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Predictions are a difficult business. No matter how good your reputation and how smart you are, nobody can see the future with 100% clarity. Hindsight, however, is always 20/20.
Whatever our political inclinations and values, most of us can probably agree that The New York Times is a quality publication with capable journalists. However, even The Gray Lady has made countless blunders since being founded in 1851.
And today, we’re going to be merciless and look over some of the most misguided, terrible, and plain stupid forecasts that went straight down the drain, as collected by Sam Greenspan. From bagels to Picasso to Apple to computers to air and space travel, this all sounds like utter madness when reading it from the comfort of the future.
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#1
On Laptop Computers, 1985
"On the whole, people don’t want to lug a computer with them to the beach or on a train to while away hours they would rather spend reading the sports or business section of the newspaper… the real future of the laptop computer will remain in the specialized niche markets. Because no matter how inexpensive the machines become, and no matter how sophisticated their software, I still can’t imagine the average user taking one along when going fishing"
Cassie 5 years ago
More precisely, the world wide web on the internet. The internet existed back then, but there was no simple user interface that made it suitable for casual public use. It was purely for sharing documents.
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Johnny 5 years ago
And in turn, I can't imagine going fishing without taking along my pocket computer (i.e. my cell phone)
Marcellus the Third 5 years ago
Bit of a false comparison as your smartphone does no tasks you'd do on this thing... You're not running e.g. a text editor for programming on it, are you? This thing doesn't phone, you'd not take digital post-its on it as it's too slow, etc.
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Mohammad Ammar 5 years ago
I think he just underestimated how "sophisticated" the software could become.
Laurenz Edelman 5 years ago
I would believe so. Back than a laptop was basically an advanced typewriter and calculator. Not even personal computers were that common yet.
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Kathryn Baylis 5 years ago (edited)
In 1985, we couldn’t conceive of a world where our jobs would intrude on our lives to the point where we’re expected to work—-while at the beach or on a train while hours away.
The Cute Cat 5 years ago
Yups.. No one going fishing and using laptop.. TBH, that is still correct.. The rest acitvity is different
Coat Guy 5 years ago
Who even still reads the new york times? it seems quite obvious it's written by a bunch of boomers, stuck in the past somewhere shortly after 1945 with no interest for the future or the present. Just let the new york times die out, bunch of idiots over there, don't support them
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#2
On Television, 1939
"The problem with television is that the people must sit and keep their eyes glued on a screen; the average American family hasn’t time for it."
Nagawa (Cofa) Kishiki 5 years ago
They were right. Who have time nowadays to sit down and watch TV. We multi-task by watching Netflix and using the toilet.
Caffeinated Hedgehog 5 years ago
Nowadays, they don't have time to sit down and watch TV if they're using smartphones and browsing social media.
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Sharon Vaughn 5 years ago
And yet television has become an alternative baby sitter for busy parents starting with Baby Boomers, and a form of escape for following generations.
#3
The iPhone In 2006
"Everyone’s always asking me when Apple will come out with a cell phone. My answer is, ‘Probably never.’"
Bubble Gum Bandit 5 years ago
Can't believe they missed one of their biggest mistakes. They gave Clinton an 84% chance of winning on election day and printed articles for months prior to the election Clinton was a shoe in and Trump had no path to victory. Then every day for weeks published article of how they got it all wrong. Remember?
We, humans, all share an immeasurable love for being ahead of the future. Skeptics do it secretly, like scanning through the daily horoscope every 24 hours, rational people tend to be more into calculated economic forecasts, and others just plain love predictions. Sometimes it takes much less than statistical confidence, and we all fall into believing obscure statements.
Partly, it has to do with our inner urge to have control over our future. From weather forecasts to the post-Covid 19 future, it gives us a false sense of certainty. Nothing is more intimidating than a sudden change, and it’s only fair to get hold of anything that feeds us with the illusion of knowing everything.
