Dear 2017, Go Fuck Yourself

Although there are still two weeks left in the year, I think this is a good time to start the year-in-review blog post cycle, in which we take a look back on the predictions I made at the beginning of the year to see whether I have a future in prognostication or if I ought to just hang on to my day job. Recalling the predictions from 28 December 2016:

1. Successfully completed the 2017 Atacama Crossing? That's a big ol' NOPE right there. My knee injury made damn sure that this wasn't going to be happening.
2. Still working at the same company? Yep. Although I was wrong about the outcome of the engineering promotion process; I didn't think that I'd be successful in that endeavour, but I was.
3. Same apartment? Yep. Lease is renewed for another year, although I am even more focused on getting the fuck out of SF for 2019.
4. Dating anyone? This one is actually difficult to answer, because there is someone in my life who an outside observer might see as someone that I'm dating, but TBH I'm not really sure what we are doing. We were boyfriend and girlfriend, then shit happened, then we were friends, and now I don't know what you'd call it. It feels like more than friends, but nobody has attempted to relabel it a relationship, so I guess that's about as close to "dating" as one can get? For purposes of rating my predictions, I'm going to say that this one was a flop. I thought I wouldn't be dating anyone, but I am (or at least there's someone that I really like and who I think likes me back).
5. Closer to 200 than 250? Nope. Much closer to 250 than 200. The knee injury and subsequent rehab period have had a lot to do with that; it's really easy to pack on the pounds when you can't run or lift or ski or do much of anything for a few months.

It is funny that I said I wasn't expecting my life to be particularly chaotic in 2017, and that I wasn't planning any major life changes. It started out calm enough, but the knee injury and aftermath therefrom in April pretty much fucked up the entire rest of my year:
- No Ozora^[1]
- Early end to the ski season
- Packed on a good 10-15 pounds of organic insulation^[2]
- Had a major falling out with one of my closest friends^[3]

Unrelated to my knee, my divorce was officially finalized, and C popped out a minion. Even though said minion has nothing to do with me, since C is still my best friend, I think it qualifies as a chaotic life event.

6. I predicted that North Korea would conduct a successful test of their weapons delivery system. That didn't exactly happen, although they have been conducting more missile tests, and it seems that they are farther along in their nuclear program than US intelligence gave them credit for. Of course, I also predicted that Kim Jong Un would actually lob a nuke at a populated area and his country would be turned into a glass parking lot; that didn't happen.
7. The Supreme Court did NOT reverse Roe V. Wade. Got that one right.
8. There have not been any CBRN terrorist attacks on major world cities. There were certainly terrorist attacks on major world cities, but they were all done the old-fashioned way, with conventional weapons. Got that one wrong.
9. No more countries attempted to leave the EU. Got that one wrong.
10. The Dow appears headed for a year-end close over 24000. I got that one way wrong; I thought we'd have a 10% decline. I said that gold would be around $1300/oz - the current spot price is $1261, so I'm calling that one a success. Finally, I said that bitcoin would be at an all-time high, which is certainly true, although I thought it would close the year somewhere around $1500. I was only off by a factor of 10. But hey, I wasn't wrong!
11. The Chicago Cubs did NOT repeat as World Series champs. Got that one wrong - the Cubs didn't even make it to the WS.
12. The Golden State Warriors DID avenge last year's defeat in the NBA playoffs. Got that one right.
13. Ronda Rousey has, I believe, retired from MMA. She definitely has not won any more fights in the UFC. Nailed it.

I got 5 out of 13 completely right, 3 partially right, and I completely fucked up the other 5. I probably shouldn't go quitting my day job anytime soon. Or, if I do, I should probably have another one lined up, because I'm not cutting it in the prediction business.

Anyway, with that out of the way, let me just say that I will not be sorry to see the end of 2017. Yeah, some good things happened this year, but I think on the whole, it's been one for the trash heap. Fuck, we need look no farther than the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to see just how bad things have become.

Although, oddly enough, if I look at my life in particular, I can't identify a single thing that Trump has done which has made my life measurably better or worse. He's done a lot of yammering at his critics on Twitter, and he's fought with pretty much everybody, but in terms of actual policies that have been enacted? Aside from the much-maligned travel ban and his rescinding of DACA, neither of which have anything to do with me, he actually hasn't accomplished that much that I can see. We still have Obamacare. The GOP tax plan looks like it's going to get passed before the end of the year, but based on the most recent calculator I messed around with, my taxes actually do go down.

Of course, the flip side of this coin is that we're not even a full year into a Trump administration, and the wheels appear to be coming off like a prom dress. Whether or not Mueller finds sufficient evidence to link Trump himself to this Russia election scandal remains to be seen, but it would not surprise me in the least. I think, though, that in some ways it isn't going to matter if Trump gets impeached and removed from office for election tampering, or if more women come forward and accuse him of sexual harassment and he's booted out that way. Even if Trump were to be out of office tomorrow, there is so much latent damage that has been done in any number of areas that it is going to take a lot longer than a year to recover.

I think America's reputation abroad can be repaired relatively easily if we get a reasonable person back in the White House, but I think it's going to take much longer to repair the American psyche. We've had issues for years now with wingnuts on either side co-opting the political process, but now we have foreign meddling, "fake news" (of the actually-fake kind, not just the Trumpian-fake kind) on social media outlets which influenced voters in the last election, and more distrust of ALL media outlets than I think there has ever been. We all know that the major news outlets are bought and owned by corporate America and they slant their reporting one way or the other based on the ideological bent of their overlords, but there's a big difference between knowing that CNN or FOX is biased versus simply not believing empirically-true facts just because they're presented by one of these news outlets.

It's great to question the information that the media outlets are trying to spoon-feed us, but it's also impossible for us to go out there and verify everything for ourselves, which means that eventually we have to believe SOMEBODY. The problem is that when we're going into a decision with a mindset of "trust no one, Agent Mulder," it becomes really easy to be led astray by emotion or what we believe to be instinct, no matter how completely wrong our thought process may be. This is not a post-fact world; certain things are undeniably true and certain things are undeniably false. The earth is ROUND, motherfuckers. If you genuinely believe otherwise, please don't reproduce.

I am veering off the designated path a bit; this post wasn't intended to be a rant on Donald Trump or the cult of stupidity which has taken over America. However, if we're reviewing 2017, it's impossible to deny the impact that these things have had. I don't see 2018 getting any better unless Trump actually does get impeached and convicted; I doubt we're going to see a nuclear fireball over the Golden Gate bridge or any other kind of armed conflict with DPRK (or anyone else that we aren't currently bombing), but the integrity of the American political system is in worse shape than I think it's ever been, and if things start to really go tits-up, it's going to be a disaster of generational proportions. Hopefully the house of cards remains stable for at least another couple of years - long enough for my day job to IPO - so I can cash in my chips and get the fuck out of here.

More to come on 2017 wrap-up and predictions for 2018 in the next post.