‘Email will never catch on’: why are we so bad at predicting the future? | Anne Perkins

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A Whitehall official’s pronouncement in 1994 reflects an age-old problem: how to imagine a different world

Who can resist this hinge in time, when one year ends and another begins, without indulging in a bit of light speculation about the future, if only to contemplate where, if anywhere, on Earth might be a safe space at the end of March.

This interregnum between Christmas and new year is also when Whitehall’s records of old arguments and negotiations and decisions are released, at least partially. It’s a moment usually treated as an exercise in history, but really it’s a snapshot of the way people anticipate the future. The latest releases, published at the end of last week, are particularly interesting because they reflect the way Whitehall copes at a moment of extraordinary upheaval. They cover the early 1990s, the years after the Berlin Wall was breached. The Soviet Union was tottering. Nelson Mandela was newly freed, and a technological revolution was waiting to be unleashed. Yep, a new world was waiting to be born.

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from The Guardian http://bit.ly/2TjH2V7

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