You Never Can Tell

American Spectator ^ | 5-12-06 | Ralph R. Reiland

[Renfield]

When figuring out what to do about the overall energy situation, or predicting the future, I confess to having some degree of modesty.

Looking at all the bad predictions from smart people in the past, it's easy to be less than confident when it comes to forecasting what's going to happen 10 and 50 years from now with oil, solar batteries, wave power, ethanol, Chinese motoring, hybrid cars, nuclear power, energy wars, windmills, bicycle sales, wood chips, melting glaciers or switch grass.

Here, for example, are some of the more notable predictions from experts on things a lot less complicated than today's energy issues.

Explained David Sarnoff, general manager of RCA, in 1955, "Television will never be a medium of entertainment." Interestingly, that lack of vision sounded not unlike the advice Sarnoff received three decades earlier from his associates when he recommended investments in radio. "The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value," they advised, regarding the potential for radio advertising. "Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?"

In 1929, on the eve of the greatest stock market crash in American history, Irving Fisher, professor of economics at Yale University, predicted a long stretch of smooth sailing. "Stocks," he advised, "have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." ......

[Renfield]

The "experts" are often wrong.

[metesky]

If any of the so-called "experts" were really prescient, they'd be permanently camped at the sports book in Vegas.

[Matchett-PI]

Conventional wisdom (consensus) is hardly EVER right. bttt

[cgbg]

The definition of an expert is someone who traveled a long distance to speak to an audience.

In the last century they were called "snake oil salesman". :-)

[Covenantor]

"Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1.5 tons."

Just imagine the lines in front of the tube testers at your local drug store or grocery. People would have to spend most of their waking hours just maintaining these calculators.

Nope, pencil and paper won't be replaced anytime soon for the average Joe by these useless and expensive contraptions. Like the clockwork toys of another century these will become the curiosities for the idle rich destined to gather dust and bemused glances.

Number 2 pencils rule!

[humblegunner]

"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value," they advised, regarding the potential for radio advertising. "Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?"

And talk radio remains in a state of suckage to this day!

[newcthem]

As a non-expert, I will predict that when an alternative energy source in found, it will not be by a government funded research foundtion or in an institution of higher learning, but like most great discoveries, by one guy, working alone in his basement or garage, and it will be laughed at by the experts.........but it will change the world.

[Flyer]

You seem hostile to the wireless music box.

[MaDeuce]

"The era of Big Government is over"

I remember that "prediction" ... unfortunately the Repubs turned out to prove it wrong.