Goofy Predictions for the Millennium from Previous Years

In the People's Almanac, the 1975 best-seller by David Wallechinsky and Irving Wallace, these predictions were made:
15 crystal-ball psychics predicted, among other things, that the United States and Soviet Union would skirmish on the moon; New York City would sink into the ocean (three predicted this); the devil would rule the Earth between 1975 and 1978 (unless you count disco); London would be destroyed by a meteor; buses would be atomic powered; the Earth would end on Aug. 18, 1999.
"Ethel Johnson Meyers hit the nail on the head with: "There will be no sinkings of major cities," but that isn't my idea of prognostication. Following the psychics are another dozen pages of predictions by scientists and modern thinkers. These are less wrong, though they mostly achieve this by being more vague. Every prediction that time came anywhere near proving true is sandwiched between total inaccuracy.
Daniel Bell, a Harvard professor, saw "a services, rather than a goods, economy" and "less privacy." But he also predicted a bright future for supersonic transport and "a more hedonistic culture distrustful of the achievement-oriented technological world." I wish.
Mathematician D.G. Brennan did well. He saw computers small enough to fit "in a shoe box" by 2018. He was big on laser guidance, and he had a prediction that seemed as if he had somehow seen the CNN footage from the Gulf War. "It will be literally possible to put an intercontinental ballistic missile down a smokestack from a range of 6,000 miles." But he also saw hurricanes harnessed as weapons of war.
The general showing was atrocious. For all the predictions of colonies on the moon and men on Mars, not one scientist hinted the space program might collapse into its state of diminished shuttledom. The Soviet Union was always--always--depicted as a superpower that we would either go to war with or not. Its collapse was unimaginable.
And nobody saw the personal computer revolution just around the corner. Many of the experts were in the ballpark. They saw that something was happening. Southern Illinois University's John McHale noted that by the year 2000, "home video-computers will become available," which was really predicting the present, since the Altair 8800 was hailed as the cover of Popular Electronics in January 1975. IBM's director of automation research, Charles DeCarlo, saw computers becoming smaller, more powerful and faster, concluding this would be "a real advantage for prosthetic medicine." Ouch. There was one eerie prediction. Hebrew University's Yehezkel Dror saw "in the U.S., a wave of civil violence aimed at schools, public facilities, government officials," which sounds like this year's headlines, though he saw it leading to chaos and a totalitarian state. Which goes to show that whatever the future brings, we always turn out to be made of stronger stuff than we ever imagined."
BY NEIL STEINBERG SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST


FLYING HOUSES - In 1966 Arthur C. Clarke wrote in Vogue magazine that houses in 2001 would be able to fly, thanks to building materials made stronger than steel but lighter than aluminum. "Whole communities may migrate south in the winter", he said.

NO DUSTING - In 1950, Popular Mechanics envisioned living rooms with drains in the floor, and all the furniture and curtains made of plastic so you could clean house by hosing everything down.

MELTING PLATES - In 1950 Popular Mechanics also forecast cheap plastic plates that would melt in hot water so housewives could "wash dirty dishes right down the drain."

EVERYONE WEALTHY - In 1966 Time Magazine said that by 2000 "machines will be producing so much that everyone in the U.S. will, in effect, be independently wealthy."

CANDY MADE FROM UNDERWEAR - In 1967 Science Digest predicted that by 2000, "discarded rayon underwear will be bought by chemical factories and converted into candy."

SOLAR-POWERED CLOTHING - A 1981 book predicted solar-powered clothes that retain heat in the winter and coolness in the summer. People would be able to "press a button to formulate our clothing. ..do we want it to be opaque, should it give off steam, do we want it to light up, do we want it to glow in the dark?"
(New York Times News Service)

SUPERMARKET TABLOID PSYCHICS

Gene Emery has been tracking the predictions of supermarket tabloid psychics for more than two decades. His prediction for 1999: All those psychics will be wrong. Gene makes the same prediction every year and it's almost always correct.
Not only do the tabloid psychis make incredibly vague or just plain wrong predictions, but it is also amazing what they DON'T see coming. In 1998 they didn't forsee the deaths of Frank Sinatra, Sonny Bono or Michael Kennedy, the new home-run record for baseball or the election of Jesse Ventura to the Minnesota governship.
"It was the same in 1997 when the psychics were predicting all kinds of things for Princess Diana except her death," Gene said. Some other blown predictions for 1998:

Nighttime joggers and cyclists will begin drinking a liquid that makes their skin glow bright green in the dark.
Kathie Lee Gifford will be straitjacketed and put in a mental institution after her morning show is canceled.
Elizabeth Taylor will marry Burt Reynolds.
Rising insurance costs will force the NFL to eliminate tackle football in favor of two-handed touch.
Fidel Castro will move to Beverly Hills after the overthrow of his government.
Oprah Winfrey will buy CBS and make it the first major network to "turn its back on TV violence."
(Los Angeles Times)

Y2K Predictions