If you've grown up as a Christian, then you have surely heard "every preacher's favourite quote":
"When we arrive to heaven, we will be surprised by three things. First, that some saints who we've believed should be in heaven didn't actually make it. Second, that many of those who we've called sinners are there. And the biggest surprise of all: that we, ourselves, made it too."
I like to call this a prediction paradox: the less we know about the subject, the bolder we are about making predictions.
Scientists are no different from believers. Most of their predictions completely miss the mark, or, are placed so far in the future that as such, make little or no relevance to us. Somehow, it is much more difficult to predict what will happen in ten years from now, than in a thousand years. Apparently, the problem with the future is that we cling onto the past so hard, all those great novel ideas simply have no chance to develop and blossom. In other words, humans are terrible risk takers.
Here is my problem: in order to stay in the watch business, I should be able to predict the future with at least some degree of accuracy. The absolutely crucial question is this one: would we in one hundred years from now still wear watches that display the time in a direct, analogue way? Meaning: are we going to wear watches with hands or digital watches, which display time with numbers? |
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