How Accurate is ATS for the Prognostications

Just for my own personal interest, I would like to know how accurate ATS is for its prognostications or predictions. I have not been a member too long and am interested to know.

reply to post by gordstephan


I'v never seen seen any prediction come to fruition. You can't turn around in here with smacking yourself with another thread prognosticating the end of the world but we're all still here.

The sky is always falling at ATS...

The predictions are a source of brain exercise. Certainly you've heard the age old saying about one's brain? Use it or loose it. Well...it is so true.

For example the prediction for either the end of our world or at least the end of our way of life in 2012 has been a good source of thought material for me.

My concealed gun permit is to be renewed in 2012. My drivers license expires in 2011. Since we constantly see references to 2012 on ATS forums it is in my little brain and is recalled to a front row seat when dates around that time surface in my everyday goings on.

Last Saturday night my SO and I saw a shooting star. Well, I immediately thought about ATS discussions and let my mind wonder if it really was a shooting star or was it an alien space ship.

The predictions we read about are great mind fodder. Don't bet the farm that any predictions will actually come true. Just enjoy dissecting the prognostications and the prognostigator. Enjoy it for what it is.

I am a fairly accurate prognostigator. When Diana married Prince Charles I told all that would hear that the marriage would end in divorce. You can imagine my mom's reaction. She, being very old school, said never would the queen allow the divorce. Ha...I was right.

I guess it depends on what you mean by "prognostication" and whether or not you think ATS as a whole can make them.

I think certain individuals may be able to see where a trend is leading and allude to it in a post but making outright "predictions" is a fool's game IMO.

I'll give a couple of examples from my own posting history.

OIL: Conditions are Ripe for another Great Depression was written in July 2004 under the context of rising oil prices ($43/barrel).

I explained in that post that the higher the price of oil the greater the risk of financial disaster. I also "predicted" or "prognosticated" that another great depression would be the eventual result if prices kept rising.

Here we are 4 years later and we are well underway IMO. If one understands that economic collapse is a process rather than an event then I would say I was a good "prognosticator".

Hey buddy... Spare Some Food? was written in August 2005 in the context of severe droughts happening in certain parts of the world with lower crop yields.

I "prognosticated" back then (in this post and others of the time) about eventually running into higher food prices and shortages due to several factors. Here we are three years later and it's all we hear about in the news lately.

I give these two examples (among many others I could point to by myself and other people) not to blow my own horn (I'm nothing special) but to show that anybody who spends enough time on ATS (in forums that matter IMO), is aware of world events, understands history, understands "process vs. event" and keeps his thumb on the pulse of the planet will be able to see things coming well in advance.

ATS may allow or facilitate "prognostication" for certain individuals but isn't a prognosticator in it's own right.


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