#4
On Whether Airplanes Were Feasible In 1903
"Hence, if it requires, say, a thousand years to fit for easy flight a bird which started with rudimentary wings, or ten thousand for one with started with no wings at all and had to sprout them ab initio, it might be assumed that the flying machine which will really fly might be evolved by the combined and continuous efforts of mathematicians and mechanicians in from one million to ten million years — provided, of course, we can meanwhile eliminate such little drawbacks and embarrassments as the existing relation between weight and strength in inorganic materials."
Mike Crow 5 years ago
Remember that when people say that spaceships will never be practical, they had also said that airplanes would never be a commercial success.
M O'Connell 5 years ago
It's entirely feasible that some of the people who read this prediction lived to see man walk on the moon.
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El Dee 5 years ago
Well, he WOULD'VE been right except for the fact that WW1 and WW2 both accelerated the development of aircraft from being solely used for reconnaissance to jet fighters and bombers within a few decades. These advances lead to worldwide travel by plane becoming available to the masses only a few decades further on again..
Sean Baxter 5 years ago
it not that crazy based on where plane technology was at the time. They could only carry one person for a few hundred feet. No one could have imagined 747s back then.
Pauline Bennett 5 years ago
Too bad they didn't mention the pollution these beasts do produce of course they don't even mention it now!
WilvanderHeijden 5 years ago
LOL. You're downvoted because you're telling the truth. Is this the new trend? Let's show them truthers that we won't take their c**p....
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Kevin Behrendt 5 years ago
Considering the amount of success and development by the year 1903 it was simply an irrational comment. As if the author didn't even knew aynthing about the topic.
Himanshu Raj 5 years ago
Boy, that was wrong to the point where it's straight rude. I hope whoever said this lived long enough to see them fly better.
#5
About A Rocket, 1936
"A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth’s atmosphere."
Marcellus the Third 5 years ago
This mistake hinges on the idea that rockets are planes i.e. supported by wing surface. Hence, stuck in atmosphere.
#6
About The Dangers Of Driving Automobiles At High Speeds
In 1904, The New York Times reported on a debate in Paris between a brain specialist and a physician about the dangers of driving automobiles at high speeds—because the brain can’t keep up. “It remains to be proved how fast the brain is capable of traveling,” reads the article. “If it cannot acquire an eight-mile per hour speed, then an auto running at the rate of 80 miles per hour is running without the guidance of the brain, and the many disastrous results are not to be marveled at.”
Naima Ivansdóttir 5 years ago
they thought women riding on cars would leave their uteruses behind for travelling too fast too, lol
Courtney Christelle 5 years ago
And remember, they use to think a woman's uterus traveled around her body.
2WheelTravlr 5 years ago
This conversation would have made sense in the mid 1800's, but by 1904 there were trains that could travel at up to 100 mph, so they would have all sorts of evidence that the human brain was most definitely capable of traveling at 80+ mph.
El Dee 5 years ago
Essentially people can't think quickly enough to keep up? Correct. To have high speed travel by car it was essential to build specific roads on which they could travel. They had specialised junctions, no pedestrians and very long, slow bends without sharp turns at all. High speed travel depends on high speed roads..
danielw 5 years ago
Not correct. The physical act of piloting a car is perfectly doable. the reason for the large-radius turns on highways is traction: you go too fast a round a turn and you begin to drift. don't ease off and you loose control. the reason for paving it is to avoid bumps, potholes, and such like that 1) are impossible to see from farther away and 2) wreck a car's suspension. the reason for controlling access is because, again, of physics: pedestrians could cross into the drive lane inside a car's stopping distance. It doesn't matter how quickly your brain can respond in that situation. also, the fastest 'cars' in the world happen to drive off roads. (Salt flats in utah, to be precise.)
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MermaidsAndDragons 5 years ago
Reminds me of how Victorian men thought women shouldn't travel on trains going over 50 mph, because their uteruses would fly out of them.
The old-school New York Times’ predictions are definitely not the first and not the last ones that turned out to be completely wrong. Many of the more recent predictions have proven to be just as false.
For example, in 2009, it seemed like everyone was ready to start a decade of space tourism in the 2010s. “By 2020 you'll have seen private citizens circumnavigate the moon," Eric Anderson of Space Adventures announced in 2009. Meanwhile, Elon Musk stated that “I'm going to go out on a limb and say that by 2020 there will be serious plans to go to Mars with people."
