Welcome to The WC — your weekly shot of awesome.
Today, we’ve got:
- How will the world look in 2034?
- You’re getting duped.
- Let’s drink to Underground Cellar.
- Lifting up the skirts at SVCF.
- How to profit off the border war.
Let’s go.
Table of Contents
How will the world look in 2034?
Each year feels worse than the last lately. More war, more fighting, less harmony, and more uncertainty.
It wasn’t long ago I’d have relative confidence predicting the state of the world twelve months out. Not 100%, but at a recent confidence interval.
I don’t feel that way anymore. Anything can happen any day, and it’s almost certainly going to be something bad.
I’m not the only one. According to 300 “leading global strategists and foresight practitioners” surveyed by the Atlantic Council, the next decade looks grim.
Some alarming predictions:
- 12% think the US will “break up internally for reasons including but not limited to revolution, civil war, or political disintegration.”
- Nearly 30% think Russia and NATO will fight a hot war.
- A drastic decline in American exceptionalism, with only 32% saying the US will be the dominant diplomatic power, 52% saying it’ll top economic leaderboards, and 63% arguing it’ll still be the most innovative country in the world.
- It’s almost certain one currently non-nuclear state will obtain nuclear weapons by 2034. The leading candidate is Iran, with a 73.5% chance.
It’s not all bad, though:
- 18% think Israel and a newly formed Palestinian state will have diplomatically normalized relations. Three in five think Israel and Saudi Arabia will be on good terms.
- Fewer experts believe China will forcibly try to reclaim Taiwan (but 50% still do).
- Only 7% think Vladimir Putin will still be in charge of Russia (he’ll be 82 by then, to be fair). 6% say Putin will unconditionally defeat Ukraine.
There’s a lot more in there, including scathing views on the UN, views on the biggest threats to global prosperity, and predictions on which countries will become failed states.
Check it out if you need a kick in the bollocks.
You’re getting duped.
Speaking of unbridled pessimism.
The media (social and otherwise) is really messing with our heads.
Through a combination of fearmongering and exploitation, millions of Americans are dead on convinced that the country is falling apart, even when their own situations are pretty, pretty good.
Some of these gaps are startling.
“People are 42 percentage points more likely to say their own mental health is excellent or good than they are to say so about people in the country as a whole”
“Gaps of 20 points or more are also found for positive ratings of one’s own versus the country’s personal safety (+31), physical health (+28), access to healthcare (+27), housing affordability (+25), and social relationships (+24).”
This is very much a manifestation of the rise of the “other” in America over the last several years. Media companies, large and small, politicians, left and right, tell you how great you are and how horrible everyone else is.
Everyone is guilty of exploiting this narrative, and it’s easy to see how once you look.
It’s not hard to believe there’s danger everywhere when you see violent crime on TV every day. It is bad, but not as bad as people think.
It’s easy to believe there’s a mental health crisis when you hear about teenagers killing themselves at an alarming rate. But it’s just as easy to dismiss our own mental health challenges, isn’t it?
It’s even easier to believe no one has access to healthcare when both sides tell their constituents the other side is making healthcare impossible and unaffordable.
The list goes on and on, but people are getting duped, and it’s going to get worse in an election year.
Let’s drink to Underground Cellar
Last year, ponzi scheme innovative wine merchant Underground Cellar went out of business. It’s been a long and painful bankruptcy with lawsuits, unhappy customers, and a great number of VC dollars up in smoke.
But their loss is your gain!
The company managing the scam’s wine seller’s liquidation is holding a fire sale to dispose of the remaining inventory.
Many of the bottles are available at up to 80% off MSRP, and while some of those retail prices are…optimistic…you can find some bargains with a bit of digging.
Let me know if you pick anything up.
Lifting up the skirts at SVCF
Very recently, Netflix CEO Reid Hastings gifted $1.1 billion worth of company shares to a charitable organization called The Silicon Valley Community Foundation.
SVCF is very popular among tech billionaires with a who’s who on its donor books:
