No serious futurist deals in prediction. These are left for television oracles and newspaper astrologers.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future.
Those who have knowledge, don't predict. Those who predict, don't have knowledge.
This is actually a very important principle that science is learning about large systems like evolution and that futurists are learning about anticipating human society: just because a future scenario is plausible doesn't mean we can get there from here.
Predicting has a spotty record in science fiction. I've had some failures. On the other hand, I also predicted the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of fundamentalist Islam... and I'm not happy to be right in all of those cases.
Nobody wants a prediction that the future will be more or less like the present, even if that is, statistically speaking, an excellent prediction.
I try not to get involved in the business of prediction. It's a quick way to look like an idiot.
The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.
If you learn one thing from having lived through decades of changing views, it is that all predictions are necessarily false.
I stopped predicting the future a long time ago.
Perhaps one day earthquakes, hurricanes and financial crashes will all be predictable. But we don't have to wait until then for seismology, meteorology and economics to become sciences; they already are.