2012-11-02

Picking The Best Predictions Of All Time

Are 10 enough?

3 comments:

  1. Possibly. But I disagree that #8 came true. Localized famine, as noted, was not due to population growth but to local conditions and undependable distribution. At the same time as the noted famines, there were also huge food surpluses in various places... far more places than there were famines.

    There are some problems with some of other predictions as well. We tend to ignore parts of predictions which did not come true and even re-interpret some to make them seem prescient.

    We humans would love to reliably predict future events and we want to believe it can be done. The problem is that we can only pick and choose the seemingly true well after the events and we then ignore the thousands of predictions that feel by the wayside. Many of those predictions were made by the same people.

    My mother believed in fortune tellers and seers. I once told her I could predict the future and said that there would be three major train wrecks (derailments) in the next 12 months. Of course, I was wrong; there were more than three in that period but I was also correct in that there was not less than three.

    I am, of course, a cynic and atheist.

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  2. Oh, I think the reasons detailed in the article are not iron-clad, rock solid. I think the WWII thing is most accurate and interesting. How do you convince people of someone who clearly has a sinister plan? Churchill saw right through all the bull shit.

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    1. Yes, Churchill could observe the aftermath of the first war and easily see the future conflict looming as he watched Germany re-arm. I am sure that Churchill was not the only one... but he may have been the only one willing to acknowledge it publicly and, maybe, one of the few "in charge" willing to warn his nation (and the world) of the threat.

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