Impossible to See, the Future Is

Who spoke the words of wisdom above? We’ll get to that in a minute. But as 2021 gives way to 2022, we want to take a moment to look at past predictions, which can go so wrong in so many funny ways.

CNN’s Rob Picheta described many such wildly inaccurate predictions back at the start of this decade. To be fair, some projections, such as widespread use of biometric IDs like iris, fingerprint, and voice recognition systems, have occurred (e.g., on smartphones), while others, such as the impact of robots and artificial intelligence on our daily lives, may yet come to pass, but on a delayed timeframe from what was originally believed. Other prognostications, however, are rather fantastic: 

• By 2020, billions of nanobots in our digestive tracts and blood would pluck necessary nutrients as needed, thereby reducing our need to eat 
• Smart glasses would replace our phones
• Voting would be done electronically, from home

The most amusing predictions are the ones made long ago. Picheta cites a 1964 RAND forecast, made by leading experts at the time, which gave a series of bold predictions that, alas, have fallen short of the mark:

• Limited weather control, in the sense of substantially affecting regional weather (projected for 1990)
• Man-machine symbiosis, enabling man to extend his intelligence by direct electro mechanical interaction between his brain and a computing machine
• Breeding of intelligent animals (apes, cetaceans, etc.) for low-grade labor

These were not drunken fools making guesses; one of the proponents of the apes-as-chauffeurs idea was Nobel Prize winner Glenn T. Seaborg, who helped discover 10 transuranium elements on the periodic table. Predicting the near future is difficult; predicting the distant future…impossible it is. 

And if you haven’t figured out the source of the headline quote from its inverted syntax, we’ll reveal…Yoda it is. 

And in that spirit, a New Year Happy for you we wish. 

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JMS Capital Group Wealth Services LLC
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An SEC‐registered investment advisor.

This material is not intended as an offer or solicitation for the purchase or sale of any financial instrument or investment strategy. This material has been prepared for informational purposes only, and is not intended to be or interpreted as a recommendation.  Any forecasts contained herein are for illustrative purposes only and are not to be relied upon as advice.