# Things that "can't happen" that are poised to happen soon **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 15, 2018, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-cant-happen-that-are-poised-to-happen-soon/819640 "2018-08-15T06:21:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2018, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-cant-happen-that-are-poised-to-happen-soon/819640/81 "2018-08-19T17:27:46Z")
“America headed for tyrannical dystopia?” Get a grip. Those are real words. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2018, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-cant-happen-that-are-poised-to-happen-soon/819640/82 "2018-08-19T18:08:11Z")
It’s disappointing this thread has deteriorated into another Trump/Clinton thread political thread. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2018, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-cant-happen-that-are-poised-to-happen-soon/819640/83 "2018-08-19T19:18:05Z")
The Cincinnati Bengals will win a playoff game. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2018, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-cant-happen-that-are-poised-to-happen-soon/819640/84 "2018-08-20T19:15:33Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > We keep hearing on the one hand that Hillary won the popular vote and that Trump only won because millions of blue voters stayed home and also that demographics will rise a Democratic tide to dominance in the decades ahead, and then also now that the left will always be weak and not able to overcome the GOP. Hillary and the Democrats aren’t left wing, they are centrists at best. Trump and the Republicans won despite getting fewer votes because the electoral system is designed to favor them. And we’ve put fascists into power, and fascists have a straightforward way of dealing with being at a demographic disadvantage: mass murder. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2018, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-cant-happen-that-are-poised-to-happen-soon/819640/85 "2018-08-21T03:42:28Z")
Scientists will find evidence of life on Mars! ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2018, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-cant-happen-that-are-poised-to-happen-soon/819640/86 "2018-08-21T11:52:14Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > Does _The Wizard of Oz_ count? Only if you also listen to _Dark Side of the Moon_ at the same time. ---
**Author:** ![Heracles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heracles/32/487_2.png) [@Heracles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heracles)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2018, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-cant-happen-that-are-poised-to-happen-soon/819640/87 "2018-08-21T14:12:24Z")
> [@Crazy\_Canuck](#): > > I had a very interesting discussion with a relatively high-ranking officer in the Canadian military a while back. It was his professional opinion that there will be some sort of violent conflict between Canada and the US in the next thirty years over fresh water. We (Canada) are going to lose, and if we’re very, very lucky, it won’t start WW3, but he’s not holding his breath. > > I’m a bit skeptical, but this guy is smarter than me, better informed than me, and he was stone cold serious about this, so I can’t dismiss it out of hand. I wish I could. I was going to propose this as well (no pun intended). The WW3 part is far-fetched (something else will trigger it), but the bilateral commissions that manage the Great Lakes and other straddling bodies of water will become increasingly politicised, and eventually they’ll just disband the commissions and start draining the lakes on the South side. ---
**Author:** ![yo\_han\_go](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yo_han_go/32/130_2.png) [@yo\_han\_go](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yo_han_go)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2018, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-cant-happen-that-are-poised-to-happen-soon/819640/88 "2018-08-21T23:57:46Z")
There will be one peculiar major natural disaster, that has never happened before and everybody will point to “human impact” looking for scape goat, thus significantly worsening situation. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2018, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-cant-happen-that-are-poised-to-happen-soon/819640/89 "2018-08-22T15:33:13Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > America is heading for a tyrannical dystopia very soon. Several years ago I would have never thought this would be possible in a million years. Now we are heading there in a very real way. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2018, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-cant-happen-that-are-poised-to-happen-soon/819640/90 "2018-08-23T05:37:48Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Hillary and the Democrats aren’t left wing, they are centrists at best. BS. I’m guessing your definition of “not left wing” is “anything to MY right”. > [@](#): > > Trump and the Republicans won despite getting fewer votes because the electoral system is designed to favor them. BS. We won because Hillary campaigned very little or not at all in borderline states, which Bill REPEATEDLY warned her about. In other words, the major reason we won is that Hillary was stupid. > [@](#): > > And we’ve put fascists into power, and fascists have a straightforward way of dealing with being at a demographic disadvantage: mass murder. Fascists like Stalin? Orwell, _Politics and the English Language_: > [@](#): > > The word _Fascism_ has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies “something not desirable”. … Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different. … Other words used in variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly, are:\* class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality\*. > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > And if anything left wingers are more likely to be silenced on campuses than right wingers; Fox should never be believed in anything it says. Utter BS, as anyone who reads ANY half-way reliable news source is patently aware of. > [@Crazy\_Canuck](#): > > I had a very interesting discussion with a relatively high-ranking officer in the Canadian military a while back. It was his professional opinion that there will be some sort of violent conflict between Canada and the US in the next thirty years over fresh water. Maybe it’s just one scenario, like the one we have about invading Canada. The levels of the Great Lakes would have to go WAY down to affect anything. MAYBE in this scenario, rainfall drops to desert levels due to climate change. Still very hard to believe. > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > An essentially single-race, single-party, single-religion America, since everyone insufficiently white, Republican or Christian will be either driven out of the country or killed within the next decade or two. This is just insane. > [@](#): > > I find it much more likely that civil rights for LGBT (and everyone else) have passed their peak, and what LGBT advocates want will no longer be a factor since every known or suspected LGBT person in the US will have either fled or been rounded up and tortured to death in “conversion” camps. Again, just insane. A far greater but still very small danger is that extremist Muslims will visit their preferred punishments on LGBT people. I’ll give Orwell the last word (from _Notes on Nationalism_, emphasis added): > [@](#): > > The average intellectual of the Left believed, for instance, that the war was lost in 1940, that the Germans were bound to overrun Egypt in 1942, that the Japanese would never be driven out of the lands they had conquered, and that the Anglo-American bombing offensive was making no impression on Germany. He could believe these things because his hatred for the British ruling class forbade him to admit that British plans could succeed. **There is no limit to the follies that can be swallowed if one is under the influence of feelings of this kind.** I have heard it confidently stated, for instance, that the American troops had been brought to Europe not to fight the Germans but to crush an English revolution. **One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.** ---