But the reality now is very different. After seven people paid to travel to space in the first decade of the 21st century, space tourism flights were halted in 2009. The delays have left people who signed up for such travel waiting.
#7
On Picasso And Cubism, 1911
"It is to be regretted that this unquestionably talented artist… should now make his debut with a series of childish, not to say imbecile, scribbles that are no interest either as independent works of art or as steps toward achieving the complete work. They have neither material beauty nor that ‘spiritual significance’… nor merit of any other sort"
Pauline Bennett 5 years ago
One has to appreciate art for what it is it is one persons view. Not everyone will like it, some people don't like the Mona Lisa because she as no eyebrows they consider it unfinished.
Monday 5 years ago
and then there are others that don't like it cause it's a pretty boring painting.
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Blue of the yams (They/He) 5 years ago
I don't like Picasso. He was a misogynist and a pervert.
Leah Helbig 5 years ago
Actually it was probably used to launder money because seriously doesn't take talent to paint that. If you don't believe me look it up art is a common way the rich launder money. That's why when you see abstract art and your like what?! $5 million for scribbles!
Ania Barrett 5 years ago
You should see his early works; he painted some amazing pictures as a teenager. He once said: “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.”
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Amaranthim Talon 5 years ago
I am firmly in this camp, btw- Cubism, my own opinion, and isn't that what art is essentially? what we each deem to be art? To me Cubism will never be art.
Kristoffer Rahbek-Jensen 5 years ago
Great art is rarely understood in it's time, because great art is that wich pushes the boundaries of our understanding of art.
Bob Belcher 5 years ago
Art is in the eye of the beholder. There are many different kinds of art. One is not better than the other no matter what snobbish critic says. I personally like still life and old Italian paintings the most. I don't care for modernism or abstract, but it doesn't mean I don't respect the artist who made it.
Sean Baxter 5 years ago
I don't like art critics mainly because art is so subjective. Just cause one person doesn't like it doesn't mean anything. Although for a lot of art what really matters is how much rich people like it.
#8
On Twitter, 2007
"Using Twitter for literate communication is about as likely as firing up a CB radio and hearing some guy recite ‘The Iliad.’ … Whether the service can be made into a sustainable business, [is] quite unknown. I’m skeptical"
WilvanderHeijden 5 years ago
"Using Twitter for literate communication is about as likely as firing up a CB radio and hearing some guy recite ‘The Iliad." He wasn't wrong there....
N S 5 years ago (edited)
exactly. twitter should have been called twatter
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Chevy Volt 5 years ago
It's kinda true now as Twitter has become a heaping trash pile of cancel culture & karens.
Marcellus the Third 5 years ago
Which part of "micro-blogging" suggested the Iliad to this philistine? That's just weird. Because "micro-blogging" was their mission statement, they later only reluctantly allowed longer-than-SMS-text length.
Sean Baxter 5 years ago
I think he didn't realize what Twitter was trying to do. Twitter wasn't supposed to have in-depth discussion, it was supposed to be filled with quick easily digestible blurbs.
#9
On Apple In 1996
"Whether they stand alone or are acquired, Apple as we know it is cooked. It’s so classic. It’s so sad."
Johnny 5 years ago
That was a fair assessment at the time, Apple had just started licensing MacOS to third party manufacturers, so were destined to just be another operating system... then Steve Jobs returned to the company through NeXT
Doc Sooter 5 years ago
If memory serves me correctly this is exactly what happened. Apple underwent a major restructuring that turned them into what we know now. To keep with the cooked metaphor the Times uses, Apple got cooked into an Apple Pie...? Maybe a stretch with that lol.
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MrTree1779 5 years ago
As just about everything Apple was working on in 1996, was scrapped by Jobs in 1998? Yeah, Apple "as they knew it" WAS cooked. Jobs basically threw away the old company (everything but the name) and started over. The Apple of today (1998-2020s) is not the same company as the Apple of 1996. At all.
