You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

Trevor_Blake comments on Futurism's Track Record - Less Wrong Discussion

12 Post author: lukeprog 29 January 2014 08:27PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (17)

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: [deleted] 30 January 2014 01:22:16AM 9 points [-]

Unmentioned in your post but personally more problematic is failing to predict something. Predicting X and getting less than X, well, okay. Failing to predict at all things like home computers, the web, the fall of the Soviet Union, antibiotics, now those are serious black eyes for futurism.

Comment author: advancedatheist 30 January 2014 03:13:22PM 2 points [-]

Failing to predict at all things like home computers

Why does this misconception persist? The inventor/science fiction writer Murray Leinster predicted networked home computers, a Google-like search engine, voice interfaces and an accidentally emerging AI in his well known story, "A Logic Named Joe," published in 1946:

http://www.baen.com/chapters/W200506/0743499107___2.htm

Comment author: gwern 31 January 2014 03:13:46AM 4 points [-]

Did Leinster publish in academic journals and reasonably counts under a category like futurism? Or pulp sci-fi magazines and fiction?

Comment author: Alsadius 01 February 2014 03:45:17AM 2 points [-]

Pulp sci-fi is closer to what I think of what I hear "futurism" than anything published in a reputable journal.

Comment author: Vulture 04 February 2014 03:42:47PM 3 points [-]

But so much pulp sci-fi was published, and in such variety, that one could find a plausible "fit" for pretty much any conceivable future invention.

Comment author: Alsadius 04 February 2014 11:05:32PM 0 points [-]

Respectable predictions are even more common, though, so I'm not sure how meaningful either one can be.

Comment author: Vulture 05 February 2014 05:20:11PM 2 points [-]

It feels icky to claim that something was "predicted" by a fictional story that made no claim to being serious prediction, though.