We've already started this year off with crazy shit. What else do you guys think will happen this year and why?

Violent chaos in the US. One of three things will happen:

The Supreme Court sides with the states that want to remove Trump from the ballot. Trump's minions cry foul and lose their minds.
Trump gets on the ballot but he loses to Biden again. Trump's minions cry foul and lose their minds.
Trump gets on the ballot and wins. Trump and the GOP take that as a mandate to govern with impunity, and run roughshod over the country.

Sure, violent chaos, but very localized. Even most right-wingers aren't devoted to that tool.

The ones that are... they'll be trouble, as you say.
- I’d be willing to bet money they’re a lot less localized than you think.
Yeeahhh that's kinda the vibe I've been getting as well
Yes and it would very much fit the pattern:

2020: pandemic millions die

2021: january 6th

2022: Ukraine is invaded by Russia

2023: Gaza

2024: ???
- 2024: Papua New Guinea launches nuclear device to blow up moon, because why not.

The lack of snowpack in the US plus ocean temps that are already 6σ over historical averages are probably going to make for an "interesting" summer. As a result, I suspect crop failures are going to get a lot more coverage this year.

This is the real scenario, right here. Everyone is so focused on increased disaster occurrences that it feels like this is invisible - until its not. Last summer Alberta was under drought conditions, and overall crop yields were 67% of the 5-yr average.

Less and less snowpack means less and less water to deal with worse and worse drought conditions.
- Not to mention increased wildfire risk.
- Also there’s a lot of political pressure disrupting farming too. Food could be a big problem this year.
- What about fudgepack how does that figure in?

No matter what happens in November, I expect this US presidential election cycle to be a shit show.

Jesus is coming back. AND THIS TIME...IT'S PERSONAL!

Reach out and touch faith.

More war. Not necessarily WW3 but an increase in the number of proxy type conflicts.

Let's see... Major ones are

Russia-Ukraine in Eastern Europe

Israel-Hamas in the Middle East

Civil war in Myanmar

Azerbaijan-Armenia

Possible flashpoints are

Taiwan-China (roping in the US)

Russia-NATO (Poland or the Baltics)

Iran-Israel (not entirely sure how that'll work since they're not directly adjacent)

North Korea-South Korea

I see the world coalescing into two major axes of power: "the West" and Western aligned/allied nations comprising US/UK/EU/Australia/Israel/Japan/S. Korea on one side. Largely Democracies or Parliamentary systems.

On the other: Russia, China, North Korea, Iran. Largely Autocracies, and one Autocracy with Chinese Characteristics™. All four have beef to pick with Western countries. They might press their advantages if they see that Western support for each other wavers (Ukraine and Israel). We're already seeing them warm in relations with each other (Putin/Kim visit, arms deals between Russia/China and Russia/N. Korea). They might form their own NATO style Bloc which would be stronger than the paper tiger that is the CIS. Combined, they may very well have the ability to split the West's priorities if internal division is strong.

I think it's going to get even more tense the further this decade goes on. The dice that is the US Presidential election may decide the next big moves of these nations.
- Two big factions fighting at many points across the globe is called a world war though
- Don't forget Pakistan and India and their weird alliances. Though I think the possible war part is on hold because of the floods.
  
  As for China they are probably shitting their pants when they saw what corruption did to the Russian military. They have to crack down on corruption, make sure their military is up to actual snuff, which pushes back any invasion hope.

Actual aliens will land and just be like "y'all need to chill the fuck out." And then quarantine the whole planet so we don't fuck up the rest of the galaxy until we get our collective shit together.

And we all will be like: "Who's fault is it!? The Russians! The Chinese! Old White Men! Young Black Men! The Jews! My stupid neighbour...!!!"
- "Actually it was the dolphins. You guys don't even wanna know what they say about humans."
I feel like if aliens rolled in it'd be violent somehow. Either some QAnon type schizoid takes shots at Intergalactic Franz Ferdinand and we get absolutely fucked in the war, or they land solely to tell us they're taking over.

But maybe I'm just looking at Earth's history of colonization of the various countries a bit too closely.
That would actually be a nice change. Can they also put the troublemakers in time out? Please?
- Maybe they could spank us too
You might be joking but a lot of indications are pointing at this. There has been a lot of buzz in the UAP community for the past three or four years and even some members of Congress are now starting to ask questions.

A congressman was interviewed a couple of days back and he was talking about a debriefing that he got from two Air force pilots that were flying just off the coast of Florida. They recently upgraded their radar systems and they've been detecting a lot of anomalies and have encountered craft that are behaving in ways that as of now we don't consider possible. He said with no quibble in the interview that the US or other foreign Nations have no equivalents of these crafts.

