If you don’t make predictions, you’ll never know what to be surprised by

August 2, 2023 5:46 AM

The Curse of the Long Boom (wired)
posted by signal (23 comments total)

blue_beetle’s Law: All predictions will be proven wrong, including this one.
posted by blue_beetle at 6:12 AM on August 2, 2023 [3 favorites]

I have never encountered that list of 10 "scenario spoilers" before and now I do not feel well.
posted by saturday_morning at 6:15 AM on August 2, 2023 [15 favorites]

I have never encountered that list of 10 "scenario spoilers" before and now I do not feel well.

“You’ll be fine unless, like, all of these things happen. But what are the odds of that?”
posted by notoriety public at 6:21 AM on August 2, 2023 [6 favorites]

This makes me understand Gibson’s Jackpot in a different light. I’m sure he read the original article. “What if the Long Boom, but only for the rich”.
posted by q*ben at 6:30 AM on August 2, 2023 [10 favorites]

That arguably wasn't even Wired's worst prediction, although you could say that that's less of a prediction and more of a "Apple really is in trouble [as they really were at the time] and here's some suggestions to turn things around." (The Insider article does pick through some of them and note the ones that were close; I'm not linking directly to Wired because I've run out of free articles.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:44 AM on August 2, 2023

Making the 10 scenario spoilers easier to read
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 6:50 AM on August 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

Halloween Jack: I still have that issue somewhere! Some of the suggestions in the cover article were indeed wild, though others were more or less on the money, as that article notes.
posted by May Kasahara at 7:16 AM on August 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

yeah...that 10 scenarios list is mighty disturbing...
posted by supermedusa at 7:41 AM on August 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

I keep trying to think through the relationship between ‘prediction’ and ‘hypothesis’ here, and … the argument seems to be that people should try to make testable hypotheses rather than hype-ey predictions (which is great, I agree!) while avoiding the actual word ‘hypothesis’ for some reason. Kinda odd.

That list though, that’s very unsettling. Oof.
posted by threecheesetrees at 7:43 AM on August 2, 2023

peter leyden's predictions for 2025-2050 with spoiler list

tldr - everything's going to be really really good unless the spoilers happen, one of which is not the planet overheating and causing ecological havoc, because i didn't think of it, even though it could well be happening now

there was a book called the people's book of predictions published in the 70s - it's probably time for me to look at that again and marvel at how wrong everyone was
posted by pyramid termite at 7:44 AM on August 2, 2023 [8 favorites]

Long boom but it’s just the world exploding in slow motion.
posted by rodlymight at 7:45 AM on August 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

Wow, that new article by Leydon… hard to classify. Half-committed self-parody? Gritted-teeth stoic denial? The tension apparent in just the accompanying imagery/ “charts” (which, in their infinite nonsense, have more than a whiff of intentional parody), make it a hard, dissonant read.

My favorite prognostications remain my beloved childhood read The Usebourne Book of the Future
posted by q*ben at 9:40 AM on August 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

Cached copy without the paywall: https://archive.is/2Ufrs
posted by riotnrrd at 9:44 AM on August 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

?: "hype-ey prediction" + hypothesis = 'hype-apotheosis'
posted by jamjam at 10:08 AM on August 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

I don’t question that his intentions are sincere.

The most obvious explanation is that Leyden is an opportunistic hanger-on who made a place for himself sucking money out of rich Silicon Valley types by churning out mindless techno-optimist pieces that stroke their ego as humanity’s genius saviors. It’s been working for decades, so why change now?

