System theorists know that it's easy to couple simple-to-understand systems into a "super system" that's capable of displaying behavioral modes that cannot be seen in any of its constituent parts. This is the process called "emergence."

I do not believe that there is any person, method, or tool that can consistently and reliably predict specific human events, X- or otherwise.

Trying to solve the problem by creating more debt is analogous to trying to stop being an alcoholic by going on a bender down at the corner bar.

If you ask which of the scenarios I think is most dangerous, though, I will give a different answer. In that form of the question, I regard a nuclear attack, terrorist-generated or otherwise, as the most threatening combination of likelihood and long-term damage to modern life today.

If the group has a negative social mood, believing that tomorrow will be worse than today, the bias goes in the opposite direction. Instead of "welcoming" we have "rejecting," instead of "global" we tend to see events that are "local" and so forth.

Once the reality sets in of a superhuman intelligence being in control of every aspect of the infrastructures we rely upon for everyday life, we will simply have to try to come to an accommodation with that entity.

In fact, the very nature of an X-event is that it is both rare and surprising. So I would not say that any specific X-event is likely. What I would say, though, is that some X-event is not only plausible, but very likely in a time scale of a few years.