On Predictions, part 2

“I can see clearly now the rain has gone

I can see all obstacles in my way

Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind

It’s gonna be a bright, bright sun-shiny day”

~ ‘I Can See Clearly Now’ by Johnny Nash

from his album “I Can See Clearly Now”, 1972*

Last week, I wrote about an article I read late last year, where several supposed ‘experts’ made certain predictions about what may be ahead of us in 2011 (and once again, the original article can be found at http://tinyurl.com/6dnpfqs , and once again, I really don’t recommend you bother - I’ll put direct quotes in parentheses and italics for the sake of clarity).  I can only hope that reasonable minds found my take on their predictions more grounded in reality that the drivel they spewed.

So, where were we?  I believe the next individual quoted is a clairvoyant.

Spiritual mediums and clairvoyants are perhaps the most criminal of our ‘experts’.  It takes so little effort to disabuse yourself of the belief that the fundamentals of who they are and what they do is nothing more than quackery.  If I found myself suddenly endowed with the ‘gifts’ clairvoyants claim to have, I’d get myself in a room with Sir Paul McCartney, summon John Lennon, make a few quick million dollars and retire in quick fashion.  If Sir Paul was otherwise engaged, there’s always the lottery.

Man alive, why is it that clairvoyants have any followers brick-stupid enough to give them money for what they do?  I am powerless to speculate.

Wild predictions of matrimony, babies and adoptions in the lives of several celebrities follow.  First reactions are ‘why the heck would we care?’, but then I remember the intellectually bereft Today Tonight viewers and their propensity for buying tabloid-trash magazines aimed at women (and for the love of Pete, don’t get me started on those vile little rags).  The problem with these predictions is that no one is going to be bothered bailing up this charlatan in 12 months and ask her how she got things so badly wrong.

Of course, some of her scattershot projections are likely to be correct via a well educated and lucky guess and she’d no doubt claim that she was mostly right, wasn’t she? And no-one gets everything perfect every time, right?  I may well at this point ask this white-collar crook why she was entirely incapable of predicting Yasi, devastating floods in both Queensland and Victoria, massive earthquakes in Christchurch and Japan, the Fukushima nuclear crisis, and Charlie ‘Tiger’s Blood’ Sheen.

I have read several pieces of well considered writing by so-called futurists, enough to feel like their potential predictions are worth casting thought over, if not agreeing with whole-heartedly.  But the young man quoted in the article is just that - young.  Like many of today’s youth, he seems to see the shiny gleam of the future rather than the fair chance that we will see much of the same as we’ve seen in most every single day of human experience; greed, corruption, hate, and selfishness.  By-and-large, we’ll just see it with better tech.

I can’t really blame this youngster for not having the cynicism that comes with age, but I would suggest that his predictions of the rise and development of social media and mobile computing is possibly more past than future.  This whipper-snapper is not telling me when I can expect my flying car and personal rocket pack, so I will leave him to his “micro-patronage”-funded exercises and his pimple cream.

The only soul quoted in the article who really escapes any criticism from your scribe is the demographer.  For a start, his field of work is one that is being exercised following years of learning and research.  Hard work and a degree of intelligence gets you kudos here, yes sir.  Unlike our futurist, he also suggests a less than rosy future, based on availability of housing, an aging population, labour availability and the demands of wage inflation.  But what I like most is that he does not fall into the trap of popular disrespect of us Gen X’ers.  He suggests that hope is there, available for us to reach out to.  Even if this prediction is found to not eventuate, at least it was because we didn’t do well enough to achieve it rather than because it was a lot of hooey. 

My own personal goal for the coming year, without sounding too high-minded, is to not allow myself to become one of the sheep that chooses the path of least resistance when it comes to thought, words and actions.  And my prediction for 2011 is that Pluto is going to skip merrily over Capricorn, causing songstress Susan Boyle to marry Oprah Winfrey while dressed in a camel playsuit, and then Tweet about it.  I’m guessing the availability of affordable housing won’t be too much of an issue for them though.

*(Special thanks to John Skinner for the song quote suggestion, and also to Paul Tero, Don Fouché, Erini Thompson, Colin Rayner, Jess Merrett, Tim Lokot, and Kirsty Ploeg for their input)