“Most statements in ordinary conversation that contain implicit predictions about the distant future are mainly concerned with current issues,” he says. “This also applies to most fiction and nonfiction about the distant future.”
In reality, Hanson says, “people aren’t much concerned with the distant future except as it says something about them today.” (Weeks)
The future is all about US
We modern folks aren’t any better than the old predictions found in the Paleofuture archives. It’s not that we can’t see, we’re just wearing glaucoma goggles framed with racing blinders. Living in the now is like that. And since we’re modern Americans, now is shorter than ever, consumed as we are with trivial minutiae and subjected to a multitude of distractions. Few of us can read the technological tea leaves. The rest are busy making the future – to hell with all those predictions.
The few correct predictions out there are rare and don’t necessarily pass the dumb-luck test. I’m not sure what either of the following two examples qualify as, but maybe it’s not impossible, just highly improbable.
Clarke’s Satellites
This year, sadly, we will not be making first contact with an alien species (so far as I know, but hey, we’ve got a little over a month, right?). But let’s cut Arthur C. Clarke some slack: he predicted global satellite technology (and GPS).
As you may know, my main interest in this subject is in the use of satellite relays, which I think may revolutionise the pattern of world communications. To the best of my knowledge, I was the first to suggest this possibility (see “Extraterrestrial Relays”, Wireless World, October [19]45). By another odd coincidence I’ve just sent my agent an article on these lines, entitled “The Billion Dollar Moon”, giving my latest view on this subject. My general conclusions are that perhaps in 30 years the orbital relay system may take over all the functions of existing surface networks and provide others quite impossible today. For example, the three stations in the 24-hour orbit could provide not only an interference and censorship-free global TV service for the same power as a single modern transmitter, but could also make possible a position-finding grid whereby anyone on earth could locate himself by means of a couple of dials on an instrument about the size of a watch. (A development of Decca and transistorisation.) It might even make possible world-wide person-to-person radio with automatic dialling. Thus no-one on the planet need ever get lost or become out of touch with the community, unless he wanted to be. I’m still thinking about the social consequences of this! (Gizmodo, emphasis mine)
The man seems to have had a good sense of extrapolation because that’s from a letter written in 1956.
The Internet
Check this out; it’s from 1959:
Simon Ramo’s concept of “polymorphic” computing is laid out in stop-motion animation, accompanied by acoustic guitar. The film anticipates parallel, distributed processing and the architecture of ARPANET and the Internet. (Thompson Ramo Woolridge, Inc.)
The engineers from Thompson were not alone, of course. Many minds were responsible for the complex spaghetti-network of computers we call the internet. Who knows how far back you could go to find the shape of these emerging technologies.
In general, we’re way more wrong than we are right, but I hold out this insane hope that there might be some factors we can keep in mind to make better attempts. In the mean time, I’ll just marvel at those souls who seem to have nailed down something interesting decades in advance.
Great intro, top info.