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60 Problems People Think Could Blindside Us Within The Next Ten Years
If you grew up in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, you likely had the same answers as children when someone asked you, “What do you think happens in ten years?” Responses usually revolved around flying cars, robot servants, and pretty much what they saw on The Jetsons.
Those predictions were colorful, fun, and, you could say, came with a sense of optimism. These days? People are foreseeing a grimmer future a decade from now.
Just take a look at these responses in a recent Reddit thread when someone asked, “What’s something that’s highly likely to happen in the next 10 years that almost nobody is preparing for?”
If you’re easily freaked out, these posts may keep you up for the next three days.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
I think many industries will eventually discover that they basically destroyed the pipeline that creates senior experts.
AI will remove a lot of the boring junior work, but that's also the work that actually makes people good at their job.
For example software engineering. You don’t become a skilled SW engineer by reading books. You become one by spending years writing code, debugging weird stuff, doing code reviews, making bad design decisions and figuring out why they were bad, discussing with seniors and peers, teaching juniors, tracing problems through different abstraction layers etc. Over time you gradually build an internal model of how the whole system ACTUALLY works.
I fear we get to a point where people actually knowing what the hell is going on becomes a rarity.
Because economically it makes perfect sense. Why hire 5 juniors when you can have 1 senior + AI doing more work? Where do the new seniors come from?
And I genuinely think we will eventually see deadly system failures because of this. Because something subtle goes wrong and there are simply too few people left who understand the system well enough to realize why its wrong.
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#2
The Russification of the US.
America chose to disinvest in itself decades ago, so our infrastructure is crumbling, our education is falling behind, and our institutions are failing. The last 10 years has seen the supercharging of the collapse, though.
I don't think Americans understand what losing our trade and military allies means to Americans. I don't think they understand what the end of the petrodollar means for Americans. I think that a ton of Americans genuinely believe that America is strong because God or whatever, and not because of the massive investments in education, infrastructure, public health, science, and diplomacy. All of the investments are gone. America is failing.
Americans failed America.
#3
The consequences of devaluing education are going to hit the working world.
Kids right now using ChatGPT for their assignments (if they even do them at all, some districts aren't really allowed to fail kids anymore), with a 7 second attention span. The job market sucks, but what happens when droves of an entire generation are functionally unemployable?
#4
Society becoming insanely stupid and ignorant exponentially more than it is now.
#6
The retirement cliff for people who run critical physical infrastructure.
A staggering percentage of water treatment plant operators, power grid technicians, commercial boiler mechanics, and municipal utility workers are in their late 50s and 60s. These are jobs that rely heavily on years of niche, unwritten institutional knowledge about legacy systems that have been patched together over decades.
Younger generations were steered heavily away from these paths, and public sector pay scales never adjusted to attract new talent. In the next 10 years, a huge portion of the people who literally keep clean water flowing and the local grid stable are going to walk out the door into retirement, and there simply is not a pipeline of trained workers ready to step into those control rooms.
Rick Murray 1 month ago
"unwritten institutional knowledge" - there's your problem right there. If you have a process that relies upon a specific person knowing specific things...you *don't* have a process.
#7
Massive food shortages caused by huge crop failures caused by climate change.
Rick Murray 1 month ago
David - I wonder if you'd like to say that around here to the local farmers? The wheat was a disaster and the only reason it was harvested at all is because it is for animal food. The maize was brought in very early and shredded for silage/biomass as it would have been useless as grains. The colza/rapeseed withered and died. So my neighbour who has a few thousand little piggies has *what* to feed them? The reality is that the crops performed terribly this year and to top it all off, oaks are dying. *Oaks*. About the most indigenous tree there is around here. So I don't know where you got the 35% increase [citation needed] but it sure isn't matching the reality of what I'm looking at around me.
#8
A massive, silent retirement crisis where tens of millions of people reach their late 60s with under $10,000 in total savings.
#10
The Great Depression the sequel is right around the corner, might happen on its 100 year anniversary how cute.
HappyShannon 3 weeks ago
Get ready to stand in line again people. All those people who are handicapped and voted for trump? Stand in line, and don't ask for water. Thats illegal in some states
#11
The collapse of the USA and its alliances with the traditional West. It has already started.
Luke || Kira (he/she) 1 month ago
In the end, that could be a good thing. Even under a normal administration the US are still a global hegemony that commits war crimes in the Middle East. No country should have that amount of unchecked power.
