Re: Futurism not so hard afterall?

Spudboy100@aol.com
Fri, 10 Dec 1999 14:04:10 EST

With respect, the Futurists such as Marvin Centron, and the late Herman Kahn did a so-so job in their forecasts. The best info I have ever read comes from the late, Princeton Physicist, Gerard O'neil (remember O'neil cylanders?) who stated "Remember, scientists tend to over-estimate the impact breakthroughs, and tend to underestimate the impact of straight foward, advances in a field".

> Those people in the past we know of that did get

> it right may not have been such flukes; maybe they just put enough effort
> into the topic to get results. And this makes me more optimistic that,
with
> some effort, we can in fact now see the outlines of our future. Maybe
> futurism isn't as hard as past reviews of Sunday-supplement futurism makes
> it seem.