<story><title>What people in 1900 thought the year 2000 would look like</title><url>http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/10/04/what-people-in-1900-thought-the-year-2000-would-look-like/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>Houshalter</author><text>This is relevant:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;lesswrong.com&amp;#x2F;lw&amp;#x2F;j1&amp;#x2F;stranger_than_history&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;lesswrong.com&amp;#x2F;lw&amp;#x2F;j1&amp;#x2F;stranger_than_history&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;lesswrong.com&amp;#x2F;lw&amp;#x2F;j6&amp;#x2F;why_is_the_future_so_absurd&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;lesswrong.com&amp;#x2F;lw&amp;#x2F;j6&amp;#x2F;why_is_the_future_so_absurd&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;When people look at historical changes and think &amp;quot;I could have predicted X&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;You could have predicted X if you looked at factors 1, 2, and 3&amp;quot;; then they forget that people did not, in fact, predict X, perhaps because they were distracted by factors 4 through 117.  People read history books, see coherent narratives, and think that&amp;#x27;s how Time works.  Underestimating the surprise of the present, they overestimate the predictability of the future.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;People seem to imagine futures that are minimally counterintuitive, with one or two interesting changes to make a good story...&lt;p&gt;...&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;Suppose I told you that I knew for a fact that the following statements were true:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;If you paint yourself a certain exact color between blue and green, it will reverse the force of gravity on you and cause you to fall upward.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;In the future, the sky will be filled by billions of floating black spheres.  Each sphere will be larger than all the zeppelins that have ever existed put together.  If you offer a sphere money, it will lower a male prostitute out of the sky on a bungee cord.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;Your grandchildren will think it is not just foolish, but evil, to put thieves in jail instead of spanking them.</text></comment>
<story><title>What people in 1900 thought the year 2000 would look like</title><url>http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/10/04/what-people-in-1900-thought-the-year-2000-would-look-like/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>jbuzbee</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s a bit of a stretch to call these predictions of the year 2000 from 1900. In reality, these were likely just a fun way to put cartoons on cigar boxes in order to get people to buy the next in the set. I don&amp;#x27;t think 1900&amp;#x27;s Parisians really believed in a future of whale-powered busses and people riding super-sized sea-horses.</text></comment>