Predictions
There was a good discussion about predictions on TFF, The Foreseeable Future website, when it existed.
The site was for improving the usefulness of predictions and for turning predictions into prognostications.
It was a demonstration of how important predictions could be, if utilized properly.
Table of Contents
One of the better ideas there was the idea of tracking news stories. People might read and debate about those, inevitably making predictions about the eventual outcome of some open story. If you could track those predictions, you'd see who the best "predictors" were, over time.
Also, it would help solve the little game they play, where there's some intriguing story, and then... no follow up, no resolution, no "closure." Part of that is the lousy format and layout of newspapers, and now websites, and part of it is the lousy memory and attention span of the general public. When you save the output of many commenters, for example in the format of a web forum, you also are creating a great reference and resource.
From the site:
Organizing and tracking people's predictions allows us to see who's brought it to the table and who's just running his mouth. Often, someone's logic doesn't seem right, but can be proven by how it bears out. The truth must seem a little strange if we don't understand something, since it is something altogether new to our perceptions. Like the old quote says, "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." That's the system. There's something obvious there: That system is pretty dumb!
Knowledge isn't much use unless you can make some type of predictions with it, and if your predictions consistently come true, it tends to confirm your knowledge.
Plus, it's dangerous to accept the ideas of "experts" without backing. All sorts of nonsense has come from self-styled experts over the years. These experts were no more accurate than the self-styled psychics. But, the concept of "experts" is exactly bass-ackwards. You become an expert, over time, by making accurate predictions, not by calling yourself an expert, then making outrageous predictions only supported by other self-styled "experts" and the gullible.
Ideally, you want prognostications, rather than just pell-mell predictions, since that implies that there's some rationale behind your prediction.
Prognostications in Science
We may have gone over this point ad nauseum, but it's something worth harping on: that science must be able to make prognostications, or it's only fortune-telling, and to list the steps along the way that lead to your prognostication becoming reality.
For example, they're forever touting their "scientific models." Now, if their models work, they should be able to accurately predict a future outcome based on that model. (But they don't, because if they did, they'd be out there constantly, shamelessly, promoting it.) This is how a model is tested, and if it fails, there is no theory, no science there!
Contrary evidence neutralizes all else, invalidating a model, which must be reworked or discarded.
These simple rules are clear enough, so the liars and con men had to obfuscate them. For example, one effective trick is presenting the subject, Mathematics, as a hard, almost insufferable, burden. They want you to feel awe for those "wizard" scientists who can actually do mathematics, to worship them as your betters. Of course, that's just one trick in their playbook.
An example just turned up in the news, describing how they're continuing their long con with "nuclear reactors." No evidence their plan will work, in fact only bigger and bigger failures, year after year. No one stops to think at all. They say they make energy when they fuse atoms in "nuclear fusion" — while at the same time saying they make energy when they break them apart in "nuclear fission!" And they keep failing with their grandiose plans for fusion, without ever stopping to question if their model might be wrong.
And now, billions or trillions later, they won't even be able to test their latest boondoggle for 15 years! They've created another new "fusion reactor," but it has accumulating expenses and delays. There's no evidence such thing will work, ever. Since their own fumblings prove their whole "nuclear model" and "nuclear science" is in error, we need to go back and reexamine all the fake science. It's a relief to see a lot of people are catching on to this long con that has had them bleeding the taxpayers dry for generations now.
The Prophecizers
We're Being Played
If you can predict things like "The Almighty smiting the west coast heathens with a catastrophic earthquake, 9.4," as one Cassandra divulged recently, you can predict the exact date and time, too. Otherwise, shut your traps, you dweebs, with these idiotic "prophecies."
Of course, if you keep making open-ended predictions about natural phenomena, the dullards will swoon when eventually, inevitably, one comes to pass. Bottom line, it's like the comedian asked, "Why does the psychic have to ask you your name?"
The Mock Predictors
A big reveal that should raise awareness was the mention that, often, when movies and books reflect future events, they weren't predicting, but unveiling an agenda. This is simple enough to fathom. Those who control the purse strings and political world have the kind of pull to engineer future events.
The Farce of Premature Prediction
This is real food for thought. Why is it that predictions of future tech and progress are so bogus? Videophones seem a natural extrapolation of telephones. Atomic flying cars seemed like a natural progression, too, but of course those proved completely impractical. The physics understanding wasn't there. For videophones, again, there was a misunderstanding of how far you can push your extrapolation (in this case, audio leading to video), without a complete understanding of the science and engineering involved. It took the invention of a whole new strategy, using a network, to allow for images with calls. Doing video over the phone lines just proved too difficult and unfeasible, until a system for shuttling huge quantities of data came along, the Internet, and transmitting video and images was just a natural part of that.
That's what the bad predictions mostly are, errant extrapolations, without any comprehension of emerging technologies.
Sometimes, there are political and social considerations. If you read the blog, The Future of Computing, it mentions how puzzling it is there isn't something like a "patrol robot" already on the market for consumer purchase. There, of course, they don't want you having anything too useful or capable of helping you defend yourself, and there's the motive of wanting to monopolize certain tech.
Success
Well that didn't take long...
This blog years ago predicted that automakers who don't embrace hybrid and instead go balls-to-the-wall electric will perish, or they'll be bought up and have other "issues." This doesn't occur in a vacuum, as we are to be forced out of cars into "15-minute cities."
Well, they are tempering their grandiose electric dreams now, and indeed banking more on hybrids.
News item:
Recall just days ago we wrote that Volkswagen was stepping back from BEVs into hybrids. And back in April we noted that Ford was "re-timing" its efforts to go all electric and back in February we wrote that GM was shifting to plug-in hybrids, too.
Various Predictions by Year
Picked up and accumulated from assorted sources.
For 2024:
- Harry Dent of the HS Dent Investment Management firm is pretty sure that 2024 will finally be the year that the United States bubble markets collapse.
- The Biden admin will do everything in its power to ensure there is no official recession before November... and is why after the election is over, all economic hell will finally break loose.
- The US economy will continue to worsen, collapse, the CBDC option will be used alongside the dollar. The SPR will be drained to almost empty to keep gas prices low and democrat friendly.
- (This is already in evidence.) Crime will spike this year 200x with 60% of the most heinous crimes committed by illegal immigrant invaders. They won't get any time but will be quickly released by Soros flunkies only to commit more crimes. On the other hand, US citizens who commit crimes will get lengthy prison sentences for democrats to say they're getting tough on crime.
- If you're looking for romance, you'll find the pot has been scraped dry. Due to environmental contaminants and so on, and the consequent drastic reduction in fertility, men, even the privileged, should find the pickins slim.
For 2027:
Charles Hugh Smith:
- Governments that do not yet impose wealth taxes will do so.
- Governments will impose windfall taxes on all out-sized unearned gains, from any source, anywhere on the planet.
For 2028:
(This one seems pure fancy and wishful thinking, since they've failed on the solid-state battery promise in the past.) Toyota solid state batteries will hit the market in 2027 or 2028, giving its vehicles 745 miles of range to start.
Open-Ended Predictions
Michael Yon:
Colombia will reinvigorate territorial claims on Panama. With China’s help — overt or covert — Colombia will eventually take Panama. Later China will take Panama from Colombia.
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