Yes, but you can project current trends as they tend toward inertia. For a future to be different, a change must be made in the present. Is there some goal you have for twenty thirteen?
It'll be a year when the gullible and the pessimists and the scaremongerers all search for some new disaster (such as the asteroid impact of 2036, for example) to start writing books about. Leaving plenty of time for happy activity, just like we had after 1984 turned into 1985, and after the Millenium Bug failed to exist. For the first time in a generation, everyone who thinks about those sort of things will have a looooong time to wait, and that means Positivity.
Psychologically the propensity to look for end times is a way of having company during our own inevitable demise. You don't loose in comparison if everyone is on their way out. As far as what may occur in twenty thirteen, you cannot guaranty that you will be present any more than you can guaranty that you won't, so I don't see how your predictions are any more reliable. Optimism nor pessimism is as meaningful as appreciation of this moment.
1984 was only delayed until after 911 which ushered in a new age of government control and put an end to basic human and civil rights Hotwater
from 1984 to 2001 was seventeen years, which is a looong time to wait, like I said. and 2013 to 2036 will be an even looooonger time, hence the positivity. and if civil rights ended with 911, then Obama wouldn't be US president now.
we will know who the u.s. president is going to be for the fallowing three years. i will turn 65 and be eligible for medicare under existing laws. 2012 won't really be the past until after the (u.s. presidential) election. i hope i will be living and someplace healthier for me then where i am. there are no guarantees of either. everything else i'm interested in will only have advanced by notches, not quantum leaps. hopefully none of what i fear will have done worse either.
Hold onto your hats, it's going to be as memorable as 1913 was! (surely everyone knows three things that happened in 1913, right?)
Someone recently pointed out that 2013 is the first year since 1987 in which all the digits are different. That hadn't even occurred to me before.