Some things just don’t happen the way they were supposed to. Over the years, even as far back as that infamous Nostradamus, there have been predictions of events that would occur this year, 2020. Most didn’t.
Many of my own ended up in shambles. Once, I pictured myself as a major league baseball player. I never made it beyond pick-up games around Westmeath or Beachburg.
Tom Bodett said, “They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.”
I had big hopes too; owning an apartment overlooking Central Park in New York City, if not the penthouse, then one of the upper floors. I would be employed as a consultant, dishing out advice to the rich and famous and making me rich too. Not to be. I didn’t get to New York until I was retired and that was only for three days.
Science has taught us that it’s way easier to predict technology than to predict people. Experts of the past knew that computers would only get smaller and eventually we’d have screens on our wristwatches. When it came to guessing how to apply that technology, they stumbled.
Having arrived in the futuristic decade of the 2020s, we now know that we will not be able to communicate with dead relatives via virtual reality or that days will be a lot longer. How could that work?
Housework Is way too complicated: Years ago, everyone thought we would have humanoid robots helping around the house by now. Not just to vacuum floors but full maids and butlers that did everything from washing dishes to cooking dinner, etc.
Consider washing dishes: Taking them from the table, scraping food off, washing and drying them, and picking up and placing them in back in the cabinet. A robot capable of just doing that seems to exist only in the realm of fantasy. The reality is that you’d have to get a robot for every step of every chore.
In 1950, Popular Mechanics predicted that by 2020, food would mostly come in the form of frozen bricks or that meals would be replaced by some kind of tiny pills, packets, or paste. Despite saving the hassle of cooking, no one has chosen to replace their entire diet with these. Eating is a social ritual that comes with all sorts of essential emotional attachments.
Far earlier than 2020, it was predicted we would have much-needed flying cars perched on our garage roofs. What exploded that bubble! The closest thing we have to a viable flying car is a helicopter.
Even Elon Musk warned of the dangers, “If there are flying cars, then obviously there is the added dimension where a car could potentially fall on your head.” He continued, “What do you gain from the increased risk? Wasted energy. We’re already struggling to make affordable grounded cars that can run off batteries.”
All these predictions seem even more wildly optimistic when you consider how they came after we stopped sending people to walk on any surface other than Earth. The last Apollo moon walk was in 1972. In all of human history, the closest we’ve come to colonizing anything other than Earth is planting a flag on the moon, then leaving it there to do nothing but bleach out. However, it was the premise to colonize another planetary backup after we trash earth. While it is always alluring, don’t hold your breath.
Bon Jovi, a popular singer, has never dug as deep as he does on his album new ‘2020’. The album features songs about the COVID-19 crisis, veterans struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder, politics driving divisions, gun violence and the killing of George Floyd.
Nostradamus was born in 1503 in France and died in 1566. Although it was the 16th century, he predicted that in 2020 England would have a new King, a perturbing event. Time is running out on that one.
Nostradamus prophecies, based on two millennia of meticulous astronomical observations, suggest that the year 2020 will mark the debut of a new era, accompanied, like any birth, by blood and suffering, but also by new hopes.
Regarding Donald Trump, the prophet predicted that he will suffer from a mysterious disease and that a member of the American President’s family will be the victim of a traffic accident.
Some can see far far into the future like a Nostradamus, while some can’t see the curtain of night falling upon them. I guess I was one of the latter!
