Quiz: Match the prediction about the future to the year it was made.

Quiz: Match the Prediction About the Future to the Year It Was Made

Quiz: Match the Prediction About the Future to the Year It Was Made

The citizen’s guide to the future.
Sept. 1 2017 9:08 AM
FROM SLATE, NEW AMERICA, AND ASU

Can You Match the Prediction to the Year It Was Made?

Warning: There are some very good old predictions—and some very bad new ones.

Photo illustration by Natalie Matthews-Ramo. Photo by Thinkstock.

Photo illustration by Natalie Matthews-Ramo. Photo by Thinkstock.

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One of humanity’s favorite games is guessing what will come next. It’s a low-pressure way to think about our future and the world we’ll leave behind. Some people, like Nostradamus, will always be remembered because of their (allegedly) prescient predictions. Others, like Steve Ballmer, will never live down their bad ones. The most amazing soothsayers are the ones who see far into the future, their predictions carrying no hint of their time period. We’ve gone through history looking for interesting predictions—the good, the bad, and the just plain weird—to see whether you can guess what decade these predictions were made in.

*Correction, Sept. 1, 2017: This quiz originally misspelled Roger Ebert’s first name. It also misidentified the decade the “three most pernicious adult diseases” would be eliminated, and it misidentified the decade of a prediction made by Nikola Tesla.

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This article is part of Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, follow us on Twitter and sign up for our weekly newsletter.

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Nick Thieme is Slate’s 2017 American Association for the Advancement of Science Mass Media Fellow.