Prediction Quotes

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...

The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

“It sounds like a fairy-tale, but not only that; this story of what man by his science and practical inventions has achieved on this earth, where he first appeared as a weakly member of the animal kingdom, and on which each individual of his species must ever again appear as a helpless infant... is a direct fulfilment of all, or of most, of the dearest wishes in his fairy-tales. All these possessions he has acquired through culture. Long ago he formed an ideal conception of omnipotence and omniscience which he embodied in his gods. Whatever seemed unattainable to his desires - or forbidden to him - he attributed to these gods. One may say, therefore, that these gods were the ideals of his culture. Now he has himself approached very near to realizing this ideal, he has nearly become a god himself. But only, it is true, in the way that ideals are usually realized in the general experience of humanity. Not completely; in some respects not at all, in others only by halves. Man has become a god by means of artificial limbs, so to speak, quite magnificent when equipped with all his accessory organs; but they do not grow on him and they still give him trouble at times... Future ages will produce further great advances in this realm of culture, probably inconceivable now, and will increase man's likeness to a god still more.”
― Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents

“The behavior of a human being in sexual matters is often a prototype for the whole of his other modes of reaction in life.”
― Sigmund Freud, Sexuality and the Psychology of Love

“The idea that the future is unpredictable is undermined every day by the ease with which the past is explained.”
― Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow

“When the number of factors coming into play in a phenomenological complex is too large scientific method in most cases fails. One need only think of the weather, in which case the prediction even for a few days ahead is impossible.”
― Albert Einstein

“The year 2100 will see eugenics universally established. In past ages, the law governing the survival of the fittest roughly weeded out the less desirable strains. Then man's new sense of pity began to interfere with the ruthless workings of nature. As a result, we continue to keep alive and to breed the unfit. The only method compatible with our notions of civilization and the race is to prevent the breeding of the unfit by sterilization and the deliberate guidance of the mating instinct, Several European countries and a number of states of the American Union sterilize the criminal and the insane. This is not sufficient. The trend of opinion among eugenists is that we must make marriage more difficult. Certainly no one who is not a desirable parent should be permitted to produce progeny. A century from now it will no more occur to a normal person to mate with a person eugenically unfit than to marry a habitual criminal.”
― Nikola Tesla

“Recent brain scans have shed light on how the brain simulates the future. These simulation are done mainly in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the CEO of the brain, using memories of the past. On one hand, simulations of the future may produce outcomes that are desirable and pleasurable, in which case the pleasure centers of the brain light up (in the nucleus accumbens and the hypothalamus). On the other hand, these outcomes may also have a downside to them, so the orbitofrontal cortex kicks in to warn us of possible dancers. There is a struggle, then, between different parts of the brain concerning the future, which may have desirable and undesirable outcomes. Ultimately it is the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex that mediates between these and makes the final decisions. (Some neurologists have pointed out that this struggle resembles, in a crude way, the dynamics between Freud's ego, id, and superego.)”
― Michio Kaku, The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind

“There are at the present time two great nations in the world, which started from different points, but seem to tend towards the same end. I allude to the Russians and the Americans. Both of them have grown up unnoticed; and whilst the attention of mankind was directed elsewhere, they have suddenly placed themselves in the front rank among the nations, and the world learned their existence and their greatness at almost the same time.

All other nations seem to have nearly reached their natural limits, and they have only to maintain their power; but these are still in the act of growth. All the others have stopped, or continue to advance with extreme difficulty; these alone are proceeding with ease and celerity along a path to which no limit can be perceived. The American struggles against the obstacles which nature opposes to him; the adversaries of the Russian are men. The former combats the wilderness and savage life; the latter, civilization with all its arms. The conquests of the American are therefore gained with the ploughshare; those of the Russian by the sword. The Anglo-American relies upon personal interest to accomplish his ends, and gives free scope to the unguided strength and common sense of the people; the Russian centres all the authority of society in a single arm. The principal instrument of the former is freedom; of the latter, servitude. Their starting-point is different, and their courses are not the same; yet each of them seems marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“The fantastic advances in the field of electronic communication constitute a greater danger to the privacy of the individual.”
― Earl Warren

“I was not predicting the future, I was trying to prevent it.”
― Ray Bradbury

“Life is no different than the weather. Not only is it unpredictable, but it shows us a new perspective of the world every day.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“I may be surprised. But I don't think I will be.”
― Andrew Strauss

“I'm convinced that before the year 2000 is over, the first child will have been born on the moon.”
― Wernher Von Braun

“Prediction and explanation are exactly symmetrical. Explanations are, in effect, predictions about what has happened; predictions are explanations about what's going to happen.”
― John Rogers Searle

“Science is not about making predictions or performing experiments. Science is about explaining.”
― Bill Gaede

“The future is like a corridor into which we can see only by the light coming from behind.”
― Edward Weyer, Jr.

“Conspiracy theory, like causality, works fantastically well as an explanatory model but only if you use it backwards. The fact that we cannot predict much about tomorrow strongly indicates that most of the explanations we develop about how something happened yesterday have (like history in general) a high bullshit content.”
― Peter J. Carroll, Psybermagick: Advanced Ideas in Chaos Magic

“Mankind will discover objects in space sent to us by the watchers...”
― Nostradamus

“Foresight does not seek to predict, but to drive imagination to inform decision-making and the actions required today in light of the potential futures ahead. Foresight prepares you for the swerves.”
― Roger Spitz, The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption: Volume II - Essential Frameworks for Disruption and Uncertainty

“Whereas a novice makes moves until he gets checkmated (proof), a Grand Master realizes 20 moves in advance that it’s futile to continue playing (conceptualizing).”
― Bill Gaede

“The dogs were really keening now, like Irish widows.”
― Thomas Keneally, Victim of the Aurora

“A mathematician is an individual who believes that prophesying that his dog will die if he deprives it of food constitutes a prediction.”
― Bill Gaede

“It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong.”
― Carveth Read, Logic, Deductive and Inductive

“The objective is not to get the future right. Rather, our work spurs better preparation for any of the futures which may arise.”
― Roger Spitz, The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption: Volume II - Essential Frameworks for Disruption and Uncertainty

“In 1927, Robert Graves published a little book called *Lars Porsena or the Future of Swearing and Improper Language*. He noted a recent decline in the use of foul language by the English, and predicted that this decline would continue indefinitely, until foul language had all but disappeared from the average man’s vocabulary. History has not borne him out, to say the least: indeed, I have known economists make more accurate predictions.”
― Theodore Dalrymple

“We know the Roman Empire fell into oblivion but can scarcely imagine let alone admit that we might face a similar fate.”
― Roman Krznaric, The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking

“for them, forecasting the end of the world is quite routine, and, as believers in the afterlife, they expect to be able to bask in glory when their prophecies of doom are proven right.”
― Alex de Waal, AIDS and Power: Why There Is No Political Crisis – Yet

“We will know less and less what it means to be human.”
― David Wallechinsky and Amy Wallace

“The events of life are so unpredictable.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita

“The predicted USA aurora was a bust! The solar radiation definitely arrived, as people had strange fatigue and pains in Oregon, USA on the predicted day. Unfortunately, auroras are so dim they cannot be seen during the daytime. Only two Aurora predictions in Oregon were right so far in 2024. One lasted most of the night and was seen throughout the world and the other lasted about 20 minutes. My estimate for the northern lights in Oregon being predicted correctly seems to be about 5% accuracy. Most of the time, the Oregon prediction is wrong.”
― Steven Magee