h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Predictions

Posted Aug 19, 2006

I was reading Douglas Adams' The Salmon of Doubt and as it turns out predictons are mentioned so I want to have a conversation about them. All day I've been telling myself I wanted tot write something but really all it is that I want to do is write something that people will read and respond to hence this rather rambling entry into my journal. My question to all who read this is this; what are some of the really wild predictions you have heard recently? Not just wierd and unusual as in that could never happen kind of stuff but I mean so unusual because they are so normal. So magnificently normal in fact that they never need to be predicted in the first place. I am thinking here of a woman named Sylvia Browne who is on one of those rediculous American television shows that come on in the middle of the day when even I'm not home. She thinks she's a psychic (or, in fact, she makes a lot of money making other people think she thinks she's psychic). Once in 2005 (December I'm sure) she was asked if she had any predictions for the following year (possibly 2006) and she had this to say; "There will be a lot of hurricanes in Florida." I stopped. In Florida? Did she actually say that?OK. There are always hurricanes in Florida! Now if she had said "Wild buffalo" or "In January" as she should have then it would have made it a prediction to...well not believe exactly but made it a little more psyc-esque. It was great. The funny thing is that so far this year there doesn't seem to be any hurricanes in Florida's near future which does make her prediction seem a little less plausible and a little more like a psychic said it. So the question remains, I'd love to hear some answers to this as I know I cannot be the only one with a similar experience.

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Latest reply: Aug 19, 2006