**Author:** ![russian\_heel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f05b48/32.png) [@russian\_heel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/russian_heel)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2018, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-cant-happen-that-are-poised-to-happen-soon/819640/91 "2018-08-23T07:24:03Z")
I know it’s in parenthesis but perhaps “Can’t happen” is best replaced by “seemingly impossible”, “highly improbable” or “unthinkable” because as we have learned with Trump, the Cubs, Leicester, the Philadelphia Eagles, and Brexit ANYTHING can happen. Mine are —I have a bad gut feeling and I pray I am wrong that a 1906 SAN Francisco scale-of-catastrophe earthquake will hit a major US or Canadian city outside of the west coast in the next 20 years. Everyone is bracing for the Big One to hit California---- lets not be so sure —An African or Asian team will win the World Cup by 2030 —One EU country will break out in violent civil war by 2026 —A non-power conference school will win the NCAAF championship by 2029 Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2018, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-cant-happen-that-are-poised-to-happen-soon/819640/92 "2018-08-23T08:27:48Z")
Canadians everywhere, realizing the lie that the White House wasn’t actually burned down by Canadians as their schools have taught them, will begin to openly question everything about Canadian culture and history. Next up - Was the Avro Arrow really the greatest aircraft ever designed or is that completely overblown? ---
**Author:** ![Lorne\_Armstrong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@Lorne\_Armstrong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lorne_Armstrong)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2018, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-cant-happen-that-are-poised-to-happen-soon/819640/93 "2018-08-24T00:55:22Z")
Bill Cosby will go to prison for rape. ---
**Author:** ![dorvann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df705f/32.png) [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2018, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-cant-happen-that-are-poised-to-happen-soon/819640/94 "2018-08-24T03:14:47Z")
> [@russian\_heel](#): > > snip > > —I have a bad gut feeling and I pray I am wrong that a 1906 SAN Francisco scale-of-catastrophe earthquake will hit a major US or Canadian city outside of the west coast in the next 20 years. Everyone is bracing for the Big One to hit California---- lets not be so sure > > snip People have been predicting a major earthquake in the New Madrid Fault Zone for decades. So you maybe right. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New\_Madrid\_Seismic\_Zone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Madrid_Seismic_Zone) ---
**Author:** ![Textual\_Innuendo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/898d66/32.png) [@Textual\_Innuendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Textual_Innuendo)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2018, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-cant-happen-that-are-poised-to-happen-soon/819640/95 "2018-09-02T01:48:14Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > There will be a major american election where one or more branches of the federal government rejects the validity of the outcome and refuses to honor it, proposing that people maintain the prior status quo while things are ‘worked out’. I think this is the most credible one so far - I’d put money on this one, in a prediction market. Any skeptics want to offer timeframe+odds on a wager? ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2018, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-cant-happen-that-are-poised-to-happen-soon/819640/96 "2018-09-02T02:15:58Z")
2018, 2:1 odds, bragging rights. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2018, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-cant-happen-that-are-poised-to-happen-soon/819640/97 "2018-09-02T11:53:10Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > 2018, 2:1 odds, bragging rights. ? What ? 2018 ? Pretty sure that’s going to happen. ---
**Author:** ![El\_DeLuxo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_deluxo/32/9043_2.png) [@El\_DeLuxo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_DeLuxo)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2018, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-cant-happen-that-are-poised-to-happen-soon/819640/98 "2018-09-02T13:01:35Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > We keep hearing on the one hand that Hillary won the popular vote and that Trump only won because millions of blue voters stayed home and also that demographics will rise a Democratic tide to dominance in the decades ahead, and then also now that the left will always be weak and not able to overcome the GOP. Something’s got to give. Hilary Clinton is not a leftist. She’s a tidj to the left of, oh I dunno–Mel Gibson, let’s say? But that is only going so far. She’s a rich white American with all the conformist,homogenized safe-and-comfortable background assumptions which go with it. Her opinions and pronouncements echoed the liberal end of the establishment’s same-old-same-old. That’s only Left by comparison with hard Right. The USA and similar nations are actually stuck so deep in the Right that even the Center looks Left to them. Actual over-here-on-the-Left thought and politics gets no play in the USA, largely due to the ugly streak of sanctimony and conformity that’s so common here. That, and the vast amount of time and energy and money that those who most value the status quo, can pump into its life-saupport. ---
**Author:** ![Textual\_Innuendo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/898d66/32.png) [@Textual\_Innuendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Textual_Innuendo)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2018, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-cant-happen-that-are-poised-to-happen-soon/819640/99 "2018-09-02T14:40:43Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > 2018, 2:1 odds, bragging rights. Wow. So unless I’ve misunderstood, you think there’s only a 66% chance this will NOT happen in November 2018? That’s actually a lot closer in time than my head was, I was prepared to bet 2020 / 2024 timeframes, but it seems you’re even more pessimistic/confident about this happening than I am! I came in there thinking to bet on the affirmative, but I’ll take that bet on the “won’t happen in 2018” side, and wager the princely sum of 100 bragging rights! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2018, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-cant-happen-that-are-poised-to-happen-soon/819640/100 "2018-09-02T15:24:42Z")
I’m so pessimistic about human beings that nothing horrible seems impossible to me. Name something good that seems impossible. Can ya? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-cant-happen-that-are-poised-to-happen-soon/819640.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-cant-happen-that-are-poised-to-happen-soon/819640.md?page=6)