Replying to Avatar DefiantDandelion

In 1894 the Times of London predicted that by 1950, New York would be buried under 9 feet of horse manure. And according to the 89th annual report of the board of health nearly 500 tones of horse manure were collected from the streets of New York daily.

Relief came in the form of the automobile which was not anticipated and changed everything.

I think a similar phenomenon is coming into view in regards to population demographics. The demographic winter is upon us. And the world as we know it will be radically changed. The world has never faced a drop in the population all predictions not taking this into account will be radically wrong and many predictions attempting to anticipate it are also going to be wrong. Policies and politics and economies will be turned on their heads. It will be quite disruptive.

https://www.axios.com/2023/11/09/us-population-decline-down-projections-data-chart

https://www.nyhistory.org/community/horse-manure

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Liberty Gal 2y ago

They predicted we'd all die from global cooling and then the climate warmed.

They predicted we'd all die from the hole in the ozone, but then that went away.

They predicted we'd all die from global warming, but the globe quit warming for the past 20 years (if you use satellites instead of the adjusted values), so they changed the claim to climate change killing us.

They predicted we'd go back to stone age because of peak oil and now we have more known oil reserves than when the predictions were made 50ish years ago.

Has there been one dread prediction that has ever been even close to true?

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DefiantDandelion 2y ago

There is certainly a risk it taking current trends and extrapolating them. So your caution is wise.

1) failing to That would ignore the things humans would do to mitigate those perceived risks. In the case of the ozone, regulations phased out the use of refrigerants that believed to be a contributor.

2) and It would ignore the uncertainty with the trend changing with no reaction from humans due to our lack of understanding of the trend.

And I definitely don’t think it’s an end of the world scenario.

For what dread prediction has ever come true, maybe too early to say for certain but I would say the national debt may be one such prediction.

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DefiantDandelion 2y ago

There is certainly a risk it taking current trends and extrapolating them. So your caution is wise.

1) failing to That would ignore the things humans would do to mitigate those perceived risks. In the case of the ozone, regulations phased out the use of refrigerants that believed to be a contributor.

2) and It would ignore the uncertainty with the trend changing with no reaction from humans due to our lack of understanding of the trend.

And I definitely don’t think it’s an end of the world scenario.

For what dread prediction has ever come true, maybe too early to say for certain but I would say the national debt may be one such prediction.