It sounds more than merely routinely curmudgeonly not to extend bland "best wishes" for the New Year, but let's get real. It's not going to work, for absolutely everyone.
However, the probabilities are clearly in favour of next year not being as bad as last year if 2012 was miserable. But nor will it be as good--if 2012 was brilliant.
The overall trend of the system is regression to the mean. The bad gets better, but the good gets worse (see Kahneman, 2011 ch. 17).
That of course does not preclude spikes. They are the spice which inhibit our inevitable descent into bland entropic goo.
So it goes (Vonnegut, passim) at the level of the system of the universe.
But subsystems can buck the trend (temporarily).
So have a happy new year! bearing in mind that may be at the expense of someone else's miserable one...
Sorry!
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Happy New Years. Let's hope it doesn't regress too far!
ReplyDeleteHappy(if a tad qualified and curmudgeonly) New Year to you too James.
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