{"id":19234,"date":"2024-07-22T18:34:32","date_gmt":"2024-07-22T18:34:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/?p=19234"},"modified":"2024-07-22T19:58:38","modified_gmt":"2024-07-22T19:58:38","slug":"we-suck-at-predicting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/everything-else\/we-suck-at-predicting\/","title":{"rendered":"We Suck at Predicting"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the turn of the 20th century, cities around the world had a crappy problem that was getting worse by the day.<\/span><\/p>\n

Literally.<\/span><\/p>\n

Metropolises were rapidly growing in population, and thus so did the number of horse-drawn carriages to transport people from place to place.<\/span><\/p>\n

The problem? Horses generate <\/span>a lot<\/span><\/i> of waste.<\/span><\/p>\n

At this time, New York City had an estimated 130,000-200,000 horses transplanting people and goods around Manhattan, which meant there was upwards of 5+ million pounds of manure being generated every day.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yeah, that\u2019s a lot of poop.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

At this point, with city populations exploding vertically into taller buildings, and more horses being employed daily to serve these people, the future looked pretty dire.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 1894, <\/span>The Times<\/span><\/i> of London allegedly predicted that in 50 years, the city would be literally buried in horse poop! And can you blame them? If one looks at the trajectory of people, and horses, and poop, it would be simple to just continue to draw all of those lines up and to the right.<\/span><\/p>\n

Two years later, in 1896, a battery and internal combustion engine was attached to a horseless carriage, and within two decades the automobile had taken over, and the horse manure problem solved itself.<\/span><\/p>\n

Simultaneously, while humans were solving the transportation problems on the street, they were still struggling to solve another transportation problem\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

Would human beings ever actually fly?<\/b><\/h2>\n

By the late 1800s, after millions of wasted dollars, terrible mishaps, and fatal accidents, humanity\u2019s attempt to fly had largely been abandoned.<\/b><\/p>\n

Despite widespread interest and plenty of experimental attempts, too many people had died and too much money had been set on fire. There just didn\u2019t seem to be a safe path to success.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Washington Post soundly declared, \u201cIt\u2019s a fact that man can\u2019t fly.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

A particularly pessimistic gentleman predicted that \u201cmen would not fly for fifty years.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That prediction was made in 1901.<\/span><\/p>\n

We all know what happened next: Less than two years later, Willbur Wright took to the skies in his glider and became the first person in history to fly a manned aircraft.<\/span><\/p>\n

Who was the idiot that made the comically bad prediction about not flying for 50 years?<\/span><\/p>\n

Wilbur Wright!<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Luckily, he took the fact that his prediction was off by 48 years in stride, and was glad to have proven himself wrong. It\u2019s also one hell of a lesson to have learned: hold those predictions loosely!<\/span><\/p>\n

We suck at predicting!<\/b><\/h2>\n

Look back at any major development in history, good or bad, and you can find comically bad predictions from noted experts.<\/b><\/p>\n

1968\u2019s <\/span>The Population Bomb<\/span><\/i> predicted worldwide famines due to overpopulation within decades\u2026which makes sense. One look at this chart would lead you to the same conclusion:<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Of course, this is no longer the problem we\u2019re facing as a planet.<\/span><\/p>\n

Most experts these days are still raising alarm bells\u2026but they\u2019re<\/span> \u200b<\/span>terrified about <\/span>under<\/span><\/i>population<\/span>\u200b<\/span><\/a>, the exact opposite problem compared to a few decades prior.<\/span><\/p>\n

Predictions are fickle, and we humans are quite bad at them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hell, the reason I can send you this essay is due to the fact that one of the most famous predictions ended up being comically wrong. In 1998, Nobel-prize winning Economist Paul Krugman said<\/span> \u200b<\/span>the following about the Internet<\/span>\u200b<\/span><\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThe growth of the Internet will slow drastically\u2026By 2005 or so, it will become clear that <\/span>the Internet\u2019s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine\u2019s.<\/span>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Yikes.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, if humans, even experts, have been comically misguided and made terrible predictions about some of the most transformative moments in human history, do we think it\u2019s <\/span>also<\/span><\/i> possible that we are wrong all the time about the predictions we make about our own lives?<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s time we start holding our predictions a little less strongly.<\/span><\/p>\n

My vote? We start to be a bit more like Willbur Wright.<\/span><\/p>\n

As laid out in David McCullough\u2019s<\/span> \u200b<\/span>The Wright Brothers<\/span><\/i>\u200b<\/span><\/a>, <\/span><\/i>Wright<\/span> thought about the future differently after proving himself wrong:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThis demonstration of my inability as a prophet gave me such a shock that I have ever since distrusted myself and have refrained from all prediction\u2014as my friends of the press, especially, well know.<\/span><\/p>\n

But <\/span>it is not really necessary to look too far into the future<\/b>; we see enough already to be certain that it will be magnificent. Only let us hurry and open the roads.”<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is a pretty good strategy for looking at our own lives.<\/b><\/p>\n

We can start with acceptance: we\u2019re never going to get better at predicting the future.<\/span><\/p>\n

We can also hold two conflicting ideas in our head at the same time. As President Dwight. D. Eisenhower once said, \u201cPlans are worthless, but planning is everything.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve simply accepted this is just how life works. I still make plans, and I still make predictions\u2026but I hold those plans and predictions <\/span>very<\/span><\/i> loosely.<\/span><\/p>\n

Looking back five years, I never would have predicted how the world and my life would turn out. I certainly wouldn’t have predicted a worldwide pandemic and life-altering medications like GLP-1.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hell, if I look back at <\/span>last week<\/span><\/i>, I can point to a bunch of things that didn\u2019t go according to plan. But, because I expect nothing to ever go <\/span>according to plan,<\/span><\/i> I\u2019m rarely caught off guard when things turn out differently than expected.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is our task for today:<\/span><\/p>\n

If we want to become more resilient and make progress on our goals, we need to accept that our plans will rarely go according to plan!<\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what that might look like in practice:<\/b><\/p>\n