By: Nour Attalla
The future is something we constantly talk about. On the big-picture, political, economic, or environmental level, we think about how global warming will look in 20 years, whether we are about to hit a recession, and who will win the next big election. And often experts will spread their predictions of what the future will look like: CNBC recently posted this in their 2024 economic outlook:
“More than three-fourths of economists — 76% — said they believe the chances of a recession in the next 12 months is 50% or less.”
But what do these predictions really mean, and how useful are they in “predicting” the future?
Well, it turns out that often predictions do not hold true. Predicting the future is done based on data be it on GDP, or global CO2 emissions. However, what this data can only predict is a “business-as-usual” scenario – what the future will look like if no unexpected events take place.
But the world does not evolve in a linear manner. In recent years, events like the election of Donald Trump, the global Pandemic, and the war in Ukraine stumped pollsters. And even when experts predict that an unforeseen shock, such as a pandemic, may occur, no-one could have predicted the widespread impacts of COVID-19 on the global economy, culture, and people’s mental health. In short, there would have been no objective way of predicting in 2015 what the world would look like today. There are simply too many variables and unforeseeable changes to take into account.
However, Futurists tell us that future predictions do shape the world in one crucial way: Our expectations of the future shape our behaviour today, which may create self-fulfilling prophecies. For example, if we believe that we will not be able to keep global warming below 1.5° Celsius, then we may not dedicate adequate resources to achieving this goal, and we will not be able to achieve it. Despite not being grounded in objective truth, our predictions may actually help create the futures they envision, as people start acting as if they are inevitable.
Our future predictions today are often bleak. And because of this, some futurists are moving away from studying probable futures to preferable futures. By exploring what future outcome we actually want to strive towards, like having every school-age child well-fed, we can start building real pathways forward. That way we actually make desirable future scenarios more likely through our actions today.
Long story short: we cannot objectively predict the future, as it is shaped by the actions that we take today and the random chance imposed by life. So, instead of trying to predict what catastrophes lie ahead, by flipping the script and imagining how we can work towards solving our big global crises, we actually make it more likely that we’ll build ourselves a brighter future.
