A more reliable prediction framework

If I were to ask you what predictions could you place for the next 30 years of humanity, what would you say? Please think about it.

My predictions are as follows:

1. People will still have bodies
2. People will still be gambling
3. There will still be war/conflict/disputes
4. People will still have mental/physical diseases
5. People will still be using dugs for recreational purposes

Most people ask "What AI startup should I build in 2040?" when a more durable question is "What will very probably still be true in 2040?"

These predictions might seem overly generalized and vague and stupid, but I think these are the only relatively reliable predictions I can make right now speaking in a more so, generalized and non-specific sense. Of course I could go into more detail and say most of the children will still be birthed through natural ways or that the average increase in the population of the planet will be at around 0.63% or higher each year. But those are predictions that I would not bet on.

If I had 5 billion dollars, I would gladly place a billion on each of these predictions. Not because they are exciting, but because I believe they are among the few things about the next 30 years that I can predict with unusually high confidence.

Given the fact that I don't have 5 billion in my account at the moment, I build my future centered around those predictions and then making smaller bets on smaller derivations from these predictions, e.g. From these high-confidence assumptions, I can derive lower-confidence assumptions. If people still have bodies, they will still become sick. If they still become sick, healthcare will still exist in some form. If healthcare still exists, people will still study biology, chemistry, and medicine. Each step introduces uncertainty, but each step is anchored to something more fundamental.

Same with gambling, we could take the same approach but add a lot of different variables, but whether gambling companies are profitable, legal, politically accepted, or captured by a few dominant firms is a different prediction entirely.

A lot of things that can be derived with less certainty in such a top down approach, instead of the bottom up approaches I usually see people doing. Most forecasting seems to start from specific technologies, companies, or trends and then extrapolate upward. I prefer the opposite approach: start with assumptions about human nature that are unlikely to change and reason downward from there.

The future belongs less to those who predict the most, and more to those who build around the things they can predict with the greatest confidence.

The people who position themselves around the parts of the future they can predict with high confidence are more likely to benefit from whatever future actually arrives.