Ray Gassert 5 years ago
Well, Apple as we knew it at that time did get cooked. And reborn better.
Rob Walker, a contributor to The New York Times, believes that when it comes to predictions, anything is possible, but he urges everyone to take “a closer look at how often definitive predictions about permanent change are simply extrapolations of recently observable trends taken to some maximum extreme.”
Even though speculation about what may happen is useful, Rob stresses that reality may unfold in “more complex and subtle ways than predicted. Because if you’re considering a time horizon of 12 years as opposed to 12 months, other things will happen—good and bad—that you cannot foresee but that will have some effect, however oblique, on whatever it is you are predicting.”
Therefore, reading anything that targets the future had better be done with a grain of salt, or two.
#10
On Hitler, 1922
"Several reliable, well-informed sources confirmed the idea that Hitler’s anti-Semitism was not so genuine or violent as it sounded, and that he was merely using anti-Semite propaganda as a bait to catch masses of followers and keep the aroused, enthusiastic and in line for the time when his organization is perfected and sufficiently powerful to be employed effectively for political purposes"
Hume 5 years ago
They were not entirely wrong. Hitler did use it as a tool to further his political aims. Hitler did not invent antisemitism, he just took what was already there just under the surface and used it. Obviously this did lead to the Holocaust, which is a serious matter in itself.
H Edwards 5 years ago
I feel like you've kind of missed the point. I don't see anywhere implied that Hitler 'invented' antisemitism. The article is saying that Hitler didn't really believe his antisemitic rhetoric and was using it *only* as a political tool. Fast forward to the Final Solution, and it becomes clear that Hitler believed every word he was saying and was, in fact, an extremely committed (and deranged) anti-Semite.
Load More Replies... MrTree1779 5 years ago
We always underestimate the use of scapegoats and thuggery in politics. We did in 1922, we're doing it again in 2020 (*cough* Trump and the Proud Boys *cough*)
El Dee 5 years ago
Anti-Semitism WAS exceptionally popular throughout Europe at that time. A country in the grip of hyper inflation and suffering greatly after WW1 needed a scapegoat - they had Jewish people to blame and did so. Hitler was not as moved by this ideology as some others but he was willing to adopt it wholesale to get power and it worked. He took this further and further in order to accomplish his aims. He wasn't guided solely by it but it was in large part responsible for his very real popularity. Nowadays we have something similar. People blame immigrants and in particular Muslims, they are demonised and blamed for all ills in society. Top politicians want to stop Muslims entering the country, want to 'send them back' and make disparaging remarks about the religion and say that it is evil - we appear to have learned nothing from the Holocaust, the lesson was not that we mustn't oppress Jewish people for being Jewish, the lesson was that we should not oppress ANY group..
Edwin Quantrall 5 years ago (edited)
Substitute "Donald Trump" for "Hitler" and add "anti-Immigrant/anti-Muslim/racist" to "anti-Semitism/-Semitic" and that article could have been repeated, word-for-word, in 2015 or 2016. "Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it." - Georges Santayana
#11
The Ipod In 2001
"It’s a nice feature for Macintosh users,’ said P. J. McNealy, a senior analyst for Gartner G2, an e-commerce research group. ‘But to the rest of the Windows world, it doesn’t make any difference."
WilvanderHeijden 5 years ago
And he was right. Very few Windows users bought an Ipod, mainly because other MP3 players were cheaper and it was much easier to get your MP3 files copied to them.
M O'Connell 5 years ago
At the time, he was right. My college girlfriend had a Zune, which was arguably much better than a 1st generation iPod (cheaper too), and worked well with existing PC software.
#12
On The Potential Of Aerosmith, 1973
"Aerosmith, the opening act, played loud, derivative rock, distinguished only by Steve Tyler’s fawning imitation of Mick Jagger"
WilvanderHeijden 5 years ago
Steve Tyler's voice is much more impressive and powerful, though.
MrTree1779 5 years ago
Mick Jagger?? Tyler's pre-"Dream On" singing sounded MUCH more like Robert Plant than Jagger. Jeez, they couldn't even get their insult right...