#12
People becoming so dependent on AI that they slowly stop knowing how to do basic things without it.
Not some dramatic “AI takes over the world” scenario - more like people gradually outsourcing their thinking, decision-making, creativity, and even basic communication to AI.
And we probably won’t realize how much we have lost until we actually need to function without it.
#13
Cataclysmic weather events - huge floods; towns being consumed by wildfires; droughts that cause water famine; tornados, earthquakes...
#14
Mass unemployment from the AI "boom." And it's not us that should be preparing for it, it's our governments; if they actually served the people they claim to represent.
Luke || Kira (he/she) 1 month ago
With this rapid AI shift, we should be discussing the options of universal basic income to prevent a huge societal collapse. But no, we're still here discussing four-day work week because we're not allowed to inconvenience the rich even the slightest.
#15
Herd immunity failure because of fear of vaccinations. Measles is already making a comeback and polio isn't eradicated globally.
I understand this is just an expected down turn because people would rather be led than force marched, but if we can't address this there could be serious consequences in general human health.
I think a lot of people believe 'what doesn't end you makes you stronger' as far as diseases go, but we don't allow predators to take a certain number of children and the elderly. Why is disease seen differently?
Nay Wilson 1 month ago
When I was a teenager 25 years ago I knew a woman who had polio when she was a child (so around 1950, before the vaccine was created). She had braces on her legs and used crutches to help her balance. Watching her walk was painful 😐 I will always, always advocate for vaccines
#16
The near-total breakdown of voice and video as proof of identity.
Right now, almost our entire financial, legal, and personal safety net relies on the phone call as the ultimate fallback for verification. If your account gets locked, you call a representative. If a bank suspects fraud, they call you. If a family member is in trouble, they call.
With real-time voice cloning and video generation getting dirt cheap and near-flawless, the concept of "I know it was you because I heard your voice" is going to evaporate. We are going to need physical tokens, shared offline passphrases, or in-person verification for routine things that currently take a 30-second call, and most institutions have zero infrastructure in place for when that switch has to happen.
#17
Another depression. People can barely afford their bills as is.
Tabitha 1 month ago
We need a debt jubilee, but not for corporations or those in the 1%. Just for those of us down here toward the bottom, who don’t make enough to keep body and soul together, and who will be homeless when we’re too old/sick to work, because we don’t have the extra change left after just paying basic living expenses to put into retirement investments. Definitely for the younger folks who have mountains of student loan debt that they will never be able to pay off. No debt jubilee for the rich because they don’t need it, @0and no debt jubilee Ike for corporations because they won’t use it properly (in other words, it won’t trickle down to employees but will trickle up to the executive suite, who also do not need it), but a full debt jubilee for the struggling who make up 99% of the population—-and who are the workers who actually make the money that trickles up to the owners, executives, and stockholders but never trickles down to them in the form of livable wages or bonuses.
#18
A near-global depression caused by oligarchs and their hunt for more all the time. It will coincide with severe food and water shortages, and lots of our established rule of law will be binned. There will be hundreds of millions less people on earth by the end of it. Starvation will be extreme in countries with little crops and soil fertility, and those which have been extremely corrupted.
Tabitha 1 month ago
Here’s the thing with the never ending “hunt for more”. There is a finite amount of everything. W*F are you going to do when you come e to the end of it? Oh yeah, that’s right. You’ll start taking the tiny amount that the rest of us have away from us. By force if necessary. Well, just know this. History has shown us that those who try that do not end very well.
#20
The most serious crisis in the Western world is the crisis of certainty. No one can ever be wrong anymore, publicly or privately. It’s destroying our ability to think critically and solve problems. And every other problem listed here, every single one, is made more serious and in some cases is *only possible* because of the certainty crisis. And the scariest thing about it is that it’s invisible, because in order to acknowledge it in a productive way you have to be willing to acknowledge the possibility that you might be one of the people who are wrong. And no one wants to do that.
