What I especially love about bad predictions and prophets of doom is that they both highlight the danger of extrapolating from a single trend or from seeing the world with a single lens. In other words they use critically false assumptions. They assume that things will always go on as they are or fail to foresee the impact of new events or innovations. There is also the problem of groupthink. As the writer JG Ballard once said: “If enough people predict something it won’t happen.”
There are obviously countless lists of failed predictions and especially regrettable quotations but most are just a jumble. A few people have grouped predictions by industry, which is quite interesting, but I’ve had a better idea.
Grouping predictions and comments chronologically is quite revealing about how our thinking has changed over time. It reveals assumptions, dominant paradigms and periods of intense technological change (the 1800s seem especially fruitful).
Anyway, here’s my history of failed predictions and regrettable quotations. BTW, if you are wondering where “Everything that can be invented has been invented” (1899), “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers” (1943), or “640K ought to be enough for anybody.” (1981) are, these look as though they are urban legends.
1400s
“So many centuries after the Creation, it is unlikely that anyone could find hitherto unknown lands of any value.” – Committee advising King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain regarding a proposal by a certain Christopher Columbus, 1486.
“Printed books will never be the equivalent of handwritten codices, especially since printed books are often deficient in spelling and appearance.” – Trithemius in his treatise, “In Praise of Copying.”
