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Unearthed 1997 Wired Article Predicted the 21st Century with Insane Accuracy
- Kaibeezy 5y agoHere's the original: Ten Scenario Spoilers, Wired, July 1997. https://archive.org/details/eu_Wired-1997-07_OCR/page/n134/mode/1up https://archive.org/details/eu_Wired-1997-07_OCR/page/n134/m...
- rbanffy 5y agoWe discussed it before https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26734647 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26734647
- Kaibeezy 5y agoWell, that’s the whole article. The “spoilers” sidebar itself specifically popped up today.
- vanusa 5y agoUmm, no. First off, it's diametrically wrong on the main takeaway right at the very top: We're facing 25 years of prosperity, freedom, and a better environment for the whole world. And while I don't have time to unpack a lot of the way-wrong predictions made, a few do seem to jump out: By about 2005, animals are used for developing organs that can be donated to humans By 2010, China is generally acknowledged to be on a path toward more democratic politics And (cringe): The vast majority of Americans who see their prospects rising with the expanding economy are genuinely sympathetic to the plight of those left behind. Along with essentially no mention of the reality of climate change, the emergence of social media and its effect on the collective psyche (as opposed to simply "videophones"); rampant inequality and the plague of populist politics, etc. TL;DR the original article gets a lot of stuff right, a lot of other stuff not so much or just plain wrong. An interesting read and not a bad attempt at holistic projection -- but "predicts with insane accuracy", well ... let's just say it didn't predict the
- webmaven 5y agoHmm. These spoilers are ten CYA get-out-of-jail-free-cards for the predictions in the main article. They aren't predictions per-se.