2WheelTravlr 5 years ago
I think they were speaking more of his stage presence rather than his voice.
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#13
On Wheel Of Fortune, 1986
"It is generally conceded that ‘Wheel,’ entering its fourth year in syndication, can’t go on as it has forever. But most industry observers maintain that while the show may be nearing its peak, its impact remains huge"
Sean Baxter 5 years ago
Making predictions on entertainment is hard. It's almost impossible to know what people will like.
#14
On Bagels, 1946
"Bagels, which are small, hard Jewish rolls with holes in the center, were sent to [the] Secretary of Agriculture… with notes warning that this is what a loaf of bread would look like if the government permitted bakers to make further reductions in size. ‘A bagel is a hole with a roll around it,’ [consumer advocate Dr. Helen] Harris informed the officials, “Another cut in the weight of bread and this bagel will go as a loaf at the present price of bread.’"
MrTree1779 5 years ago
That photo is from the 1970s. The haircuts on the guy on the left, and right, are very much from the 70s, and the shirts that the guys on the left and in the middle are wearing, are also out of the 70s.
M O'Connell 5 years ago
Well go ahead, find them a license-free stock photo of bagels from the 1940s.
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On Whether Space Travel Was Feasible In 1920
"That [rocket pioneer Robert] Goddard… does not know the relation of action to reaction, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react — to say that would be absurd. Of course he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools."
chi-wei shen 5 years ago
On 17 July 1969, when the Apollo 11 crew was on the way to the first manned landing on the Moon, the New York Times printed a correction of that article from 13 January 1920. Their final sentence was "The Times regrets the error."
Marco Conti 5 years ago
We still have idiots that think outer space vacuum and cleaning household vacuums work on the same principle. They do not, just in case the previous sentence made you go "Mmmmm?"
M O'Connell 5 years ago
The rather foolish writer couldn't wrap his head around the fact that the explosive expansion of hot gas from a rocket engine generates force. He seemed to think that you needed to "push off" of something to generate motion.
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Marcellus the Third 5 years ago
Because later they stopped space being vacuum? No... There was zero physical principles forbidding space travel in 1920; it was purely the journalist making a blunder (just like the various "cars above X mph are impossible because..." (above is the "at 80mph the brain cannot follow", there was a -- I think 21mph -- calculation that "breathing would be impossible", etc).
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#16
On The Future Of Cocaine, 1914
"The drug produces several other conditions that make the ‘fiend’ a peculiarly dangerous criminal. One of these conditions is a temporary immunity to shock, a resistance to the knock down effects of fatal wounds… seems to be produced in the cocaine-sniffing n***o. … Once the n***o has formed the habit, he is irreclaimable. The only method to keep him from taking the drug is by imprisoning him. … For the thousands of n***oes who have not yet acquired the habit, but who will do so eventually if present conditions continue, the outlook is scarcely more hopeful."
MrTree1779 5 years ago
Watch the documentary series "Hooked: Illegal Drugs & How They Got That Way" -- Every time we made a drug "illegal", it was due to racism. Which is why Prohibition failed, and why cigarettes have never been illegal. --- We don't make WHITE drugs illegal. Only drugs which started gaining popularity with brown people.
ej wey 5 years ago
Ugh..... Why why why does everything turn to race. Blame blame blame blame blame
Load More Replies... Guild N. Stern 5 years ago (edited)
Why in the heck did they censor negro?? It's not a derogatory word. This is getting ridiculous.
Amaranthim Talon 5 years ago
OMg thanks for asking!! Believe it or not, I had no idea what was being censored! I was struggling to fit in NOSE! lol
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Aunt Messy 5 years ago
Freud was a user. So were most of his friends and colleagues. It became very popular in the latter half of the 19th century as a "tonic".
El Dee 5 years ago
Alcohol is one of the most addictive and dangerous drugs we have. Whilst we talk of 'passive smoking' you can also suffer passively from someone else's drinking eg drink driving, violent behaviour etc. You can drink yourself to death in a single sitting but we banned smoking in pubs, not drinking. If we banned the most harmful and allowed less harmful drugs then smoking cannabis and tobacco would be fine but alcohol would be banned..
