
What Isaac Asimov Taught Us About Predicting the Future - tomerbd
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/31/books/review/isaac-asimov-psychohistory.html
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Reedx
Relatedly, here's what Asimov predicted for 2019:
[https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2018/12/27/35-years-
ago-i...](https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2018/12/27/35-years-ago-isaac-
asimov-was-asked-by-the-star-to-predict-the-world-of-2019-here-is-what-he-
wrote.html)

~~~
thunderbong
Thanks. That was really good.

I just wish the following was true.

>> The consequences of human irresponsibility in terms of waste and pollution
will become more apparent and unbearable with time and again, attempts to deal
with this will become more strenuous. It is to be hoped that by 2019, advances
in technology will place tools in our hands that will help accelerate the
process whereby the deterioration of the environment will be reversed.

~~~
crag
Well he's right about the first party. As for the tools... people need to
vote.. in the US at least.

~~~
mywittyname
Problems are easy to predict.

The technological solutions to those problems are predictable by a
sufficiently educated person.

Politics is impossible to predict. Even if you're dead on about how a group of
people feel in one region, go 200 miles west, you may be completely wrong.

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reednj
The article has basically nothing to do with the title. It is a recap of the
plot of the foundation series and an extended analogy about how trump is the
same as the Mule

~~~
dmead
neat. was this article plagiarized?

[https://www.eclectablog.com/2016/05/donald-trump-is-
playing-...](https://www.eclectablog.com/2016/05/donald-trump-is-playing-the-
role-of-the-mule-from-isaac-asimovs-foundation-trilogy.html)

~~~
gaius
The NYT has form for it recently, they’ve rehashed some of Laura Loomer’s old
work for example.

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barry-cotter
If you’re interested in predicting the future read Philip Tetlock’s
Superforecasting. In general people don’t make precise predictions to be right
or wrong.

Review

[https://www.econlib.org/archives/2015/10/superforecastin.htm...](https://www.econlib.org/archives/2015/10/superforecastin.html)

[https://www.econlib.org/archives/2015/10/outside_first.html](https://www.econlib.org/archives/2015/10/outside_first.html)

Superforecasting on Amazon

[https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0771070527/ref=cm_cr_arp_mb_b...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0771070527/ref=cm_cr_arp_mb_bdcrb_top?ie=UTF8)

Tetlock’s Wikipedia page

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_E._Tetlock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_E._Tetlock)

Econtalk interview podcast with Tetlock

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/econtalk/id135066958](https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/econtalk/id135066958)

~~~
bloak
But before reading "Superforecasting", read Jackal's two-star review on
Amazon. I agree with that well-written review, which also recommends other
things to read.

~~~
dmos62
This is not the first time I get very good recommendations from Jackal. Who is
he?

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netcan
Asimov is definitely a favourite and the use of fiction to explore otherwise
polical/philosophical ideas is something I wish we had more of.

That said, seeing the world as predictable cycles is... a strong theme in
modern history/political philosophy & not unique to him. That's (imo) what
makes the psychohistory great. It's a fictionalised form of an idea that
appears everywhere humans try to think of a big picture. Destiny.. fate.

Marx was explicitly deterministic in his historical materialism theory, his
core idea, and possibly the thing Asimov was parodying in psychohistory.
Economics as a whole could be thing Asimov was parodying. The like of to set
Malthus, Ricardo and even Keynes played this game. Modern economists (notably
thomas picketty) predict cycles, their inevitable consequences and 2nd order
effects.

New/neo liberalism in the 80s & 90s had a strong, economics-oriented idea that
the world would inevitably move towards liberal democracy and it's economic
institutions. Gibbon's "Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire" has strong
deterministic themes: success, decadence, collapse, renewal.

Yuval Noah Harare's "Sapiens" has its driving theme of human history (a march
towards more & better cooperation). The history leads directly into futurism &
prediction in the sequel... also deterministic themes.

Destiny has been a favourite theme in our stories since our first stories.

~~~
dankwatch
If you're not familiar with it, you should check out generational archetypes.
It's the cyclical nature of generations, not empires. Anecdotally, it seems
fairly accurate.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generatio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generational_theory)

