doing it and kept doing it and kept doing

it and kept doing it. You know what people should beat. Look, if you're if you're listening to this and you're a millionaire who was like hugely popular for some cultural reason in the late nineties and early two thousand's, think about Bill Waterson. Bill Waterson ends the most popular comic strip in the history of comics and spends the rest of his life and fucking Iowa painting landscapes and never talks to anybody with a platform again, And I everybody loves

Bill Waterson. Like not a single person has a criticism of Bill Waterson. Um, just do that. Just do what he did. Just go paint landscapes in Iowa and don't talk to journalists or get on Twitter. It's fine. Does Bill Waterson believe regressive things about gender? Nobody knows because he doesn't say anything. I think another prediction that is actually decently possible. I think we will get more and more cities and or states to decriminalize hard drugs in

in certain possession amounts UM. I think there is a there's a number of bills going around California, UM and a lot of other states, and I believe that will be start to become more and more common, which will be great. It would be nice if they get legalized. But you know, get get get what you can for now. Um yeah, speaking of drugs, Uh, here's CDD oil sponsored by heroin, by by big drug. Here we go have fun.

They say we're back. And I just want to let everybody know that if if everything gets legalized, we will be sponsored by meth amphetamine so fucking quickly it will make your head spin. I will never turn down a drug sponsor, um, except for like super foods. We don't do super foods, we don't do brain pills, but heroin. I would advertise the ship out of heroin. I'm already ready to advertise hero the hair lost. Drugs we don't do, but heroin. M Hey is life depressing? You know, it'll

make easier heroin. I hated that I helped that bit. Uh, Chris, you were you were saying something before break My My one serious prediction is I don't think we've I think we're going to get one more big like Latin American uprising, and it will not in Argentina. I have been eating ship for three goddamn years predicting it's gonna be Argentina. It's like, oh, they're getting an IMF bailout. Like it's never Argentina. It won't be Argentina, it will be somewhere else.

But someone is, someone is going to spend like two months doing a bunch of stuff that's extremely cool outside of Argentina. I kind of think, um, I don't know, I'll be interested to see what happens in Brazil because um, it's hard to get a sense for the exact numbers, but there's potential there. There is potential there with what's happened in Bolivia and what's happened in Chile, There's there's

momentum in its exciting broad area. It was like I mean like the os there's shoot, there's like enormous protest in Brazil like all the time. Yeah, yeah, there's like massive. It just hasn't sort of like like it hasn't turned into like everyone fighting the cops and like yeah, and maybe I don't know if it will because like I don't know. I mean, this is this is this is

my vibes based interpretation of it. But it feels like the the Workers Party has enough of a handle on the protests that they're not going to sort of like explode because the PT just wants to win its election and get out of Bulson Arrow. But well, yeah, and I mean the possibility of any kind of like actual revolutionary insurrection anything relies heavily on like that path not working for people, like they're not that they're not being

that kind of safety. Then well, I mean I say this, if they arrest Lula again, like yeah, I don't think bos like I think will die in his own ship, Like yeah, that might happen even if his party stays in power. I mean that he was actively dying as we would record this episode, which is very funny. Um I got as a result of one of our ad campaigns several or a picture frames uh this year, and right now we're loading one up. That's just pictures of sick Bulson Arrow to keep in my living room. So

anytime I walk past, I can look at JayR. Bolson Naro and hacking up a lung or having ships sucked out of his nose from its um, I will say, oh, by my one more like very fast prediction about this is that Kissinger is gonna live. He's not gonna die. Damn. Chris allowed myself to hope for one for about I allow myself to hope for about eight hours and I think it's gonna live, but immediately wrong. I don't know.

It would have been pretty cool if Betty White's last action had been some sort of anti TA takeout Kissinger. She becomes the most loved American and human history, like goes out just like jumping out of an airplane, Like she parachutes into Kissinger's house with a flancing knife. I'm gonna say, in Colorado, Oregon, or Washington, we're going to get our first safe uh drug injections side opened. I

know they've been. There's pretty good shot they've been. They've been very successful inside different parts of Canada, specifically maybe Whover, BC. And I believe one of those three states is going to get the first one. Um, I hope it's all of them. You want to support some of those people up in Canada go to Heroin Martin by a shoot dope the cops hoodie. Yeah, but say like safe safe drug injection and ingestion sites are have been have been

