I bet you $1,000 that in the year 2020, we’re not even close to the kind of disaster you describe – a convergence of three disasters: global currency collapse, significant warfare between rich and poor, and environmental disasters of some significant size. We won’t even be close. I’ll bet on my optimism.
Predictor: Kelly, Kevin
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 article for Wired magazine, editor Kevin Kelly interviews Kirkpatrick Sale, the historian and author of “Rebels Against the Future: The Luddites and Their War on the Industrial Revolution,” in which he assails the Internet and computers as a danger to the planet. Kelly, a believer in a brighter future through technology, argues with Sales’ pessimism, concluding with the following exchange: ”Kelly: You get very specific in the closing pages of your book, where you say that if industrial civilization does not crumble because of the resistance from, say, Neo-Luddites or others, then it will crumble of its own accumulative excesses, specifically ‘within not more than a few decades.’ …So you have multinational global currency collapse, social friction and warfare both between the rich and the poor and within nations, and you have continent-wide environmental disasters causing death and great migrations of people. All by the year 2020, yes? How certain are you about all this, what you call your optimism?” ”Sale: Well, I have spent the last 20 years looking into these problems, and I have suggested to my daughters, who are in their 20s, that it would be a mistake to have children.” ”Kelly: Would you be willing to bet on your view?” “Sale: Sure.” ”Kelly: OK. [Pulls out a check.] Here’s a check for a thousand dollars, made out to Bill Patrick, our mutual book editor. I bet you $1,000 that in the year 2020, we’re not even close to the kind of disaster you describe – a convergence of three disasters: global currency collapse, significant warfare between rich and poor, and environmental disasters of some significant size. We won’t even be close. I’ll bet on my optimism.” ”Sale: [Pauses. Then smiles.] OK.” [Sale … writes out a check. They shake hands.] Kelly: Oh, boy, this is easy money! But you know, besides the money, I really hope I am right. Sale: I hope you are right, too.
Biography:Kevin Kelly was the author of the book “Out of Control” and the first executive editor of the highly influential Wired magazine. (Author/Editor/Journalist.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Community/Culture
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: Interview with the Luddite: Kirkpatrick Sale is a Leader of the Neo-Luddites. Wire’s Kevin Kelly Wrote the Book on Neo-Biological Technology. Food Fight, Anyone?
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.06/saleskelly_pr.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney