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The age of Trump: Predictions for the next four years... 

19/1/2017

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Here we are then, Trumpism starts tomorrow. So, as we stand on the edge, ready to leap into the great unknown, how about some predictions for the next four years. I called Brexit right. And I called Trump right. Or at least that’s what my bank balance says. Pessimism pays. As you'll see, these predictions are horribly interlinked but, hey,  let’s see if we can profit from pending Armageddon.  
 

Britain
Paul Dacre is now in charge. Theresa May will do her best to be his puppet but that also means surrounding herself with fuckwits and little Englanders. We will exit very hard indeed. The country will go all Dunkirk and blame the failures on Brussels and immigrants and anyone but themselves. The Conservatives will win the next General Election with a huge mandate to fuck what’s left of us to pieces. In better news, Corbyn will be replaced by Keir Starmer.  
             


 EU
Austria seemed a big moment. Just enough people looked at Brexit and thought perhaps committing suicide wasn’t the way to go. If the EU apparatchiks noticed that, they will stand strong against Brexit. Their political aim ‘pour encourager les autres’ will keep France from Le Pen’s embrace and keep Germany and other countries sane. How that helps when Russia struts into Latvia is anyone’s guess. Not hard to see how all of these events are interlinked and how one will overwhelm another. My guess, Europe will vote to stay strong but will collapse anyway.


 
Russia
Russia will invade one or all of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia. Ukraine will be re-amalgamated. Project USSR will march on. Trump will facilitate this, at the very least by doing nothing, but more likely will be complicit. The EU and NATO will need to take a stand at some point, but that point will not be the Baltic States. Poland, maybe Poland.
 


USA
Trump is, in essence, a spoilt six-year old. As it happens, I can still locate the six-year old within me sometimes. When told not to press that button all it really wants to do is press that button. My naughtiness cannot be controlled. Threat of control only makes me more determined. So, if people tell him not to, he’s going to want to all the more. And, frankly, I think he desperately wants to be the next person to press the button. To press it like it's never been pressed before. I don’t think he cares how or why or where. His gift to the world. Let’s hope it’s somewhere small and non-nuclear. Really. Let’s hope it’s not when he falls out of love with Putin.

​Plus....China....


Sorry folks. Obviously, I hope I’m wrong about all of this, particularly this last one, but if you offered me any shade of odds against, I’d take it.  




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Harry Cobden and Robert A Heinlein

13/1/2017

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I'm currently reading The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A Heinlein. It's a fifty year old science fiction classic, and it's extraordinarily prescient in how it talks about the subject of artificial intelligence.

But nowhere near as it is with its gambling advice. Mike, the book's self-conscious super computer, outlines a system for winning at the horses which has probably been profitable for all of the last fifty years, and certainly is with regards to Harry Cobden for the last two seasons. 

Or as Mike puts it in 1967:

I often calculate odds on horse races; the civil service computermen frequently program such requests. But the results are so at variance with expectations that I have concluded either that the data are too meagre, or the horses or riders are not honest. Possibly all three. However, I can give you a formula which will pay a steady return if played consistently....Bet the leading apprentice jockey to place. He is always given good mounts and they carry less weight. But don't bet him on the nose.







 





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