very good at preventing deaths in Vancouver, BC. And there's just a good idea in general. And I will be excited at the prospect they're an incredibly good idea and they also if you're trying to again talk about this to conservatives in your life, they're cheaper than just letting people be addicted to drugs on the street because people don't steal stuff. Also, they're heroin's free. Also, they won't

have ridiculous medical bills. They get paid by the state, and they're more likely to seek treatment even if you don't mandate that, especially if you don't mandate that, because as a rule, people don't like having problematic addictions to drugs, and if they can deal with their immediate needs and also know that there's help available, they will often choose

to get help. So and I think I have I have one more actual prediction is that a new Matrix video game will be announced, and that is that is all of my predictions. Oh, we should probably talk about Matrix for briefly. That's what the people want. Garrison it and and for the record, this is going to be controversial because some people have no taste, but we both think it fucking ruled. It is possibly the best Matrix film.

It was really fun, it's it's very good. If you think about it for any amount of time, it gets very good in the way it addresses, um, the system's power to incorporate revolt as a part of the system, which was already teased inside me monetized aesthetic, yeah, reloaded, but yeah, like the matrix using the weapon that wants to find you against you, and the matrix weaponizing all

of your ideas against you. UM is very good. UM. I know Lana put a lot of thought into this, particularly around who's she is, how she's developed, and how her work has been turned against her and what she believes. UM, both by like the people and also like corporately in terms of like achieving the correct amount of meta that it's not useless drivel while still actually being aware of

what it is. UM. I think was done well. I know there's there's some people and like the postmodern thing, who think it don't, who think it doesn't go meta enough, And I think that's nonsense, because if you go any if you if you point out that pointing out that pointing out revolt against the system is part of the system, then you've lost everybody, Like no one cares because you can add on those layers endlessly and it's just dribble. Um.

So I think they got the correct amount of meta. Well, then a band not not abandoned that idea but moving it on mean, like you know, you know, it's more important than being meta is making friends and finding human connections because going through the world like this isolated like Thomas Anderson is when he's in the Matrix, as like as as games that are a big part of that

problem is that he's very nice. It did, and the whole point is like, no, you need to find friends, find connections, get like like be have people around you to build a network of and they actually start like like loving other people is really one of the only ways out of this looping cycle and layering of Matrix is that we always live in um. It was. It's

a wonderful film. I can talk about I could. I could talk about it for hours, but we could do a whole podcast about why we enjoyed Matrix four um but it's it's pretty fun and my only the only thing I'll add to that is a lot of people fools is what I call them, are angry at the fact that it ended with the Brass Against cover of

it was so good. It was, and it the cover of that song opens an exactly so that the singer, the lead singer of Brass Against became briefly famous mid late last year, um when during while playing that exact song on stage, sheinated into a fan's mouth and the song that the cover that ends the Matrix starts at exactly the moment where she pete in that guy's mouth

during the live show. And I am certain that Lana Wachowski was planning to use the original Rage against the Machine version of that song, and then that news dropped and was like, well, let's get these Brass Against people. I I want, I want the pist song on other thing I want to They is reflecting on the analyst as a character and how he relates to kind of the meat space argument and how digital systems and algorithms

and social media operates. He if you listen to him talk um and within the whole context, within the whole context of the film, he um. They think there's actually some more insightful points than what you might originally suspect around like social media UM and digital nous versus realness us UM just always you know, always a factor in in Matrix films. But the way the way they handle it in this film I think is a lot more mature than all the topics they handle in their previous films.

And I mean there's just so many like really good, like single lines that offer like really good like oh wow, like that's just like a very good point, and then they just move past them so like so effortlessly, like you could focus on any one of those really good lines, and they just offer up so many and at many points. And I like that they turned the Mayor of Engian

into Ted Kaczynski. Um, it's just fun. Like at the end of the day, it's just actually really fun and it doesn't feel exactly like the other movies in the series, which is what I want. I don't like reboots. I wasn't a fan of the Star Wars reboot because it was like I've seen this again, yeah, yeah, I like

I like that it. I like that a lot of the action in this movie, right up until kind of the end, feels perfunctory and like I like like kind of saying like I don't care about this part anymore, Like I've done the guy's fighting agents and bullet time. Um that you know, at the end there's some more some more loving action set pieces, but like from the beginning. It's very much it's much more like a really fun commentary on how Hollywood works and how the video game

industry works. There's a fucking mass effect joke in there. There's a joke about like the nineteen nine or two thousand Matrix video game that happened before Garrison was born. It's so fun. It's it's just a lot of fun as a movie. It's rad m well, um any any other final final predictions before we wrap up this this extremely well thought through episode that we've report our hearts and minds into. We really did. Dr oz is going to go down in flames. Oh I hope so, oh man.

