5 Predictions For The Future That Aren't So New After All

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Today, the New York Times asked seven entrepreneurs and tech executives about what's in store for the future. It's a fascinating snapshot of futurist thinking in 2014. But these aren't just the dreams of tomorrow most of them are the dreams of yesterday's tomorrows as well.

This isn't to say that all of these predictions are doomed to fail. In fact, most of them seem quite plausible. But it's important to put them in a historical context anytime we're prognosticating. Nobody can predict the future with absolute certainty, and that's actually what makes futurism so fun.

Below I've taken a small sample of the 2014 predictions published at the New York Times and dropped in a few similar predictions from history. Honestly, this list doesn't even begin to scratch the surface. But it's a reminder that we've been promised many of these things before.

2014: "Personalized medicine. Imagine a unique drug that's printed for you and your condition based on your individual gene sequencing." [Reid Hoffman]

1997: "Around 2012, a gene therapy for cancer is perfected. Five years later, almost one-third of the 4,000 known genetic diseases can be avoided through genetic manipulation." [July 1997 issue of Wired magazine]

1996: "In fact, it could be possible within 10 yearsand certainly within 20for you to carry around a smart card containing your complete genetic makeup. You would bring it with you when visiting your doctor, and the doctor would use it to prescribe medications or other treatments to meet your own specific needs. This is one example of the overarching trend of technology becoming more personalized in the decade ahead." [July-August 1996 The Futurist magazine]

2014: "Higher education." [Ev Williams]

1935: "We will undoubtedly have lectures of every conceivable kind present to us right in our homes, when practical television arrives, possibly a year or two off. Mathematics, geometry, and dozens of other subjects will be 'apple pie' so far as broadcasting them through the air by radio is concerned, when television is available for the purpose, compared to the present situation when it is quite impractical to attempt giving lectures on geometry or other subjects, which really require diagrams or pictures to make them clear to the uninitiated." [April 1935 Short Wave Craft magazine]

2014: "Keys." [Sebastian Thrun]

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5 Predictions For The Future That Aren't So New After All