Hilarious Wrong Prediction by Smart People

Not all predictions are created equal. Predicting the future is not easy, you know why? Because the future hasn't happened yet. But wait, here it is again, woops it just pass by but here it is again and there it goes again. The thing is, is that its difficult to predict the future because there is so many factors so trying to make an accurate prediction is risky business. In fact, take Steve Chen the co-founder of Youtube, back in 2005 he questioned the future of Youtube by saying there is just not that many videos worth watching, but clearly he did not understand the power of funny videos, Russian dash cam footage and funny cute baby animals.

So here's the thing, if you make a bold prediction and you're right you will look awesome, but if you make a bold prediction and you get it wrong then someone is bound to write an article about how stupid you look now. So lets do that.

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We gonna start with one made in 1913, at the beginning of the silent film era, someone said that the Cinema is little more than a fad. Guess who said that guys? Its Charlie Chaplin, ooooo the irony!!

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At that time he was a struggling actor, he told one of his colleagues at the studio he was working at that he is thinking about getting out of the business because cinema is more than a fad. Well, you all know that it wasn't a fad. He went on to have an amazing career as an actor and a film maker for 60 years. But i will point out that i am glad that the silent part was a fad, because recently i got this amazing sound system installed at my home and we have not watched one silent movie yet, because silent is... you know.. silent.

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Lord Kelvin, the British mathematician and physicist who confirmed the existence of absolute zero, in fact the measurement of temperature known as "Kelvin" was named after this dude, so everything he said has to be true right? Weeelllll.. i dont know. In 1895 he confidently stated that X-ray will prove to be a hoax. He was Xtra wrong about that, and he also said that radio has no future and heavier than air flying machine are impossible.

Side story, every time i am in a plane i was like " This is impossible! Think about it! This gotta be some sort of magic! "

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Lets get back on track here, in another story. In 1950, the Associated Press predicted that by the year 2000, women would be, quote, "more than 6 feet tall, wear a size 11 shoe, have shoulders like a wrestler and muscles like a truck driver." Let me point out thou, i did a google image search of truck drivers and there's not a lotta muscle happening, maybe back in the fifties they were a muscley bunch but now they're a little pudgy, but lets just set that aside for a second.

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So they thought that women were going to be very large. In fact, there was an illustration here and you can see they were being portrayed from Victorian into like Xena Warrior Princess meets Princess Leia. Basically they were looking at what had happened to women between 1900 and 1950, and just like anybody they were like, "well, they went from size 3 to size 7 shoes, heck, it might go all the way to 11." They also said that women, instead of eating meals, would be eating food capsules by the year 2000.

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I'm sure you've heard of Sir William Preece, Chief Engineer of the British Post Office in the late 1800s. In 1876 he predicted that the American have need of the telephone but the British do not since they have plenty of messenger boys. Yup, they are pretty convenient alright. But now my understanding is that they would have boy humans who would deliver messages, and what i'm trying to tell you is that he predicted that that was good enough for them on their side of the pond.

Just imagine delivering text messages via messenger boy and telling them to deliver a poop emoji to someone, if you see a messenger boy squatting at your front door, dont open it. And may i add that you can only deliver 3 poop emoji for 1 typical messenger boy?

In a truly ironic twist, Preece is actually credited with helping to bring the telephone system to Great Britain only a few years later. He had to eat his words, and it taste like poop emoji.