Tabitha 1 month ago (edited)
AI slop, fake news, Fox News, lies coming out of the mouth of the lunatic in the White House. We cannot trust the news anymore, because we made the mistake of allowing corporations to control it, instead of keeping it sacrosanct and separated from their other holdings. That allowed them to dictate how and what is presented, and how it is skewed. We no longer have the kind of trust we used to have in the news, like we did back in the days of Walter Kronkite. Back then, if Walter said it, you could take it to the bank, because he reported the unbiased, unvarnished, and unspun truth as it was known at that moment—-and when it was found to be incomplete and/or incorrect, the news organization issued an immediate retraction and correction to what they reported. No entity had any sway over the facts, no corporation or individual could control what was said or how it was spun. Viewers were given facts, from which we could draw our own conclusions and make our own decisions. There was no manipulation, no algorithms, nothing to subtly sway us. Just facts. I want to go back to that kind of news reporting. I hope we end up with legislators who undo the c**p that’s been done, and help us get back to that again.
#21
The revolution.
#22
*Most* 11 and 12 year olds cannot read or write. They cannot hold a pen properly or read a full page of text and understand what it says.
They’ll be adults in a decade. Many, many adults will be unable to read or write in a decade.
Also in a decade many seniors will be requiring around the clock care and there will not be nearly enough caretakers. A huge generation is about to age out of independence. This is going to be a huge problem.
in two decades? Those soon to be adults will also develop early onset dementia and require around the clock care, probably in the same homes as the still alive boomers requiring care.
Essentially, everyone who chose not to have kids is going to be putting up with some form of them for the rest of their lives.
Luke || Kira (he/she) 1 month ago
There are already studies that over-reliance of AI can measurably atrophy one's brain. The situation in ~50-60 years when the current AI kids will start to get old is gonna be disastrous.
#25
AI bubble bursting. It'll happen much sooner than that.
#26
Famine
Large refugee movements
The true consequences of the breakdown in international cooperation.
#27
Please google Q-Day
Quantum computers will crack blockchains (yes Bitcoin, we mean YOU) and all conventional passwords within fractions of seconds.
Also: Will the first high potential quantum-computer be advertised (like "today XYZ presented their fully functional quantum-computer, operating at the ABC institute and making meteorological modeling a lot more precise") or will the entire NYC, London, Paris public transport, air-traffic-control and energy grid just brake down and we discover this way, that the Russians or Chinese have been faster.
Q-DAY - the day quantum-computers are able to break all conventional password encryption - has initially been expected around 2050. The number has recently been corrected to "between 2030 and 2040" and falls right in the 10 year frame of this question. I think 2030 is WAY more likely than 2035 ....
Luke || Kira (he/she) 1 month ago
At that point, the computer will develop consciousness and will either save or doom us all.
#28
Our children are too young to know the difference between real and fake media because fake is so common and well developed. They didn't live in a time when fakes were obvious.
#29
The gray wave of farmers all retiring and selling land they can no longer keep up en masse.
Corporations and data centers are buying it up like crazy. I’ve been researching how to stop it because I live in a primarily Agri community and there’s sooooooo many “for sale X acres” signs .
#30
A different group of religious conservatives will be threatening our freedoms.
#31
A massive increase in people being unable to afford insurance.
Not just health insurance either. Homeowners insurance, car insurance, flood insurance... entire areas are already becoming ridiculously expensive to insure, and eventually some places are probably going to hit the point where private insurers just can't afford it.
People are preparing for houses getting destroyed by disasters. Almost nobody seems prepared for the future where nobody can afford to insure their house anymore.
#33
The Thwaites glacier "plug" is GOING to collapse. In fact, may before the end of this year. It serves as kind of a cork for a MUCH larger ice sheet. Once it's gone, highly saline sea water will flood the underside of that glacier, and then it's game over for sea levels as we've understood them. No amount of carbon emissions bills will be able to stop that process once it's underway. We've blundered past the line. It's no longer about how to mitigate climate change's impacts, it's about how to survive them and the massive economic and political unrest they're going to cause. And that's not decade's down the line. You're already in the first days of that new era.
#34
Massive homeless encampments next to multi million dollar empty investment homes.
Luke || Kira (he/she) 1 month ago (edited)
If a society has both houseless people and people-less houses, then it's a failure. And I frankly don't give a flying fuㅤck is a homeless person "didn't earn it" or "is a druㅤg addiㅤct". All people deserve to be housed by default. ALL.
#35
I am 65. I have no doubt I will pass away in the next 10 years. At that point you will all be true and surely screwed. Because the world DOES revolve around me.
Lee Gilliland 1 month ago
I would be more concerned about living. It's about to get very expensive.
#36
The complete removal of photos / videos as admissible evidence in our justice system.
