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Single-Use Predictions Are Not Useful — Or Honest
Yet, predictions can be a great tool to keep us so
The year ends and our inbox is flooded with emails from all sorts of media with enticing articles about predictions for the next trip around the sun. “This is what the new year will bring” is an almost irresistible headline. At least, the first time you read it. Then, if you suffer from the same condition I do, you check the predictions for the year we just left behind and your perception changes slightly: perhaps that headline isn’t that alluring anymore.
Predictions are fun. There is no denying that. I would go further and say that predictions are useful, if not for the reasons that seem most readily apparent. Predictions are imagination drills. They have us look at current trends and speculate on the path they may follow in the future. Sci-fi is frequently based on such predictions, and I love sci-fi, not just as fun, but as a great exercise on pondering where we are headed and where we want to go.
However, when newspaper offer predictions, they aren’t writing novels. In principle, one wouldn’t class news outlets as entertainment, but the 21st century seems determined to prove otherwise. Newspapers and magazines and other media actually claim to have some insight into what will happen in the coming twelve months. Whether…