WHEN I looked at the calendar last week and found that my last column of the year would fall on the last day of the year, I flipped a coin to decide whether I would write a review of 2023 or a preview of 2024. 'Review' was actually the call, so I flipped the coin a few more times. As years go — and I have by now a discouragingly large number of them with which I can compare it — 2023 did not seem especially profound; it might, a generation hence, but at this point rehashing it just seems boring. So, let's look ahead instead. There are five predictions for the coming year, but they are not presented in any meaningful order; I consider them all equally likely to happen.

Spoiler alert: If you are looking for reasons to be optimistic about the near future, you're in the wrong place.