Predictions

I started data-mining the Internet in 1993. During the late nineties, I'd mention data-mining to fellow programmers and their usual response was...

"that's stupid"
"that's ridiculous".

In 2004 I put up my website, did my DEFCON presentations from 2005 to 2007 but few people understood them. So now in 2015, people tell me that datamining the internet was "a trivial idea" and "obvious". But then when I float the 32-hour workweek as a solution to our economic woes, the usual response is...

"that's stupid"
"that's ridiculous".

I've made some bad predictions. I expected both Twitter and Facebook to fail (and they still might!). But I've made a lot of good predictions based on data-mining combined with other knowledge. For instance, in 2013 I predicted a demographic recession in 2016 which would shake out the fraud in advertising technology. I think this one's still on track based on commodity prices and stock market. Today Walmart announcing the closure of almost 300 stores.

Three months ago I predicted a future scalability issue with Bitcoin. Here's today's close-to-confirmation, Mike Hearn's exit from Bitcoin. The nominal argument is still about scalability of the blockchain but I think the true failure point will be the consensus mechanism.

I could have spent so much time figuring out so much; I got some recognition but mostly I got resentment. That's just the nature of people.