MrTree1779 5 years ago
In America, alcohol and tobacco have always been seen as "white" drugs (always popular with white folks) and have been socially "acceptable", while marijuana, cocaine, and heroin have historically been seen as "black" or "brown" drugs (popular first in black or brown communities) and therefore a "menace" to "good" white Americans. The U.S. tried to ban alcohol (19th Amendment), and too many whites became upset at the ban (or ignored it) and the ban was overturned (21st Amendment). --- Also, smoking marijuana and tobacco cause mouth, throat and/or lung cancer. They are ultimately just as harmful as alcohol, even if they're not as immediately harmful.
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Michał Jastrzębski 5 years ago
SJW crowd does not matter wheter its a quote or not ;) usually.
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What do you think ?
Pamela24 5 years ago
I think it's very easy to see those as ridiculous now that we know what actually happened. In Czech, we say "Everyone is the general after the battle". Many of these seem like the people writing them were thinking too highly of themselves and therefore I understand people laughing at them but a decent amount of those also seems like something many people would reasonably think had they not know the future. And like we ourselves most likely make such wrong assumptions daily even now (though probably less often as more information is shared and readily available in your pocket for you to make that assumption).
Truth Monster 5 years ago
Hilary Clinton Predicted to Win by 91% (published 21 days before the 2016 election) https://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2016/10/18/presidential-forecast-updates/newsletter.html
WilvanderHeijden 5 years ago
She won by popular vote, but the USA isn't a democracy.
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Victoria Swift 5 years ago
Uh you missed one: Hillary's double digits lead in the 2016 election 😂😂
CbusResident 5 years ago
If you want to make good predictions about the future, you need to consider: what is fundamental? What are the first principles? Is there a fundamental/first principle reason that x will/won't happen? Notice a lot of these bad predictions say: 'X technology will never be significant' - they were wrong b/c they underestimated possible technological improvements. They assumed that if the state of tech couldn't do a certain thing in their time, that must be the case for all time. So a fundamental point to consider is: it's often possible that a given technology could be gradually but significantly improved. I think Elon Musk will be right that we'll never 'all drive around in flying cars', b/c the reasons he gives for that are first principles: flying vehicles, by laws of physics, will always create enormous amounts of wind and noise. I'd add that fundamentally, they'll likely always guzzle tons of fuel, which will make them always very expensive in the context of daily transport.
Pamela24 5 years ago
I think it's very easy to see those as ridiculous now that we know what actually happened. In Czech, we say "Everyone is the general after the battle". Many of these seem like the people writing them were thinking too highly of themselves and therefore I understand people laughing at them but a decent amount of those also seems like something many people would reasonably think had they not know the future. And like we ourselves most likely make such wrong assumptions daily even now (though probably less often as more information is shared and readily available in your pocket for you to make that assumption).
Truth Monster 5 years ago
Hilary Clinton Predicted to Win by 91% (published 21 days before the 2016 election) https://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2016/10/18/presidential-forecast-updates/newsletter.html
WilvanderHeijden 5 years ago
She won by popular vote, but the USA isn't a democracy.
Load More Replies... Victoria Swift 5 years ago
Uh you missed one: Hillary's double digits lead in the 2016 election 😂😂
CbusResident 5 years ago
If you want to make good predictions about the future, you need to consider: what is fundamental? What are the first principles? Is there a fundamental/first principle reason that x will/won't happen? Notice a lot of these bad predictions say: 'X technology will never be significant' - they were wrong b/c they underestimated possible technological improvements. They assumed that if the state of tech couldn't do a certain thing in their time, that must be the case for all time. So a fundamental point to consider is: it's often possible that a given technology could be gradually but significantly improved. I think Elon Musk will be right that we'll never 'all drive around in flying cars', b/c the reasons he gives for that are first principles: flying vehicles, by laws of physics, will always create enormous amounts of wind and noise. I'd add that fundamentally, they'll likely always guzzle tons of fuel, which will make them always very expensive in the context of daily transport.
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