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This book is about seeing the world dynamically, as if everything in
it behaved like a living organism, growing, competing, maturing,
becoming weak by old age, and dying. Birth implies death, and whatever
you may be preoccupied with—business, success, misfortune, emotional
relation-ships, personal development, or artistic achievement—is
characterized by a life cycle displaying well-defined phases of
beginning, growth, de-cline, and end. The growth potential and the
duration of the process may vary from case to case. Some phenomena last
for a lifetime whereas oth-ers come and go like fads. But independently
of the timeframe things come into and out of existence according to the
same pattern, which is revelatory and sometimes even reassuring.
The book is also about being able to see more clearly further into
the future and make predictions, as well as to obtain a better
understanding of the past. You will be surprised to find out that it is
possible to see around corners! Fundamental natural laws such as
competition and sur-vival of the fittest can reveal unique insights into
what the future has in store for us. But also into what the past may
hide. After all, the past is not immune to the passage of time. Russia’s
past (Lenin, Stalin, com-munism, etc.) changed from heroic to shameful
in a matter of a few years. And then, there are questions about the past
we never asked be-fore because we assumed there could be no answers. In
Chapter Two we answer the question how many explorers attempted to
discover America before Columbus.
Futurology embraces a large cross-section of individuals ranging from
scientists to psychic mediums. They all claim to have ways and means for
making predictions. However, proof for correct predictions is rarely
demonstrated. Scientifically minded forecasters try to make their
approach credible via an exercise, which consists of ignoring some of
the recent data while making their prediction and then using these data
to verify the prediction. But this practice fails to convince astute
minds. Skeptics doubt the effectiveness of forgetting having seen the
final outcome. The only really valid test for a prediction is the test
of time. You make your prediction and then you wait the time necessary
for the truth to come out. Track record cannot be disputed.
The predictions made in this book enjoy the test of time. An older
version of the book was published in 1992 by Simon & Schuster under the
title Predictions - Society’s Telltale Signature Reveals the Past and
Forecasts the Future. In today’s edition those predictions are
confronted with recent data. In every chapter new sections have been
introduced under the heading Ten Years Later reviewing what happened
during the last ten years and comparing it to the original predictions.
There are many success stories, where prediction and reality have gone
hand in hand. But there are also some intricate disagreements.
The success stories reinforce our confidence in the original
forecasts and the method used. The disagreements are useful in a
different way. Predictions that came out wrong are not necessarily
failures. It is the reader’s prerogative to interpret them simply as
unsuccessful forecasts and appropriately distrust further projections of
the trends in question. But I have found it rewarding to dig deeper into
the reasons that may cause deviations from directions dictated by
fundamental natural laws. In many cases the insights obtained this way
teach us more than accurate forecasts would have.
Among the new material that has been added in this edition are
discussions on some issues that have become topical only recently, such
as the coming of hydrogen (Chapter Seven) and the war on terrorism
(Chapter Nine). I am not doing this to become fashionable. The new
material either answers questions previously raised, or constitutes a
natural evolution of the trends all ready established.
Theodore Modis
April 2002 |
