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Here's something I've noticed about looking back at predictions of the future: They're all wrong, but some people are bound and determined to claim some of them
by derleth 14y ago
Here's something I've noticed about looking back at predictions of the future: They're all wrong, but some people are bound and determined to claim some of them are more-or-less accurate even if it means twisting the author's words beyond all reason. Therefore, someone who predicted a home news service based around everyone having a Telex terminal in their home will be hailed as predicting the Internet.
It's something that always happens. I don't know why.
- Apocryphon 14y agoIt's something akin to the anthropic principle, but for prognostication.
- unimpressive 14y agoOne man can believe that he lives in utopia, and another think himself in a dystopia, and both be right.
- lutusp 14y agoAn optimist and a pessimist have a debate. The optimist says, "We live in the best of all possible worlds!" The pessimist says, "Yeah!" Both declare victory.
- eli_gottlieb 14y agoMeanwhile, some guy on the other side of the world finally makes the breakthrough that will prove them both wrong. "Hitherto, philosophers have sought to understand the world; the point, however, is to change it."
- lutusp 14y agoI think you know that nothing is easier than diagnosing the world's ills, and nothing harder than inventing a realistic remedy. Also, I don't think philosophers understand the world -- they only understand other philosophers.
- eli_gottlieb 14y agoI think you know that nothing is easier than diagnosing the world's ills, and nothing harder than inventing a realistic remedy. Certainly, but I'm also trying to point out that anyone who thinks they fully understand the world, well enough to predict it ahead of time without imposing their predictions on reality themselves, is almost definitely wrong. The optimist is wrong. The pessimist is wrong. The world will get worse and better, in ways we don't expect. The things we expect for the future are mostly extrapolations of the present anyway, and mostly won't happen. And most of the world's problems are either self-imposed or get solved by the long, unacknowledged efforts of hundreds of thousands of people slowly chipping away at them...
- hatu 14y agoThis is why Nostradamus was one of the best at prediction, all of his predictions were incredibly vague when you look at them objectively and can be twisted to foretold almost any major world event.
- rmc 14y agoBest? Or Worst? :P A vague, unfailable prediction is terrible.
- aswanson 14y agoHence, modern day adherents of astrology. There is something in the human mind that wants to conform vague patterns to experienced instance, for whatever reason.