Absolutely spot on article in many ways
Good article. I've made predictions and observed what really happened for years now and the concepts are spot on.
However, the article is wordy. The editor needs an editor. ;-)
read later
Great read
From Michael Crichton’s lecture at Caltech “Aliens cause global warmin’”.
“Let’s think back to people in 1900 in, say, New York. If they worried about people in 2000, what would they worry about? Probably: Where would people get enough horses? And what would they do about all the horse****?
Horse pollution was bad in 1900, think how much worse it would be a century later, with so many more people riding horses? But of course, within a few years, nobody rode horses except for sport.
And in 2000, France was getting 80% its power from an energy source that was unknown in 1900. Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Japan were getting more than 30% from this source, unknown in 1900. Remember, people in 1900 didn’t know what an atom was.
They didn’t know its structure.
They also didn’t know what a radio was,
or an airport,
or a movie,
or a television,
or a computer,
or a cell phone, or a jet, an antibiotic, a rocket, a satellite, an MRI, ICU, IUD, IBM, IRA, ERA, EEG, EPA, IRS, DOD, PCP, HTML, internet. interferon, instant replay, remote sensing, remote control, speed dialing, gene therapy, gene splicing, genes, spot welding, heat-seeking, bipolar, prozac, leotards, lap dancing, email, tape recorder, CDs, airbags, plastic explosive, plastic, robots, cars, liposuction, transduction, superconduction, dish antennas, step aerobics, smoothies, twelve-step, ultrasound, nylon, rayon, teflon, fiber optics, carpal tunnel, laser surgery, laparoscopy, corneal transplant, kidney transplant, AIDS. None of this would have meant anything to a person in the year 1900. They wouldn’t know what you are talking about.
Now. You tell me you can predict the world of 2100. Tell me it’s even worth thinking about. Our models just carry the present into the future. They’re bound to be wrong. Everybody who gives a moment’s thought knows it.”
Maybe self-driving cars won't lead people to want longer commutes or to own bigger cars. Maybe they will gravitate toward small, shared, electric vehicles. The actual result will undoubted be a mix of these things, but we don't yet know in what direction that mix will be tilted. And we won't know for decades.
"Futurists" these days are the ones with the fingers on the scales. They create the "future" by regulating the present away, and allowing only what they want to be in the future. Like Obama supporting solar and wind while putting national monuments over the gas and oil.