I really have no idea what to expect from I have no idea. I'm not making I'm not making any prediction on that because I too have no idea. The only thing that I'll say is that one way or the other, it's going to be a bell weather. If it like goes great for him and he wins easily, we're going to see a lot more like Dr phil

is absolutely rolling into Congress. If that works for oz Um and other other people who are kind of occupy similar cultural spaces will do the same thing and then we'll have congressional inquiries about whether or not this simple

trick will burn belly fat. It's gonna if it's like like, if that's what happens, Like the think the thing Trump is going to be remembered for like is being like, well, the thing the thing Reagan is going to be remembered for is being just like like fifty years ahead of his time before we're literally all entirely ruled by just reality TV stars mm hm, whose wives are great at giving a head? Should I? Did anyone? Did everyone already

forget that Nancy Reagan throat goat discourse? Discourse? Everyone was so exhausted. Yeah, if you didn't catch this, it's a very well known secret and has been for like fifty years that back before they got married and probably after. Nancy was famous for giving the best blow jobs in Hollywood, as as as Garrison tosses the cat every single episode. So I disdained this discourse. Now, yeah, two, it's a year, We're in it. Okay. My last prediction is I actually

do think this year is gonna suck slightly less. Did Now this is probably the big one. I'm gonna eat it on, but like hopefully happen. Hopefully you're right about it. So I'm um, no, yeah, I think that there's a decent chance that we're that it's better. Um, it's at least in some ways. The climate stuff, as it nearly always will for the foreseeable future, will keep getting worse.

But yeah, I think there's actually a chance that COVID will get better, not because of any policy decision, but because Macron literally nine of human beings and in the world get it, and those that survive COVID stops passing on as much, which is kind of vaguely speaking, what happened with you know, the influenza. I will be probably foolish in making one more prediction, that is, like around the fall, we will not see spikes as big as

we saw this last year. Um. I I do think there will probably still be some, but I do think the numbers are going to be generally trending down. Um. Yeah, after O Macron hits its peak, just because how many people will get infected, how many antibodies plus vaccines will be circulating, um, And how many people have already been who don't take the vaccine have will already have like

died off. It's I do not saying that to be like flip into to be like but it's like, I just that's what's the world is that it's the world that we live in. I hate it, but I do hope and I do hope and some slightly predict that we'll have less less spiking numbers around this next fall and winter as we did of this current you know, fall and winter season. I wouldn't mind ending on a note of appreciation for the fucking booster because we got it.

You and I both garrison, as did most of our friends, and had just a shipload of COVID flying around us everywhere. I love a lot of infections, and we were fine, fine. I have one of my friends got COVID and her mom, who they lived in the same house, did not has not gotten COVID because they're wearing masks and they got the booster. And for for all my friends that that did get COVID that had that were boosted, the vaccine

didn't shop there. You're not in the hospital. You're double test positive on a rapid test and then test negative on a PCR, probably because by the time he got to the PCR, like the next day, his viral load was just so fucking low. Um, get the third vacs, the vaccine works. Who could have predicted? Who could have predicted? The things that are literally the entire basis of our modern concept of the value of human life continue to

be very effective. All right? Well that that doesn't for us, Um unplugged, Go spend time outside, touch grass, touch your mirror, like trying to go through it, because trying to go

through your um, what's real? What's not? See if see if maybe you were the digital Messiah and you have been trapped in a simulation where you work at a food lion, um and and you can break free of it, um, but not fly anymore because now your girlfriends he does he does fly with Trinity at the end, he does fly with Trinity, sure m, just as we all can only fly with with Cary, well with carry at Masson's Yeah, specifically, who has gotten so much hotter as they did? All right, Well,

that's that's where we are. It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media or more podcasts from cool Zone Media. Visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts you can find sources for It could happen here. Updated monthly at cool Zone media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.