Or, if one insists on being as charitable as possible, his intentions are sincere in that he maintains the intentions that best ingratiate him to the above SC class.
posted by star gentle uterus at 10:20 AM on August 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

I read the "spoilers" for the next 25 years and they seem much worse than the past 25 years' spoilers. For example, the first one is "democracies fall" and the second one is "US civil war". A bunch of the next are already happening ("people become unable to discover truth", "oil states become desperate"), then someone's going to nuke somebody, and it ends with the delightful possibility of World War 3.
posted by meowzilla at 10:45 AM on August 2, 2023 [3 favorites]

My favorite prognostications remain my beloved childhood read The Usebourne Book of the Future


My favorite prognostications remain my updated Usborne Book of the 2020s :p
posted by danhon at 10:47 AM on August 2, 2023 [3 favorites]

From the updated spoilers:

"Enforced Group Think / Zealots on the American far left take cancel culture to the next level and"

Wow, the guy making predictions isn't in some sort of bubble at all, no siree, he's got his finger squarely on the pulse of the issues.
posted by Philipschall at 12:01 PM on August 2, 2023 [12 favorites]

Wired July 1997 archived page

Ten Scenario Spoilers
The long boom is a scenario, one possible future. It's built upon the convergence of many big forces and even more little pieces falling into place - all of them with a positive twist. The future, of course, could turn out to be very different - particularly if a few of those big pieces go haywire. Here are 10 things that could cut short the long boom:

1) Tensions between China and the US escalate into a new Cold War – bordering on a hot one.

2) New technologies turn out to be a bust. They simply don’t bring the expected productivity increases or the big economic boosts.

3) Russia devolves into a kleptocracy run by a mafia or retreats into quasi-communist nationalism that threatens Europe.

4) Europe’s integration process grinds to a halt. Eastern and Western Europe can’t finesse a reunification, and even the European Unification process breaks down.

5) Major ecological crisis causes a global climate change that, among other things, disrupts the food supply – causing big price increases everywhere and sporadic famines.

6) Major rise in crime and terrorism forces the world to pull back in fear. People who constantly feel they could be blown up or ripped off are not in the mood to reach out and open up.

7) The cumulative escalation in pollution causes a dramatic increase in cancer, which overwhelms the ill-prepared health system.

8) Energy prices go through the roof. Convulsions in the Middle East disrupt the oil supply, and alternative energy sources fail to materialize.

9) An uncontrollable plague – a modern-day influenza epidemic or irs equivalent takes off like wildfire, killing upward of 200 million people.

10) A social and cultural backlash stops progress dead in its tracks, human beings need to choose to move forward. They just may not ...
posted by Iris Gambol at 1:16 PM on August 2, 2023 [4 favorites]

I mean, those are pretty vague?

1) is basically "there will still be war hawks about China"
2) is generic enough to always return true, given a hype cycle for new technologies
3) has an "or" in it to hedge its bets
4) seems to fail at "Eastern and Western Europe can’t finesse a reunification" given the enlargement of the EU in 2004, 2007, 2013. (or is so vague enough that "Russia still doesn't want former SSRs in the EU" would cause it to be true),
5) is basically "groceries will cost more" and "famines will continue to exist"
6) is basically "reactionaries will continue to exist",
7) what counts as "overwhelms the ill-prepared health care system?" That clause would have applied better to #9 below
8) is basically "utilities will cost more" (what counts as "through the roof" or "fail to materialize"?)
9) has a 200 million-strong death total which is so high I don't think COVID comes close to qualifying
10) is yet another platitude about backlashes always existing

Ongoing and worsening (or worsening-seeming) inflation, reactionary backlash, world instability, tech hype, and inequity in food, energy, and health care access. They weren't exactly sticking their necks out.
posted by Earthtopus at 7:58 PM on August 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

Yeah, covid is 7 million confirmed worldwide deaths, with something like 25 million excess deaths. See Economist article here.

So about 1/10th of the “prediction”.
posted by nat at 10:47 PM on August 3, 2023

Vaguely terrified by the prospect of a Long Boom II “The hat could go wrong” section.
posted by Artw at 8:29 PM on August 4, 2023

I'll give some points for including a plague on the list, even if it was underestimated.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 12:15 AM on August 5, 2023