John Naisbitt wrote in "Megatrends" (1982): "The gee-whiz futurists are always wrong because they believe technological innovation travels in a straight line. It doesn't. It weaves and bobs and lurches and sputters".
Scott Adams in "The Dilbert Future" (1997): "Luckily for me, most of my predicitions are long term, so I'll be taking a dirt nap long before anyone notices the quality of my work". More briefly Niels Bohr: "Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future". > ... provided the basic input is accurate ... When "the input is accurate" common sense can often be enough for a "reasonable" forecast of the "output". And it can work better than complex "unscrutable" elaboration, in which even a small "not very accurate" detail can fubar the whole process. What's happened to the concept that was well known in the early days of computing? "Shit in, shit out". (Or maybe "garbage" if we want a more "polite" version). Cheers Giancarlo
