Prophecy And The Future One thing I do not put much faith in is prophecy. There always seems to be someone making one. It ranges from religious prophecies to political ones and everything in between. I am tired of all those people who claim to be time travelers giving us stupid predictions about our future, politicians telling us about 10 year plans which will save our economy when they won’t even be in office anymore and scientists telling us the year we will finally meet with extraterrestrials. Some people will say there have been people who have made the right prediction about something, and I say to them if you listen to enough predictions, some are bound to be correct or near correct. It’s the law of averages. Then there are those who point to people from our past who they think were prophets and quote their mysterious writing saying they really are predictions and try and fit something which happened into them, such as the so called prophet Nostradamus. I am still waiting for someone to tell me ahead of an event what is predicted to happen. A database composed of the historical performance of something might have a better chance of predicting what would happen with this something in the future, but even then, they are far from perfect, because if they were everyone would be using them, and be rich. A prediction was made in 1936, by the New York Times, that a rocket would never be able to leave earth’s atmosphere. In 1901 a prediction was made by a man named Simon Newcomb. He said a heavier than air machine would never be able to fly. Eighteen months later the Wright Brothers flew their plane. When movies first appeared, some people predicted it was just a fad and wouldn’t last long. Boy, were they wrong as it became a business worth billions of dollars. A professor of natural history made a prediction about railroads in the mid-1800s that railroad travel at high speed would be impossible because passengers would not be able to breathe. He said they would all die of asphyxia. There is just so much of these bad predictions throughout history. For almost every new invention there is a prediction which states it will never work or people will get tired of it. When the automobile came out some famous people were predicting the horse would be around forever and the automobile was only a fad. The word fad seems to be a favorite of those who do not believe in inventions which advance technology in some way. When the Titanic was built and launched an official of the White Star Line, the owners of the ship, declared it would never sink. We all know what happened, it sunk on its maiden voyage. King George made a prediction that the American colonies had little stomach for a rebellion. Time Magazine made a prediction in 1966 about remote shopping. They said it would flop because women like to get out of the house. Lucky for Jeff Bezos he didn’t listen to what they said. I wonder how Sony and Panasonic would have felt about this prophesy? Apparently, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles said in 1954 the Japanese didn’t make anything the U.S. would want. In 1975 Newsweek predicted not only global cooling, but a reduction in the food supply and we would have catastrophic famines because of this. I wonder if we will look back at the predictions for global warming someday and laugh? In 1839 a French surgeon named Alfred Velpeau predicted there would always be pain in operations and it was absurd to think there could be anything else. A prediction was made during the second term run of President Clinton. It was left-handed incumbents will never get elected for a second term. The New York Times made some bad predictions as the one they made about the laptop computer. They said people don’t want to lug around a computer and would rather read the business section of a newspaper in their spare time. They also said television was never going to be popular saying the problem was people must sit and keep their eyes glued on a screen and the average American family doesn’t have the time. One of the last predictions they made was the brain would not be able to keep up with a car traveling at 8 miles per hour so how could it keep up with one going 80 miles per hour? This prediction was made in 1904. In 1911, Thomas Edison was interviewed and he made a prediction which stated in the future, everything would be made of steel. A reporter made a prediction in 1950. The reporter claimed she had scientific evidence that proved all women would be at least six feet tall by the year 2,000. Sometimes people who are in a technological business still can’t see the future. This was proven when William Orton, who was president of Western Union, a telegraph company, predicted the telephone had too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. Could he have been trying to stave off what it would do to his company? Popular Mechanics predicted in 1949 that computers in the future could weigh as little as one half ton. I have to say they were right on this but the future kept unfolding and the computers shrinking and we still don’t know how small they will ultimately get. Hiram Maxim, the inventor of the machine gun, was asked a question in 1893 and that question was will the machine gun make war more terrible? He answered, no it will make war impossible. Talk about being wrong, an economist in 1929 made a statement that the stock market has reached a permanent high plateau. Three days later we had the great crash. An economist in 1930 named John Maynard Keynes wrote his grandchildren would only have to work 15 hours a week because of increased prosperity in industrialized countries. One of the most ridiculous predictions was made in 1959 by U.S. Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield. He said before man gets to the moon; the mail would be delivered by guided missiles. I can see it now, a guided missile crashing into the post office somewhere.
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