15 Failed Predictions About the Future
“It will be years –not in my time– before a woman will become Prime Minister.”
[Margaret Thatcher] became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom only 10 years after saying that , holding her chair from 1979 to 1990. But she wasn’t all that wrong since she is the only woman to have held this post. Maybe she should have added the word “again.”
“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
It may sound ridiculous now, but the prediction was actually true for about ten years after it was made. Almost every forecaster would settle for a ten year limit on the testing of their forecasts. Of course, by the 1980s and the advent of the PC, such a statement looked plain daft.
“That virus [HIV] is a pussycat.”
–Dr. Peter Duesberg, molecular-biology professor at U.C. Berkeley, 1988, By 2006, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS and the World Health Organization estimated that AIDS has killed more than 25 million people since it was first recognized on December 1, 1981.
“Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You’re crazy.”
Only one hundred fifty years passed by since the first attempt to dig out oil from the ground met such contempt, and now the whole world is trying to look for unimaginable places to satiate the thirst for money that is propelled and sustained on this black gold.
“A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth’s atmosphere.”
10 years later, in 1946, the first American-built rocket to leave the earth’s atmosphere was launched from White Sands, attaining 50 miles of altitude.
You know, sometimes it’s a good thing to just tell people “thanks for your thoughts” …and then get back to changing the world.
I’m aware that a couple of these predictions are old chestnuts that probably would have seemed a lot less risable in the original time, place and context in which they were uttered, especially the cliché IBM “5 computers” thing.
That said, a whole bunch of respectable companies laughed the very idea of personal computers to scorn, even as they were becoming ubiquitous. That’s basically how Apple became Apple, rather than a hypothetical division of some late, unlamented corporate computing behemoth. (“Hey, it’s the new Sperry-Univac suPod!”)
Besides, you’ve gotta love the Mad Men-era pic of Tom Watson with all the retro, room-size computing stuff in the background. At least I do. (Makes want to fire up the fondue pot and put some bossa nova on the hi-fi.)
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