Had to react to this one that was sent to me (video below). It’s a beguiling list of stats that in the end are just an egoistical and purely numerical view of the past 10 years, projected on the next 50. It’s the very thing that Vernon Vinge and Ray Kurzweil would live to recite.
But, it’s wrong. These relatively isolated stats are misleading and, to me, reveal actually some prejudices and fears, rather than some objective description of the world today that can be used to predict the future. And they leave out so much that would help any real prediction.
Every age thinks that they are at the peak of civilization and that, when drawing a straight (or logarithmic) line from that day, it leads to some incredibly out-of-this-world future.
I am sure if we repeated this exercise 100 or 1000 years ago, we would have an amazing future, too, but one based on our foundations at the time. The past is littered with amazing predictions blown to smithereens by things that appear out of nowhere and rearrange everything.
Yeah, shift happens, but don’t think current stats can suggest what that shift will be.
YouTube – Did You Know; Shift Happens – Globalization; Information Age
Can you tell that I’m an arch-skeptic when it comes to stats? It’s the scientist in me. Please excuse me this rant.
Great statement. I also disagree with this lineair/sequencial left brain thinking..