Now whether we're talking aliens, extra dimensional beings or non-human intelligence is anyone's guess but something is coming down the pipeline.
- Isn't that more likely to be an artifact of the brand-new radar system? New systems always have bugs.
- Yeah they shot down like 3 UFOs and a Chinese spy balloon. One of the UFOs was likely a hobby craft (the one in Alaska was likely a middle school science project). But the other two remain to be explained.
  
  A year later and we're back to just not talking about any of this, like usual.
- Now whether we're talking aliens, extra dimensional beings or non-human intelligence is anyone's guess but something is coming down the pipeline.
  
  With how, just... Uncool everything turns out once it's scientifically explained, that thing is probably nothing more than sasquatch. Instead of something that would change our very perceptions of reality, we just get a new species of primate that has somehow eluded capture for a long time.
- Occam's Razor tells me to ignore alien theories. There's so much secret shit being done, I'm certain it's all man-made.

I'm gonna find my g spot, because there's only so many places I can look.

To be honest every year seems to start with "crazy shit". We just notice it because "omg this year is so crazy already"

If recent history is any indication (it's not, but it's fun to think about), the craziness won't even start for a few weeks/months:

March 2014: MH370 disappeared.
March 2015: Germanwings Flight 4U 9525 is intentionally crashed in the Alps.
April 2016: The Panama Papers are leaked/published.
February 2017: The Oscars' presenters forget how to read.
February 2018: Parkland, Florida school shooting.
March 2019: The Boeing 737 Max is effectively banned from flights after a string of crashes.
March 2020: Covid doesn't start, but finally comes to a breaking point and restrictions are implemented across the US.
March 2021: The container ship Ever Given ran aground in the Suez Canal.
February 2022: Russia invades Ukraine.
February 2023: US Air Force shot down a Chinese spy balloon.

It all started with the Cubs winning the 2016 World Series. They didn't break the curse, they somehow transferred it to the rest of us.
- We need to go back Marty! We need to stop the Cubs from winning the world series!

A completely new type of cheese

I feel as though dolphin cheese remains largely unexplored
- I was thinking of pigs but I like the cut of your jib

China invades Taiwan and the US helps defend them.

China’s president Xi Jingping’s remarks about taking Taiwan back over during his address to the nation this year.
I work with someone who is currently high ranking in a corporation and is a retired submariner who was also in intelligence and is currently in the reserves. He has mandatory federally protected training upcoming this year over this exact scenario (basically, not all of their training is federally protected, meaning an employer can’t retaliate over taking time off to do mandatory training). The military is obviously convinced it’s a real possibility.

Invasion happens, computer hardware, processors and memory cost get fucked out of our minds again.

3a. Anything with a chip in its still expensive as fuck, putting further pressure on industries globally.

I'm finally buying a house and moving with my wife to rural northern Japan, so I can only assume that it will burn down, fall over, and sink into a swamp.

On a more serious note, the US political situation will probably get a lot worse before (and if) it gets better. It still does affect me since I still have to file taxes, still am restricted in investing overseas (thanks, lack of US recognition of Japanese retirement vehicles and punitive policies meant to prevent people investing in certain foreign investments (PFICs)). I still also have investments in the US, qualify for social security when I retire (assuming it still has any money to pay out in another 20ish years), and family living in the US, some of whom I would like to visit again before they pass.

Wow you are a lucky man! Rural Japan
- From my total and completely infallible knowledge of Japan learned from watching anime, this guy is going to be haunted by ghosts and have a bad time.

Fist fights on national television in American congress.

We could only be so lucky. It would hopefully start to take some of the older ones out of government.

I think combat drones will go full autonomous this year, as a means of overcoming control signal jamming.

It will be limited-mission autonomy, and only as a capability not the default operational mode, but there will be a huge push to make the newest drones capable of continue the mission in the event of lost connection with their remote controller.

It will also be necessary because of the sheer numbers of drones involved in the Ukraine war. There simply won’t be enough pilots.

Obviously, autonomy already exists. Iron Dome operates autonomously, because attackers have the initiative, the robot is required for fast-enough response.

Hopefully a massive gamma-ray burst aimed directly at Earth.

Why kill everyone if you just want to kill yourself? I'm pretty happy with my life!

Switzerland will invade France, take hold of their nuclear arsenal and fire all of it at both poles, just for the lols.

I hope for the 0.19.2 federation bug fix 😭

Lots of hope and love to the developers 💖