Which prediction was supposed to happen already?
Which prediction was supposed to happen already?
During covid times I heard many interesting conspiracy predictions such as the value is money will fall to zero, the whole society will collapse, the vaccine will kill 99% of the population etc. None of those things have happened yet, but can you add some other predicitons to the list?
Actually, long before covid hit, there were all sorts of predictions floating around. You know, things like the 2008 recession will cause the whole economy to collapse and then we’ll go straight to Mad Max style post-apocalyptic nightmare or 9/11 was supposed to start WW3. I can’t even remember all the predictions I’ve heard over the years, but I’m sure you can help me out. Oh, just remembered that someone said that paper and metal money will disappear completely by year xyz. At the time that date was like only a few years away, but now it’s more like 10 years ago or something. Still waiting for that one to come true…
if 10% of the workforce telecommutes we can end our foreign oil dependence by 1975
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Endemic COVID. (This one is basically true.)
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Computers will make everything so efficient that workers will work fewer and fewer hours, and we will need to seriously consider what to do with all of our leisure time. (This could be true if it weren't for employers exploiting those efficiencies.)
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Unions will disappear. (Looks like the opposite is happening, possibly based on #2.)
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Specific predictions are almost always going to flop. Wiser people who monitor the collapse of civilization are careful to note that it's a process, not a discrete event. You can see the process in action all around us in the form of wildfires, market volatility, the hollowing out of schools and hospitals, flooding cities, etc.
I knew a conspiracy theory nut who said that society is about three months away from collapse. As in, on any given date society was due to collapse in a few months.
First society was due to collapse due to cancer caused by COVID vaccines. Then it turned to "COVID vaccines cause sterilization and cancer, which will collapse society in a few years" and complete disregard to the prior time line. Then society was due to collapse due to a global war caused by Putin using nuclear weapons. Which turned to "Putin will invade [my country, which does not border Russia. Or any country that borders Russia, and so on].
The fun part was that each theory didn't over-ride the previous, but they somehow build on top of each other. The atom bomb didn't replace the vaccine cancer, they were both part of the same plan. He believed in many other world-ending conspiracy theories, so I think he, like, gradually added layer. There was a thing with 9/11 that was somehow related to a world ending event (Probably began as a "The US is going to atom bomb the middle east and start a world war") and a weird economic conspiracy theory about countries not having any assets that probably grew from the 2008 financial crisis.
I remember a conspiracy theory that Sarah Palin wasn't actually pregnant and she was covering for her teenage daughter by flying from Texas to Alaska to pretend to give birth. This was buffeted by the fact her daughter was out of school for "mono" for 9 months prior to Sarah's birth. Everyone thought the conspiracy nuts were crazy until that daughter showed up pregnant to the photo shot of Sarah Palins new baby.
Oh, and there was the time it was going around that Epstein supplied Trump with an underage hooker and then his lawyer paid off the girl to keep quiet. Can you imagine? Epstein supplying people with underage girls? And Trumps lawyer paying them off to keep quiet? Note that when this came to light in October of 2015, both premises seemed completely absurd.
Trump was suppose to be president 30 times already.
I had some friends who were fully sold on Peak Oil for a few years. Basically: we were about to hit the point where supply of oil was going to fall below demand once and for all, and there was no viable replacement, so prices were going to skyrocket, societies would grind to a halt, wars would start over the dwindling oil resources, and we were going to be living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland within 10 years.
In ~2009, the price of oil hit a record high of nearly $200/barrel. This was at the tail end of a sharp jump, after 20 years of steadily-rising oil prices. One of my friends was pretty obsessed, and had been reading blogs and listening to podcasts, and had all kinds of facts & figures on oil production, known reserves, predicted demand, etc, and they all seemed to point to a crisis. He predicted a price of $300 or higher per barrel within a year, and that was just the beginning.
So we made a bet on where oil prices were going to be in 5 years. He said (with absolute confidence) $300+, I said somewhere under the current price of $200.
It ended up being under $100/barrel. Nobody talks about "Peak Oil" anymore.
(I won't say where I got my confidence that oil prices would stabilize and fall, because that would just invite a barrage of downvotes and angry arguments...)
Before Covid, some people declared that Obamacare would introduce death panels, where faceless bureaucrats would decide if someone is worth the cost of treatment. Deciding fates with a calculator and the stroke of a pen.
So many "the world will end" predictions didn't pan out lol
There's Harold Camping's end of the world predictions.
Internet Historian created a comedic video covering it. The link can be found here. It's 23 minutes long.
Now that's an interesting question
