Welcome to 2024

Happy New Year, and best of wishes for the year ahead. 

I was thinking about going out last night to see a fireworks display. Watching fireworks in person always feels special. It puts me back in touch with the child-like part of my brain. For a few minutes I can suspend all concerns of everyday life and just be amazed at something and not think about it too much. Pretty colours. Bright lights. Ooh shiny! I didn't go. I stayed home and watched some episodes of Billions, which is a great series by the way. 

To be fair, it wasn't easy to find information about local fireworks displays, even with the power of the internet at my disposal. Besides, I've become a morning person, so I probably wouldn't have gone anyway unless I could find a display that happened earlier in the night. I like going to bed early and waking up early. And even one late night hits me pretty hard these days. 

What about the year ahead? 

As 2023 started rolling to a close I began to wonder what might happen in 2024. So let's see what I came up with. 

Conflict in the Ukraine

I can't see this coming to an end any time soon, but the extent and nature of the conflict might change. A number of countries are discussing ways to reduce the financial support in the conflict. If money gets pulled out of the war, then less equipment, weapons, munitions, and so on can be brought to the fight. Maybe this will result in less deaths and injuries.

The Australian economy and markets

Disclaimer: This is not financial advice. 

Now that I've covered my backside... I think an increase in business confidence is likely. 

Unemployment is already increasing and it might keep going up by a small amount. 

The value of housing in many major metropolitan areas will probably keep increasing at a steady rate. The housing crisis probably won't disappear in 2024, but it might start to improve slightly if new dwelling approvals continue to increase. 

Overall, my guess is that the pressure-cooker that was 2023 will start to let off a little steam and people will continue to adapt. So this year might feel a little easier for many but not by much. 

Technological integration 

Technology such as smart devices and artificial intelligence will likely become more integrated into our daily lives. It will become harder to opt out of such integration, and anyone wanting to live more simply will find it becoming even more challenging. 

Addiction to the inefficient use of smartphones and the internet will continue to wreak havoc in many people's lives. And even with a growing awareness of those problems people will still struggle to use those technologies in disciplined and productive ways. 

Sociology

Stability in relationships and families will still be a problem. There's been no shortage of research into the problems in these areas. A growing awareness of the harms of online dating will not lessen people's reliance upon it. Less people leave the house and interact with others directly, thereby decreasing the likelihood of potential couples meeting in other ways. 

The decline of the long-standing family unit won't disappear, and the consequences of that will continue to harm the outcomes of children in years to come as they gain their independence and engage more with the broader society.

The aforementioned lack of face-to-face social interaction has been largely replaced by app-centric friendships, which often lack substantial value or resilience. People, especially men, often have a weak social support network, so when hard times hit people find that there are less folks to turn to for help. 

Overall, a weaker network of relationships leads to a weaker society. This isn't a new set of problems for 2024, but I can only imagine that it will get worse. 

This blog

I can see the future of this topic as clear as day. I will eventually neglect this blog and post less frequently to it. This is likely to be motivated by a desire to spend less time online and less time using computers. My desire to spend more time on the immediate real world and people around me will win out. 

Okay, that's rather bleak. But I have created quite a few blogs over the years and I soon gave up on most of them. I promise that I'll try to avoid quitting this one so easily. Let's call it a resolution. If I stick it out for at least a year then I can write a post checking how these predictions turned out. Look at that! Already planning articles for 2025. There's some hope for this blog after all. 

In closing, those are my predictions for 2024. I know that they're not very optimistic. While I don't like being negative, I also don't like unfounded pie in the sky thinking. I do think that as a broader society there is hope. Humanity has a remarkable ability to adapt to the challenges it faces, but it can take a while for us to get there. So stay strong, look after your health, be kind, and don't give up. See you in the next post.