For Those Who Hate Predictions

This is a note to you staunch skeptics in regards to any human being having the capability of making startling predictions.

You are surely well versed in denying the Bible, Nostradamus, etc, etc.... But I imagine many of you have never even heard of the man named John Wilfreth Watkins.

Now, this man may not have had %100 percent accuracy in his predictions... but the ones that DID hit, well... read below and you'll see they hit relatively hard.

To me, this is indicative more so of a sharp, clear, aware, and yet critical mind... rather than psychic powers. I do not completely discredit psychics, but I do personally believe a combination of the two is closer to the truth.

To those who completely disregard predictions about the future...

People (human people) have predicted things accurately hundreds of times. Take this man's story

In 1900, an American civil engineer called John Elfreth Watkins made a number of predictions about what the world would be like in 2000.

Digital color photography

Watkins did not, of course, use the word "digital"... but he accurately predicted how people would come to use new photographic technology.

"Photographs will be telegraphed from any distance. If there be a battle in China a hundred years hence, snapshots of its most striking events will be published in the newspapers an hour later.... photographs will reproduce all of nature's colors."

The rising height of Americans

"Americans will be taller by from one to two inches."

Watkins had unerring accuracy here, says Mr Nilsson - the average American man in 1900 was about 66-67ins (1.68-1.70m) tall and by 2000, the average was 69ins (1.75m).

Mobile phones

"Wireless telephone and telegraph circuits will span the world. A husband in the middle of the Atlantic will be able to converse with his wife sitting in her boudoir in Chicago. We will be able to telephone to China quite as readily as we now talk from New York to Brooklyn."

International phone calls were unheard of in Watkins' day. It was another 15 years before the first call was made, by Alexander Bell, even from one coast of the US to the other. The idea of wireless telephony was truly revolutionary.

Television

"Man will see around the world. Persons and things of all kinds will be brought within focus of cameras connected electrically with screens at opposite ends of circuits, thousands of miles at a span."

Watkins foresaw cameras and screens linked by electric circuits, a vision practically realized in the 20th Century by live international television and latterly by webcams.

(This next one is quite impressive.)

The Acela Express

"Trains will run two miles a minute normally. Express trains one hundred and fifty miles per hour."

Exactly 100 years after writing those words, to the very month, Amtrak's flagship high-speed rail line, the Acela Express, opened between Boston and Washington, DC. It reaches top speeds of 150mph, although the average speed is considerably less than that. High-speed rail in other parts of the world, even in 2000, was considerably faster.

Consider... that is one, single man predicted all of these remarkable things to come. Imagine what they said about him. A man you have probably never heard of. This is just a single example... How could anyone be so foolish as to deny that possibility?

Give people the benefit of the doubt, because you nor I have all the answers, that's for sure.

reply to post by Aqualung2012


Nothing amazing here.

So, in a 100 years I say .. there will be a base of 50,000 US and Russian soldiers on the moon, people will use glasses for internet usage, cellular service, and sex will be obsolete, there will be only one race of human from mixing cultures.... and will they praise my name in 100 years for doing so..

I believe its just good imagination and hog-wash

He was a civil engineer, thats kinda the stuff they invent and look forward to build..

In a analogy I will state that my friend who loves to cook wants a better job, loves BBQ. but the market wants more bigger, faster, cheaper processed food.. I predict that he will start a fast food chain and change the eating habits of many, many people. so he does.... I predicted the future! Maybe all my predictions don't come true but a few may.. Lame....

On so many levels this Idea is non sense.

reply to post by Aqualung2012


It could also be that because of what he said people attempted to do these things.

That's the thing with predictions of these sorts.

Skeptics can just say, "Well, people were inspired by the prediction and made the said invention."
If such inventions weren't created, they can say, "See, this is proof predictions are bunk."

Even if someone ever came into this world and was able to make a legitimate prediction that came true, skeptics would always find a way to disregard it as coincidence or inspiration.

reply to post by ofNight


This is the point of my thread. I feel a prediction to be more of a down to earth ability to see and deduce from patterns, trends and tendencies.

In the broadest sense, deducting from patterns and "psychic predictions," are one in the same, as they both require a oneness with the world beyond face value...

Some of what he said was scientific, and science even then would have seen this as a possibility, take Americans becoming taller, it is a known fact that eating healthy foods (even in his day when he wrote this) and having more plentiful foods available would make a person grow to be larger (not in a fat way) and in America this was plentiful. Doctors renouned in their fields were saying things of this nature in his day.

They already had cameras then so believing that technology in that area would advance is simply common sense.

I am not sure you can call him psychic, very intelligent yes, definitely, and very scientifically minded, but not someone who could 'foresee' future events.

Many people using intellect alone can do and have done what he did.

I am not trying to debunk your thread I am just using common sense, people who are highly intelligent can do what he did.

HarvestArmy channel on YouTube. 100% accurate track record for predictions. Their info/predictions come from visions/dreams from GOD himself, so they're always right.

They predicted the mexico earthquake, the Aug 25th U.S. earthquake last year, and a bunch off other stuff. Still running strong. Check the channel out.

GOD is the only one who can predict stuff cause He knows they will happen before they happen. (He runs the Universe and all it's affairs). Anyone one else predicting crap either has inside info, in which case it would probably be planned, or they are making educated guesstimates...guesstimates aren't predictions btw...hence it being a GUESS.

Predictions are things that 100% WILL happen in the future. Inside info (planned), or from GOD. Simple.

reply to post by WatcherMan


Ah, thanks for the link. Should be of some good use!

reply to post by Jameela


Oh, by all means I appreciate your thoughts. I want to clarify that I dont believe he was psychic either. I would put him in the critical thinker/amazing forecaster "category."

Again though, the purpose of the thread is not to divide between logical forecasters and psychic mediums, but rather to open up the notion of multiple types of "predictions." Some intuitive, some scientific, but the best combining the two.

Originally posted by Aqualung2012
reply to post by Jameela

 

Oh, by all means I appreciate your thoughts. I want to clarify that I dont believe he was psychic either. I would put him in the critical thinker/amazing forecaster "category."

I always find it awesome to see what the genius mind can do...To people who are not that intelligent it always appears as something beyond us, but the truth is I think the ability to forecast using rational and intellect is in many of us.

reply to post by ofNight


Yes, and the idea of prediction interests me, but in reality is does't prevail in evidence or any kind of proof.

I believe in your post that some people will be the type of group or individual that when I pass away and these things are played out to my dates and outlandish ideas you or others will praise and shout that I was a great man that I could foresee the future, IMO

and we all can and cannot say this is right or wrong, will or will not happen and then played in the idea of taking sides and ending up in the same identical dispute 500 years later

Well OP DID say,,for Haters.hahaha
MY PREDICTION..

THERE WONT BE ANOTHER 100 YEARS
Things fall apart at the end of this year. BIGGER BADDER EARTHQUAKE TSUNAMIS will cause the economy to crash,,the nuclerar powerplants ALL fail and then we become a mutant species that only lives to be about 18 years old.Possibly 3 eyes, more fingers,,we will be the legend of the 5 fingered angels that were cast down that destroyed earth.