I am confident about the upcoming decade. I think by the end of it, the current mess will be mostly over and we will be on track for a good sustainable semi-utopian future for humanity. I'll briefly list the reasons below. Even if you don't share my overall optimism, please at least consider these as good and interesting developments to watch out for.
Biotechnology: Things will start to arrive in a big way. By the end of the decade, we will see many new medical treatments, improved industrial processes, efficient carbon sinks, etc. Things will only just be getting started, relative to their potential, but a lot of good things will have already happened and people will understand that more good stuff is coming.
Plant-based meat: Impossible Foods is shooting for 2022 as the year that high-quality plant-based burger patties become as cheap as the dead-cow version. I'll apply the 'Elon Musk Adjustment' to that goal and say it will probably happen between 2023 and 2027. Assuming they (or someone with similar tech) can scale up production, people will be able to conveniently replace most of their meat consumption, giving us a huge win for health, environment, and ethics.
Scientific Research: We have learned many lessons from the replication crisis. Data openness is now an established thing. By the end of the decade, most research will be freely available, with all source data online in ways that allow not just for replication and error-checking, but also massive meta-analyses that give us highly-powered studies to untangle a lot of hard questions.
Renewable Energy: With continued progress in solar and next-gen nuclear power, we should see grid parity in lots of places by the end of the decade. Between this and plant-based meat, our carbon footprint should start to get a lot smaller.
Space Travel. I am pretty confident that we will have a manned research outpost on Mars by the end of the decade, as well as the beginnings of a space-based economic infrastructure with asteroid mining etc. that will allow humanity to really start expanding beyond our home planet.
Politics: If you take a step back from the hype cycle of people trying to generate clicks by preying on your negative emotions, you will realize that the current mess shows just how resilient the system is. Most of the day-to-day details of governance, like food safety inspections, are ticking along in regular order despite the chaos and dysfunction that grabs the headlines. Just like with all the crap and violence in the 60s and 70s (which was much worse than the last two decades) by the end of the decade people should settle down and realize that we are all in this together and things are mostly okay.
Consumer Tech: Never underestimate the capacity of our civilization to create compelling consumer products. I won't make any predictions about specific things, but by the end of the decade, there will probably be at least one thing that generates value and convenience equivalent to the introduction of smartphones.
Logistics: Just as in the military, in the civilian economy the professionals talk logistics. By the end of the decade, much of the warehousing and delivery infrastructure will be extensively automated, making everything that can be delivered in a box cheaper and more convenient to purchase. This improved supply chain efficiency will have more of an immediate macroeconomic effect than anything (possibly everything) else on the list, significantly lowering consumer goods price inflation.
Basic Income: If you don't need the services of a credentialed professional, or space in a high-rent area, a good life is already incredibly cheap. Not counting rent and health insurance, I pay about $300 a month for a lifestyle that would seem shockingly rich and comfortable to anyone other than a modern professional. The basic essentials of life are only going to get cheaper in real terms. By the end of the decade, there will be a growing realization that wealthy countries can and should give their citizens a basic income of about $5,000 a year (i.e. spending about 10% of their GDP). Living only on this would require you to live in the boonies, and will only buy a 'minimal' standard of basic health care (i.e. the stuff that you could get 40 years ago, but of better quality), and you couldn't afford any expensive hobbies like drinking, but this would essentially end deprivation and exploitation.
Add all of this up, and we will be well on our way to a Star Trek kind of world, 100 years ahead of schedule (assuming we can skip the Eugenics Wars).
