Things That Will Absolutely, Definitely, No Doubt Happen in 2023
by James Corbett
corbettreport.com
January 8, 2023
Predictions, amirite?
Sometimes. But not always.
But then again, you know how I feel about all this prediction stuff by now, right?
Anyway, 'tis the season, and I don't want to be a party pooper, so here's a bunch of stuff that will Absolutely, Certainly, No Doubt happen this year.
GOOGADS
We all know Big Tech is in Big Trouble at the moment, right?
Well, don't play the world's smallest violin for the poor, newly unemployed minions of our digital dictatorship. Instead, rejoice! The Next Big Thing is just around the corner and it's going to save the tech industry and plunge us further into the coming transhumanist nightmare!
Alright, so the whole "Meta" thing didn't quite pan out like the Zuckerborg expected.So what? I mean, Elon Musk didn't become a super-cool, free speech-defending multi-gazillionaire by letting a few spontaneously combusting electric cars or 1,500 dead lab animals get in the way of his plan to brain chip the useless eaters, did he?
Of course he didn't. And, likewise, we will see Zuckerborg and his fellow FAANGsters regroup in 2023 and unleash their next amazing invention on the world: a phone that will surgically attach itself to your face and embed its metallic tendrils directly into your cerebral cortex!
That's right! Everyone loves their phone . . . and now their phone can love them back! And they'll never have to worry about forgetting their phone at home ever again!
And the best part is, it'll be absolutely free! . . . I mean, it will come with a terms of service agreement that requires you to sign away all rights to your body, your labour, your firstborn child and your eternal soul. But who ever reads those things anyway?
Google will be first to market with their GooGad™. Then we'll get the Apple I, Phone™. Followed by Microsoft's Xenomorph™, Zuck's FacePhone™ and Musk's Not A Facehugger™.
Yes, folks, the future's so bright we'll have to wear shades. Luckily, our vision will be permanently occluded by the glowing screen that will be stuck to our faces, so we'll never have to worry about putting shades on again. Welcome to 2023!
ROBOGEDDON
You may have scoffed at the patently ridiculous Tesla robot, but you won't be scoffing by the end of this year, let me tell ya!
The writing was on the wall for me when the cute little robot cat waiters started popping up in family restaurants here in Japan.
Of course they're pointless. In fact, they're worse than pointless; they're actively inefficient. They clog up the aisles between the tables, scuttling along in that creepy robotic way with a perky jingle emanating from their speakers as real live human waiters scurry past them, delivering the orders that they forgot to put on the bots.
But it's the reactions of the customers that tell the real tale:
あああ！可愛い〜！
Which, roughly translated, means the end of human civilization.
If only it stopped with the cat robot waiter take over. But it doesn't. Who can forget Darth Vader Riding A Tricycle on a Sunny Day? Or the Colorado State Fair art prize winner? Or the advent of chatGPT, which is already being employed to haggle with the cable company, negotiate fee refunds from the bank, make personalized diet and fitness plans, and, of course, sell you things.
Oh, and the first AI lawyer is going to advise a client in a trial next month. (Though, to be fair, Beijing's Supreme Court announced last year that "judges must now formally consult the AI on every case.")
To be sure, there is a lot of hype clouding the topic at the moment. But it's getting harder to deny that something important is happening here. Granted, your toaster doesn't have a soul . . . but your microwave might! (And just wait until you find out about your BMW's digital soul)!
Yes, while the usual crew of naysayers will continue arguing over the nature of "intelligence" and what it truly means to "think" (and just how many angels can dance on the head of that pin, anyway?), Skynet will begin its total takeover of humanity.
That's right, folks. 2022: AI wins art prize. 2023: Artists falsely accused of using AI. 2024: AI launches its quest to dominate the world.
Definitely maybe a possible probability. All I know for sure is that when I ask my kids what they want to be when they grow up, I can usually answer "That'll be done by robots soon!"
And yes, that definitely includes podcasting.
WAR
What war? All of them. Every single one of them will happen this year. Everywhere. There will be nothing but war. It will be an embarrassment of war.
Will Russia and Ukraine finally come to terms this year? Of course they won't. They'll be too busy warring.
Will Russia and/or NATO release Schrödinger's bomb in 2023? Yup.
Will China try to take Taiwan this year? You better believe they will. (After all, when has NBC ever lied to you?)
Will North Korea continue to be North Korea? Do you even have to ask? North Korea, having improved its aim, will stop lobbing missiles over Japan and start firing them at Japan. (Don't worry, though, glorious Nippon will be ready!)
What about China and India? The Chinese and the Indians will upgrade from stick fights to peashooter wars to paint gun battles to BB gun squabbles to tank faceoffs to jet dogfights to autonomous drone attacks to aircraft carrier duels to all-out, total nuclear apocalypse.
OK, then, wise guy. How about Antigua? Outer Mongolia? Madagascar? Lapland? You guessed it: war. All against each other, actually. Over a disputed parking spot at the UN headquarters in New York.
Oh, and 2023 may or may not see the continuation of a certain documentary series about World War from a certain Corbett Report website. But after a list of predictions like this, you might want to take this prognostication with a grain of salt, too!
INCONCLUSION (<-Yes, that's a play on words, not a typo)
OK, OK, enough joking around. It doesn't need to be said, but let's say it anyway: I don't know what 2023 will bring any more than you do. I have my educated guesses, of course, but that's all they are.
Yes, making predictions (even serious predictions) can be a useful activity. It can help us to better articulate our own thoughts and feelings about where we are at the moment and where we think the would-be world controllers are trying to steer us. But if we leave it at that—simply consigning ourselves to the role of bit players or NPCs in an unchangeable story of the future that's being written by forces beyond our control—then we lose.
As I've said before, our win comes not in understanding what role the elitists want us to play in their narrative, but by writing our own narrative and then helping to bring that narrative about. After all, we are not spectators watching a movie on a screen. We are history's actors, charting our own course in life, devoting our time and resources to the things we care about and proactively making events happen.
So, yes, by all means, let's all speculate about the year ahead in the comments section on CorbettReport.com. But, more importantly, let's also discuss the world we want to live in and how best we can bring that world about.
We've got work to do, folks! Let's continue doing it and let the New Year's chips fall where they may.
Happy 2023!