I’m not seeing this talked about much yet but it scares the heck out of me. Any video can be created of anyone doing a crime if the government or any person really, wants to see a specific person convicted and locked up. I just hope this is fully realized and laws changed *before* innocent people start being put behind bars. Honestly, it could’ve already happened without anyone knowing except the person sitting in prison who knows they couldn’t possibly have committed their crime. Very scary stuff! So much has and is going to change because of AI.
#37
A massive market correction that will ripple across every aspect of life. It will be big and it will be violent.
#38
A devaluation of the US dollar and loss of world res r rve currency status. The US wont default on its unpayable debt, just pay the debt in devalued dollars. Everything will almost instantly cost more especially anything imported and savings will lose value.
#40
Climate refugees. The planet is changing at an alarming rate. Not near enough is being done about it, and many areas are going to become uninhabitable. The people living in these areas have to go somewhere.
Luke || Kira (he/she) 1 month ago
And there are governments / political parties in almost every country whose #1 priority is making lives of those people as miserable as possible (like just yesterday, Germany has elected a naㅤzi party into the government whose literally ONLY program is anti-immigration)
#41
The water shortages.
Between climate change and AI - there's going to be a lot of places in the developed world that will be rationing water through cost, limits and fines.
#42
The need to retrofit homes with high-grade air filtration (for wildfire smoke), heavy-duty HVAC systems, and air-tight weather sealing to handle extreme climate events.
Nicole Weymann 1 month ago
I think that problem is very regionally specific. Doesn't apply where there are no big forests and ACs around (like California). The combination is not as universal as all that. For example: air vents are not a usual part of home construction where I live. On the other side of the spectrum: our current building regulations for eco friendly houses (in Germany) occasionally over deliver to the point that people have to deliberately "un-airtight" them and lessen the energy efficiency, aka open the windows to let some fresh air in, because otherwise the air gets too humid and promotes mold.
#43
Economic collapse with a food shortage due to climate change which will cause even more civil unrest than there already is, leading to a civil war.
#44
Natural disasters happening more often. More hurricanes, typhoons, tornados, heavy blizzards, giant hailstorms, floods, wildfires.
#45
The AMOC will collapse. It brings warm water to winter hemisphere and cool water to summer hemisphere. Losing it means more extreme temperatures, less rain, and the disintegration of food supply.
#48
Our baseline sense of "money value" is about to warp over the next decade, and I do not think most people have fully registered what it means.
Take $100,000 as a benchmark:
* **10 years ago:** $100,000 had the buying power equivalent to roughly **$139,000** in today's money.
* **10 years from now:** With standard inflation, that same $100,000 cash will likely only buy what **$71,880** buys today.
That is a massive drop in purchasing power in a relatively short window of time. $100k used to feel like a milestone number for security or middle-class stability, but it is rapidly turning into what $60k–$70k used to be.
If wages and salaries fail to keep pace with this trend, we are heading toward huge systemic issues—lifestyle compression, shifting definitions of retirement, and major economic friction for anyone relying solely on standard income or stagnant cash savings.
It feels like a quiet shift that everyone sees coming on paper, but very few are actively adjusting their lives for.
The Carters 1 month ago (edited)
I was raised in a farming community and barter and self sufficiency were the way to live. Very untrustful of banks and currency. I have been able to live free of debt mostly because I wanted that most of all. Planted an orchard and victory garden. Harvest rainwater. On a city plot. I have had lettuce all summer. It may be hard for those who don't understand home economics very well, for example internet service is astonishing expensive as is owning a car, and living without isn't something many could adjust to. There's a meme: These people are New Poor they don't get it, We're Old Poor - it helps to be Old Poor these days.
#49
Ai and robots taking jobs away from both skilled and unskilled workers. The cost of operating a robot is already approaching the equivalent of minimum wage.
#50
Government debt and spending has gone out of control and the only way to deal with it will be both massive spending cuts and tax increases.
By 2032ish half of all government spending will be just for paying interest on the debt.
All the debt the US accumulated since its inception has doubled in the last 10 years, and deficit spending has quadrupled in the last 10 years as well.
And the best thing is, we have jack to show for it, its all been squandered.
Spending cuts will mean your services and benefits. Even if we cut military spending in half it would only cover less than 1/3rd of the deficit spending. Expect a major recession due to job losses and money being taken out of the economy too.
