1912 Edward J Smith – Captain of the Titanic – “I cannot conceive of any vital disaster happening to this vessel. Modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that”
The Titanic story kind of went the opposite direction to that remark. The thing is, if someone could have predicted the tragedy it wouldn’t have happened in the first place. Hundreds drowned and Celine Dion made loads of cash. Awful all round.
1948 – Mary Somerville, pioneer of radio educational broadcasts – “Television won’t last. It’s a flash in the pan”
A pretty big flash I think you’d now agree.
1998 – Byte magazine editor Edmund DeJesus – “Y2K is a crisis without precedent in human history”
I actually got a flight to America early on the morning of the first of the first 2000. I got the tickets dirt cheap, it was a gamble but absolutely nothing happened in the end did it? Those that had been crying about it said the reason why nothing failed was because of the work they had done in the background to fix it before 2000 came. I don’t know though. It was such a damp squib.
1929 – Irving Fisher mathematical economist – “Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau”.
Three days later and the mega-turds hit the windmill: the stock market plunged into a historic collapse leading to unparalleled unemployment, the Great Depression and a decade of bad moods.
1920 – H. M. Warner, co-founder of Warner Brothers – “Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?”
He has got a bit of a point there.
1988 – Dr. Peter Duesberg, molecular-biology professor at U.C. Berkeley, talking about the AIDS virus – “That virus is a pussy cat”
He couldn’t have got that more wrong if he’d tried. And it just goes to show that your level of education is irrelevant when it comes to getting predictions wrong. People can not and never will predict the future with any great accuracy. Every so often you might strike it lucky and predict the Arsenal v Everton score, but let’s be honest there’s only a fairly small number of outcomes and it’s still pretty unlikely you’ll get it right.
I guess we need to just chill out and see what happens. And the take home message is, we are all stupider than we think. Especially you.
☛ Read Now: Alan Turing: The Genius Who Was Chemically Castrated
