If you see it, say it!

If the cases of Brexit, Trump, the Italian situation and the long-range weather forecast tell us anything it tells us that no matter how intelligent, prominent, famous, studious, or erudite you are, the rarest human attribute seems to be common sense. Show me an expert who argues with confidence for the economics of either staying in or leaving the EU and I will show you somebody who has learned nothing from history. And now I come to think of it, history itself is not always the most solid basis on which to predict the future.

Why would you lay on the line a hard-won reputation for retrospectively making the right moves by wading into waters you have no control over and trying to change the tides? It’s one thing to predict the likely numerical outcomes of a widely welcomed economic policy in a stable environment, or to forecast the balance of power in a two-party state when a popular – or unpopular – government is incumbent. But to pretend you can see the outcome of the worldwide clusterfuck that is the twenty-first century socio-political landscape is vainglorious folly indeed.

I can only imagine the pundits are pressed men, cornered into making pronouncements as their employers demand. Because the alternative is ugly. Is it simple, uncritical arrogance; a belief in your own omniscience? Or is it because your adoring acolytes have convinced you that you alone have the answers denied mere mortals. Or is it – and this is worse – a cynical understanding of the power of propaganda and the knowledge that to hold firm to a stance is somehow to help bring that position about?

It is little wonder that the wider public are turning away from their supposed leaders. The motes have been cast from their eyes and they see the true impotence of potentates; straws bending in the wind. Maybe – and it is a maybe; more of a hope than a prediction – more people will begin to realise that if you want something doing you should do it yourself if you possibly can. Politicians aren’t going to fill your potholes, rear your children and police your streets. Economists aren’t going to feed your pension funds and control your rents. And the Met Office isn't going to keep the rain away from your parade.

I see... murky balls.

If there is such a thing as common sense it is the collective wisdom of common individuals taking responsibility for their actions. And if there are such things as common experiences they are the disappointment that follows failure and the pride imbued by a job well done. It strikes me that the sooner people grasp the personal responsibility nettle, the sooner their reliance on the little man behind the megaphone will wane. Am I forecasting that this will come about? Well, I’m no expert...

Futurology

What a great job it must be, predicting the future. Unlike a normal job, where you are paid by results, guessing forecasting future events carries none of the anxiety-inducing stresses of meeting performance criteria. No sleepless nights, agonising over whether the decision you have to make tomorrow will end your career. No panic attacks that you will fail to hit your targets. No worries over being judged and found wanting... at least not until you are long dead. And unlike most Olympians, the best of your work is always ahead of you..

The near future? Pah, that’s a mug’s game. No, what you need to do is first amass sufficient credibility by loudly explaining recent past events. Not too recent that the outcomes are yet to be fully known; not so long ago that people gave forgotten the basics. Ideally you should bring in an unconnected but highly topical event and conflate the two in an imaginative headline-grabbing way and promote it widely enough that the mere momentum of its ubiquity gives it a certain élan. For instance, that global islamic jihad is a by-product of climate change - that was a corker.

A flamboyant delivery always helps – perhaps effect an overtly camp persona and maybe adopt a speech tick -  or possibly describe yourself as not being constrained by the traditionally rigid scientific disciplinary boundaries but offering a pan-socio-scientific vision which exceeds the normal confines of narrowly defined fields of study. You could be, for instance, a ‘chemo-physicist specialising in neural economics with an interest in the cyber-alignment of political narrative’, or some such concoction and say yes to any offer of media exposure.

Of course, it’s a fine line you tread; Mo Ansar’s mistake (remember him?) was adopting the mantle of wise representative of a faith while that faith was busily recruiting walking ordnance and declaring death to the west. It was all too close at hand and all too gloomy, yet not gloomy enough. And he was a twat. Credibility and hope is what you want to aim for, or credibility and doom. So, for instance, you could predict that in the future the long-awaited machine revolution will truly come and then you have a choice. You can either explain how this will let humans live in undreamed of luxury and indolence, or else you can portray an image of bonded slavery to mechanical masters.

Whatever you do say, should you live long enough to be wheeled out in fifty years’ time to reflect on the outcomes, you can blame the failure of the future to do as you expected on the fact that it was your own forecast that alerted people to change that future course, or else you can bask in the glory of a lucky guess. It’s a no-lose situation. Go on, give it a try; climate, the economy, population demographics, technology... all ripe for exploitation in the futures game.

A bit thundery...

Of course, it’s getting to be a crowded market and maybe the opportunities for soothsayers are not so rosy as they once were. As Michael Gove suggested, we’re all getting a bit fed up of experts offering contradictory advice and opposing opinions. But, trust me, I’ve been around a bit and I have studied the runes and I’m pretty confident in predicting that the game of telling the future has a healthy, er, future ahead of it. Just you wait and see. That'll be five quid, thanks.