The Neurocycle: Day 41 of 63

Predictions for Black Friday 2046

Despite what purveyors of prognostication may tell you, it’s all but impossible to know the future with any precision…we’ve cracked the code for weather’s chaotic patterns, but still, 24 to 36 hours is the pathetic limit of what we can accurately model for future weather behavior. That said, there are a couple of tricks for making very general predictions into the future. The first is to look backward in time and observe trends…absent strong evidence to the contrary, these trends are likely to continue on their current trajectories into the future. The second is to look to works of art such as science-fiction for clues, since as we all know life imitates art sooner or later.

Using these two tricks, I’ve come up with seven general predictions for what Black Friday will be like in the US, 25 years from now. Time will tell whether I was right or wrong…and in most cases I very much hope to be wrong.

1. It probably won’t be called Black Friday anymore. Twenty-five years ago, few people outside of the retail sales industry knew this day as Black Friday (coined by Chicago store workers in the 1960s who were overwhelmed, overworked and exasperated on this day every year). Most everyone just called it the Day After Thanksgiving until the era of 9/11. There’s no evidence to indicate the Black Friday name will stick for much longer, although it has already outlasted the 00’s flash-in-the-pan Cyber Monday. Who knows what nicknames will ever have staying power or why, but if I had to guess there will be a more positive-sounding moniker for the weekend as a whole, such as “Holiday Kickoff” or something of that nature. Tough to know.
2. The day and weekend will still be a celebration of modern consumerism. One thing you can bet on, however, is that this weekend is about one simple act in the Western world: buying stuff. It has been all about consumer spending since the end of WWII, as our entire economy has been about consumer spending. This is a close-to-80-year era so far, with no signs of ending soon.
3. Late November will more or less mark the end of the worst of hurricane and wildfire season (most years), but the beginning of the worst of blizzard and flooding season (most years). If you think “freakishly” bad weather is a historical blip limited in scope to the 20-teens and 2020s, I have a bridge in Brooklyn and a miracle weight loss pill I want to sell you. Extreme weather events/trends are the new normal. Thanks to human-caused climate change the weather will get worse before it gets better, and even the very most optimistic timeframe estimates for getting better are in the 2100s.
4. Standards of living will be better, but only for about the upper 5-25% of incomes; for the other 75-95% life will be worse than today despite technological advances. The trend over the past 30 or so years, for both nation and globe, is that wealth continues to both grow and be concentrated in ever-fewer individuals. This means that although the world will be richer overall, much more than half of the population will be poorer. The middle class will continue to shrink in both number and importance. Today’s babies born to middle class, college educated parents can generally expect living standards and financial security much lower than what their parents have today, which already isn’t great. The saddest part is that one-third to two-thirds of the nation’s working poor will continue to fight for slack regulations on capitalism in direct opposition to their own well-being…hey, gotta own them libs, ain’t it?
5. With a few exceptions the shopping will be online, and many products will be completely digital and meant only for a person’s online avatar. Facebook, errr, Meta, and others are betting heavily that AR, VR, and online personae are the future for consumers. These Big Tech titans are not stupid, nor are they poorly informed. We live increasingly online, even when traveling, even when on the toilet, even during our most private and intimate moments. The devices will surely change but the need to be online won’t. I’m a big fan of the movie Ready Player One, but even if I weren’t I would recognize that it is a reflection of both today and tomorrow…if you had the power to create a better life online than you have IRL, why wouldn’t you? And so you shall…you, me, and most of the 75-95% with ever-crappier IRL lives. Parties, gifts, concerts, plays, intimate gatherings and massive cultural events…these will happen IRL too, for sure, but more and more will be online. The Covid pandemic accelerated this movement…speaking of which, most survivors of Covid will speak shockingly little about it even 10 years from now, judging from the behavior of Spanish Flu survivors post-pandemic. The disease will still exist, but just as Influenza existed between 1918 and the present, Covid will exist and a number of people will die of it every year, and no one will really care or pay too much attention.
6. Society, while on average more tolerant of races, cultures, beliefs, and genders, will still be run by white cis men. Also, there will continue to be examples of extreme hate toward those with darker skin, with beliefs other than Protestant Christianity, and with identities other than “straight woman/straight man”. Think about just how much you have heard and seen advocating for tolerance over the last 10 years. Now think about just how much real-world impact that all had. The amount of advocacy will continue to increase, and change will continue to be slow.
7. The divide between progressive and conservative political identities will continue to deepen. This divide in the US has its roots in the time before the Depression Era of the 1930s. It’s not going away anytime soon. At some point it will culminate in warfare; in some respects it already has. Unfortunately I believe it will take millions of (more) deaths to make people realize how extraordinarily stupid and pointless identity politics are. We are so wrapped up in them we can’t see the forest for the trees. Whether all-out warfare will begin before or after 2046 I couldn’t say, but identity politics have been a continuous and increasing part of American life for decades…that won’t just end on its own, sadly.

Here endeth the lesson on what to expect 25 Black Fridays from now.