Considering that we could just end up with covid 2 tomorrow it seems that any answer is going to be arbitrary so might as well give an optimistic one. The West’s slide to the right is prevented by a leftist surge as parties such as Labour and the Democrats realise that they can’t win by trying to attract the right, and so instead double down on progressive policy - which works for them as they’re able to reform their image and start really appealing to the people.
AI slop starts to falter as it feeds off of self-produced training data until it becomes literally incomprehensible, meaning that it can be easily ignored or not understood by the majority of people, as well as being banned on the rising stars of the internet: federated social media, independent streaming services (think Nebula, Dropout), and newly-independent news sites, like Giant Bomb.
The climate change issue is now taken more seriously, as the generations unfamiliar with the internet who could be sucked into misinformation rabbit holes start to die off, and policymakers who have grown up understanding the existential threat it poses to all of us take power.
The workplaces of large corporations start unionising, even illegally at first, and establish strong community centred power bases which are used to demand better treatment not only in the workplace, but also to bargain with the government. A focus returns to the local community.
(I know all this is very wishful thinking, but figured the thread could use some more positivity 🫶)
