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I've spent two solid days reading papers and books published in the 1980s - early 2000s by prominent thinkers who were predicting the next 50-100 years. I've noticed some common threads.....
They all:
- argued Japan would be the dominant economic force, behind America
- completely missed China's ascent
- thought Russia would implode by 2020 <or>
- said the dominant global conflict would be US vs Russia
- thought climate change was temporary/ a fad
- argued Japan would be the dominant economic force, behind America
- completely missed China's ascent
- thought Russia would implode by 2020 <or>
- said the dominant global conflict would be US vs Russia
- thought climate change was temporary/ a fad
- failed to see the inevitable rise of distributed media
- didn't give much thought to mobile devices
- misjudged the rise of automation by an average of 1-2 decades
- didn't give much thought to mobile devices
- misjudged the rise of automation by an average of 1-2 decades
I think the reason they got so much wrong had to do with some core weaknesses in their analysis:
- failing to recognize and mitigate cognitive biases
- discounting outliers
- focusing too narrowly on disruption
- not considering social changes outside their personal circles
- failing to recognize and mitigate cognitive biases
- discounting outliers
- focusing too narrowly on disruption
- not considering social changes outside their personal circles
And assuming there wasn't a way to calculate the trajectory of trends using data. Scenarios are strongest when rooted in data.
