"LET'S NOT START BLAMING PEOPLE" | 2008-10-31
One thing that destroys any attempt at real futurology is that it consistently ignores the obvious. This is because a professional expert is supposed to be in on details that only an expert would know about. It occurred to no one that the total absence of any prediction that the USSR was about to go out of business was a major, catastrophic failure on the whole industry of Sovietology. But if a professional Sovietologist had mixed up a street in Moscow with one in Kiev, it would have pointed at and disgraced him
Such a mistake in street names would have caused quite a hubbub. I have yet to read a thing about why all these pros missed the fact that the whole thing was about to go kaput.
What we hear in all such cases is, "let's not start assigning blame."
After all, the only people "qualified" to expose such total errors are other "professionals." And all these professionals are totally forgiving of each other. No expert wants to be held to the standard of getting things RIGHT. Like Sovietologists, their job is always to make predictions that appeal to those presently in power.
Experts do not expect their predictions to be back checked. They do not back check each other. Their job has nothing to do with accuracy, so there is something vindictive about anyone who makes a point of such errors. "Assigning blame" is unprofessional.