Predictions

I’ll keep this page to track posts that deal with the predictions I’ve made, as well as discussions of predictive frameworks, the rules used to build them. It won’t always be clear why some articles are here, until I explain how they are connected.

I realize I have not looked at my predictions, but I have been quite busy. In retrospect, it was kind of arbitrary to place these as predictions for 2007; I really should have said something like predictions for the near term (1 to 2 years). It seems many are coming true not in 2007 but in 2008! Especially the ones regarding the economy.

But the fundamentals behind each of these predictions is the same, so I will add text following each, and continuously update and add new ones.

Link to my original Predictions for the 2007:

Predictions for the next 2 to 3 years

September 9th, 2006 — enigma_foundry

I am going to get way out ahead of everyone else by making my predictions for the major developments for the year 2007. They will be in my usual insane collection of categories. Also, since I am getting them out this early, I unilaterally announce that if my predictions come to pass in the closing months of 2006, they still count!

Journey to the End of the Night (H.G. Wells edition)

November 30th, 2006 — enigma_foundry

OR TYPES OF FAILURES OF PREDICTIVE FRAMEWORKS

A project that I have long wanted very much to do is to write a history of the Future, especially, a history of the Future as seen in popular culture. Certainly a society’s view of its future tells what it values, and what it fears. If the positive outweigh the negatives, then we have futures such as is seen in Star Trek. When the negatives outweigh the positives, we have distopias, such as Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, George Orwell’s 1984, the Mad Max movies, Brave New World, or works such as Philip Dick’s Blade Runner or The Lathe of Heaven. In each of these distopian visions though, society fails in different ways.

Prediction #12 Comes True…(kind of)

December 1st, 2006 — enigma_foundryPrediction #12, Comes true…(kind of)

From my Predictions for 2007:

12. There will be a concerted attempt by a group of corporations to make actions similar to the well-publicized investigation by the board of HP during their ‘leak’ investigation legal.

The Ghost Map & 5GW: The answer is blowing in the wind

December 9th, 2006 — enigma_foundry

John Robb has an interesting post in which two astute points are made, and flowing from these, an important question is raised. The answer to his question depends on our thinking across disciplines, to see a very similar structure in a problem that was solved in Victorian London. A comparative analysis of the differences and similarities of John’s question to the problem in Victorian London provides a clear path forward, showing us how to address John’s question.

Types of Knowledge

December 17th, 2006 — enigma_foundry

An interesting excerpt from Collapse by Jared Diamond, about the native intelligence of New Guinea highland farmers, the utility and longevity of that knowledge:

New Guinea is the large island just North of Australia…lying almost on the equator and hence with hot tropical rainforest in the lowlands, but whose rugged interior consists of alternating ridges and valleys culminating in glacier-covered mountains….The terrain ruggedness confined Europeans to the coast and lowland rivers for almost 400 years, during which it became assumed that the interior was forest covered and uninhabited…It was therefore a shock, when airplanes chartered by biologists and miners first flew over the interior in the 1930’s for the pilots to see below them a landscape transformed by millions of people previously unknown to the outside world…..we know now…that agriculture has been going on there for about 7,000 years–one of the world’s longest-running experiments in sustainable agriculture.

Journey to the End of the Night (Seadrome Edition)

January 1st, 2007 — enigma_foundry

Looking through the overstock of my Grandfather’s bookstore, I have quite a number of Architectural Magazines, including many editions of “The American Architect,” “The Architectural Forum” (which actually covered Architecture, unlike today’s Architectural Forum, which almost no Architects read) and “The International Studio.” They cover the period from from the early teens to the late Thirties, but most fall between 1928 and 1934.

Hey, you’ve got your DNA in my Rice!

April 6th, 2007 — enigma_foundry Courtesy of Yale Global Online, here is a round-up of some top environmental stories. Of course, there is the usual parade of stories about global warming, but one in particular by Rick Weiss at the Washington Post caught my eye:

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