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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   828 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 17, 2025

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Oddball future predictions, anyone?

Kilts become A Thing in at least some blue tribe cities by 2050. Sneered at by minorities and the red tribe.

More hippos in South America than Africa in 2100. Trophy hunters shooting them are a notable thing; periodic rumblings about introducing lions, saltwater crocodiles, tigers, bears to try to control their population have enthusiastic support from the dwindling number of locals but are opposed by everyone else.

Sailing returns as a low-value bulk cargo shipping mechanism.

Someone, probably China, introduces affirmative action for mothers in the workforce, 2040, and the idea spreads like wildfire. It is promptly used mostly for fraud, both on a corporate and individual level.

Kilts become A Thing in at least some blue tribe cities by 2050. Sneered at by minorities and the red tribe.

I'll do you one better: Kilts become a thing in the Blue Tribe by 2030, and by 2050 the kilts that came into fashion in 2040 are Red coded, the ones like that are "Youth Pastor Kilts" and show that you are hopelessly out of date in NYC or whatever. There's a type of skinny jean today that I would have been scared to wear in seventh grade for fear of being called a faggot, and that when I see them today it's a lame real estate agent or something.

My predictions:

We're going to see a surge of neo-religious sex cults over the next ten to twenty years, as the friction between wanting sex and getting sex reaches levels possibly never before seen in human history, and both male and female adherents will be happy to turn their consent and loyalty over to some new Manson or Jim Jones in exchange for being given permission to just get laid.

Major legislation on electric bikes is going to become necessary in the United States, either at the state level becoming standard across most states or at the federal level. I'm noticing a huge surge in biking in my area, as electrical assist bikes make it easier to get up hills. At the beach I started seeing a ton of electric bikes though, and a few electric adult tricycles. People are going to get themselves hurt, and it's going to result in legislation.

The USMNT will continue to protest that the NEXT world cup cycle is "our year" through at least two more times that the US hosts the world cup before ever making the final four.

Washington DC will go into a near full death spiral as a city over the next decade-plus. It will be 2040 before anyone considers living there again.

In imitation of Ronald Reagan, within five years the US will take part in a Panama or Grenada type tomato-can war to prove something or other. It won't go as planned, first as tragedy second as farce.

An NFL team will be accused of using AI for major coaching decisions this season. It will never be exactly clear the extent to which AI was used, and the results will ultimately be mixed.

We're going to see a surge of neo-religious sex cults over the next ten to twenty years, as the friction between wanting sex and getting sex reaches levels possibly never before seen in human history, and both male and female adherents will be happy to turn their consent and loyalty over to some new Manson or Jim Jones in exchange for being given permission to just get laid.

It's interesting because women vulnerable to cults mostly do not want to 'just get laid', they want a committed affectionate relationship. Obviously, the psychologically healthy reaction is to enter committed, affectionate, sexual relationship with a man. But for cults that's dangerous because it reduces dependence on the leader.

A cult feels a lot like a "committed affectionate relationship" to people who are vulnerable to or already in a cult.

And, for that matter, a lot of cults have used assigning or controlling partnerships that are otherwise "normal" as a method of control. In our future cult of incels and femcels, zoomers incapable of forming relationships will submit to the will of the Master, who will assign them a fellow initiate as a partner, on pain of having the partner revoked if you misbehave. Which, after all, isn't that far from a normal religion anyway.

Wasn't there a matchmaking cult which forced a bunch of members to gender transition because the gender balance was off?

Yes, you are probably thinking of Twin Flames Universe. Leadership encouraged several cisgender women, who had no prior indication of being trans, to transition to men.

ETA: I did some brief searching on Twin Flames Universe to determine why members are mostly women. It seems like the marketing and messaging about spiritual counterparts, inner healing, emotional transformation, etc. appeal to women more than men.

It seems like there is an opportunity to improve upon this model. Once you have a lot of lonely single females in your cult it seems like you could pivot the marketing/messaging to attract lonely single men to keep the gender ratio in balance. You need to have different roles for the men that are more appealing, instead of trying to force all members into a model that appeals mostly to females.

Uh, not to be too indecorous but what was the typical BMI of a member? I suspect that most of these single women were not very appealing to men.

From what I remember seeing the members were basically normal in terms of looks, just wildly over-invested in the idea/ideal of One True Love romanticism and the childish wish that the way to get what you want is to really really really want it. You don't have to be fat and ugly to to be dissatisfied with being judged solely for your looks.

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