Bjørn Langbakk 3 weeks ago
Krigen i Iran har økt gjelden i USA med flere milliarder dollar allerede
#51
Repercussions and eventuality of climate change. I live in an area where it is not just complete denial, they think the current trends disprove any sort of an issue and my own mother weirdly loves it.
#52
Climate change to a point where certain parts of the planet become uninhabitable. Sea levels rising and people moving away from coastal areas. More extreme heat events in the summers and increased forest fires. Certain regions starting to see physical conflict over water and other resources.
#53
Water rationing in more parts of the world.
#54
Massive Infertility due to heat stress, microplastics as hormone disruptors, and economic stress.
#58
Another collapse of the Russian government.
#59
Losing the ability to look forward to things you used to get excited about.
What do you think ?
Rick Murray 1 month ago
Let's throw into the mix the increasing attraction to people of far right politics because they provide "easy" solutions (kick out all the foreigners). It didn't work in 1939, it's not going to work in 2029. Life is about compromise to improve things together. Somewhere along the way this was badly damaged and now people want somebody to blame and it's the ones that can't fight back that are liable to suffer. Again.
Multa Nocte (she/her 8647) 1 month ago (edited)
This was a bad day to read this. I have a lot going on and this just dropped my morale to the bottom. I need to take article headline warnings more seriously and avoid ones like these, and this wasn't even the worst of the articles being trotted out today. Do any of you remember when Bored Panda used to be the place we came to relax and have fun?
Tamra 1 month ago
I completely understand. There seems to be an abundance of bad news these days, which makes navigating rough days or difficult situations even harder. Lately, I've had to draw my attention in to smaller things, little things that I can find gratitude for. I have to completely pull away from news and social media. I know it sounds like candy coated bull$hit, especially when you're really down, but sometimes even small fixes can be helpful. I hope for brighter days for you, Multa. You aren't alone.
Load More Replies...
Peter Bear 1 month ago
Is failing? No, no. HAS failed. America died a few days after 9/11 with the passing of the Patriot Act. That was the d***h blow, the beginning of the end for all of our freedoms that we're still systematically losing, and everything since then has been the rot setting in. For all the well-deserved hate for Trump, he isn't the problem and never was. He's just a symptom... and symptoms are sometimes what k**l you before the disease itself can.
Peter Bear 1 month ago (edited)
FFS. Dèath. Kìll. These are words. Censorship is part of what is kìlling America, because it's an assaùlt on freedoms. THERE IS NO PLACE FOR CENSORSHIP IN A FREE SOCIETY! And I will keep uncensoring my words until you ban me, you cowards.
Load More Replies... Rick Murray 1 month ago
Let's throw into the mix the increasing attraction to people of far right politics because they provide "easy" solutions (kick out all the foreigners). It didn't work in 1939, it's not going to work in 2029. Life is about compromise to improve things together. Somewhere along the way this was badly damaged and now people want somebody to blame and it's the ones that can't fight back that are liable to suffer. Again.
Multa Nocte (she/her 8647) 1 month ago (edited)
This was a bad day to read this. I have a lot going on and this just dropped my morale to the bottom. I need to take article headline warnings more seriously and avoid ones like these, and this wasn't even the worst of the articles being trotted out today. Do any of you remember when Bored Panda used to be the place we came to relax and have fun?
Tamra 1 month ago
I completely understand. There seems to be an abundance of bad news these days, which makes navigating rough days or difficult situations even harder. Lately, I've had to draw my attention in to smaller things, little things that I can find gratitude for. I have to completely pull away from news and social media. I know it sounds like candy coated bull$hit, especially when you're really down, but sometimes even small fixes can be helpful. I hope for brighter days for you, Multa. You aren't alone.
Load More Replies... Peter Bear 1 month ago
Is failing? No, no. HAS failed. America died a few days after 9/11 with the passing of the Patriot Act. That was the d***h blow, the beginning of the end for all of our freedoms that we're still systematically losing, and everything since then has been the rot setting in. For all the well-deserved hate for Trump, he isn't the problem and never was. He's just a symptom... and symptoms are sometimes what k**l you before the disease itself can.
Peter Bear 1 month ago (edited)
FFS. Dèath. Kìll. These are words. Censorship is part of what is kìlling America, because it's an assaùlt on freedoms. THERE IS NO PLACE FOR CENSORSHIP IN A FREE SOCIETY! And I will keep uncensoring my words until you ban me, you cowards.
Load More Replies...
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