The Serendipity Machine

In The Serendipity Machine, David Green begins the 1st chapter with: “It’s risky business to make predictions about the future of technology” and than he goes on to demonstrate it by referring to IBM’s founder’s prediction about the future of computers. We know how off the mark Tom Watson was. What about the other crystal ball gazers; how accurate those predictions were? The answer to this question is quite predictable and almost always accurate: predictions are very inaccurate, and yet there's an insatiable and even insane appetite for predictions.  Why? Predictions satisfy three fundamental human emotional traits: hope, fear and superstition.

Since humans are driven by these powerful and often completely irrational stimuli: hope, fear, superstition many amazing discoveries and inventions came into existence by way of serendipity rather than perfectly rational thinking. For what did Watson have besides his experience and vision to make such his prediction? His predictions were based on rational thinking and experience; but that was before 2020!.

I see no evidence that most of today’s social luminaries and futurists are any less myopic than soothsayer of the dark ages, even with all the high tech gizmos, Big Data, AI algorithms and fancy models at their disposal. In fact some of the truly amazing discoveries and inventions are overlooked and ignored simply because of the pursuit of instant gratification through trivialization of complex issues.

“One of the problems the Internet has introduced is that in the electronic village all the village idiots have Internet access.”~ Peter Nelson.  In 2020 it seems that the most powerful human stimuli: hope, fear and superstition are satisfied by trivia and the typical, all the while individuals and collectives are being beset by complex problems.  And when complex problems can no longer be endured, humans as always seek out the 21st century soothsayers for solutions.  And the soothsayers unfailingly deliver: more trivialization of complex problems and more sensationalisation of banality.