We humans are so obsessed with finding about the future that we fail to appreciate the thrill of it being unknown. From going to psychics, astrologists and even calculating it via some itsy bitsy logic, we try to predict about the future that revolves from the outcome of a Football Worldcup match to the course technology will take in the future years. In the cases where the outcome’s probability is easy as in a football match, we tend to rely on the “gifted” Octopuses and camels more but when it comes to technology, we generally scoff at the idea since the probability of it happening is quite low. Nevertheless, we go on experimenting with this kind of stuff wildly and get excited when it turns out to be partly correct.
Here is an example from BBC Future that was just another way of engaging readers over a year or so until they are proven wrong and it doesn’t matter anymore! It was originally published by the BBC Future in early 2013 and contains predictions for the next 150 years! Here is how they fared:
1. In great likelihood category, in 2013, the great Firewall of China didn’t end. It continues to be there but still has the same loopholes that people can use to bypass it.
2. Pinterest hasn’t been bought by Google and is still going strong in contrary to the claim by BBC. Patients are also not being prescribed apps by doctors right now except for the occasional heartbeat ones and that doesn’t count. Maybe doctors aren’t progressive about technology taking away their hegemony!
3. Digital currency isn’t universally acceptable in the USA. The Bitcoins are a good example, but they were used back then and still aren’t accepted by many banks or major corporations as well as the average public.
4. Facebook is still the single largest social network in the world. Furthermore, it has managed to create a social media monopoly as it has acquired most of its competitors like Instagram and Whatsapp. The dominance of Facebook is just too much and even though Snapchat and a couple of others are growing, they are unlikely to take over the mammoth social media empire of Facebook anytime soon.
5. Robots aren’t widely used in agriculture although their usage has increased.
6. The cost of Genome checking is still above 1,000 $ minimum as opposed to BBC claim of 100 $.
7. On paper, China’s gold reserves didn’t increase as much as anticipated by the media. They stand at number 6 in the world. While Germany is still in second place. China is catching up rapidly, to be fair but it couldn’t achieve it in 2015.
8. People can’t feel each other through smartphones! Not right now.
So, as you can see, almost all of these claims about future technology even in the near future have been proven wrong until now. Since it is just a speculative exercise, we are not going to to honor the rest of the list with a review. At the end of it, we have simply ridiculous stuff like people living older than 150 years which is a lot to wish for, but in reality, just another lame attempt to generate traffic by the BBC journalists!