26 Franklin’s Mock Titan Leeds Obituary
In 1733, Benjamin Franklin, writing under the persona of Poor Richard, publicly “predicted” that his almanac rival Titan Leeds would die on October 17 of that year. When Leeds inconveniently stayed alive, Franklin published a mock obituary anyway and treated the prediction as fulfilled. Leeds angrily protested that he was very much alive, but Franklin doubled down and claimed that any complaints came from an impostor using the dead man’s name. Franklin kept up the joke in print until Leeds actually died years later, insisting the real Titan had long since passed.
27. In 1888, American author Edward Bellamy published the utopian novel “Looking Backward,” which described a future society where people accessed their money and credit through a personal device instead of cash. In his vision of the year 2000, every citizen carried a card-like instrument that drew on a central credit account managed by the state. They used this device to pay for goods and services, with transactions recorded against a national system rather than physical currency. The setup closely mirrors how modern credit cards and centralized electronic payment networks work today.
28. In 1998, Georgist economist Fred Foldvary published an article titled “The Depression of 2008,” in which he analyzed the long-run real estate cycle in the United States. Using an 18-year pattern of land and housing booms and busts, he predicted that a recession-causing crash in the property market would hit around 2008. Foldvary warned that a real estate bubble and excessive speculation would set up a severe downturn once the cycle turned. A decade later, the U.S. housing market collapsed and helped trigger the 2007–2008 financial crisis.
29. In April 1945, General Dwight D. Eisenhower visited the newly liberated Ohrdruf concentration camp in Germany and saw the results of Nazi crimes with his own eyes. On the spot, he made a stark prediction that someday people would try to deny or downplay what had happened there. To guard against that, he ordered that soldiers, journalists, and officials take as many photographs and films as possible and witness the camp firsthand. Eisenhower wanted a permanent record so future generations could not credibly claim the Holocaust was a myth or an exaggeration.
30. Michael Burry, a physician with Asperger’s syndrome, pored over data from the U.S. housing market in the mid-2000s and used his pattern-spotting strengths to make a bold prediction that the market would collapse in 2007. As the numbers worsened and his contrarian bets drew intense pressure from investors, his stress levels soared. Burry found that listening to heavy metal music calmed his nerves and helped him stay focused on the data instead of the panic around him.
31 Sam Houston’s Anti-Confederate War Prediction
During the secession crisis of 1861, Sam Houston, former president of the Republic of Texas and then governor, refused to swear allegiance to the Confederate States and predicted that the South would lose the coming Civil War. Convinced that secession would bring disaster, he opposed taking Texas into the Confederacy and instead pushed for the reestablishment of an independent Texas or continued union with the United States. When he would not support secession, Texas leaders deposed him from the governorship.
32. In 1951, Alan Turing made a stark prediction about where machine intelligence might lead. He argued that once “machine thinking” started, it would not take long for computers to outstrip “our feeble powers.” Turing imagined machines that could converse with each other to sharpen their wits, becoming ever more capable without human guidance. On that basis, he concluded that people should expect the machines to take control, a prediction that still echoes in modern debates about artificial intelligence.
33. In 1931, Winston Churchill wrote an essay called “Fifty Years Hence,” in which he made a striking prediction about how future food would be produced. He declared that “we shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium.” Churchill imagined synthetic foods that would be practically indistinguishable from natural products and saw this method as a more efficient way to produce meat. Decades later, researchers began developing real lab-grown meat.
34. Most popular predictions about Nostradamus are wrong, including claims about his astrology and his supposed accurate prediction of his own death. His astrological work contained many errors, and the story that he predicted the exact date of his death falls apart because his secretary edited that line after he died.
35. Actor Matthew McConaughey has said that his father once told him, “When I go, it will be makin’ love to your mother.” Years later, that prediction came true when his father died while having sex with McConaughey’s mother at about 3 a.m. on a Monday morning.
36 Abraham De Moivre’s Sleep Prediction
French mathematician Abraham de Moivre noticed late in life that he seemed to be sleeping longer and longer, and he turned this into a personal prediction of his own death. He calculated that his daily sleep would eventually reach 24 hours and marked that future date on the calendar as the day he expected to die. According to accounts of his life, he did in fact die on that predicted day in 1754.
37. After hitting her head in a fall as a toddler, Dorothy Eady claimed to unlock memories of a past life as an Ancient Egyptian priestess and insisted she truly belonged in Egypt. As an adult, she moved there, immersed herself in Egyptology, and worked with scholars on ancient temples and inscriptions. Eady made a name for herself by making specific predictions about sites, including correctly identifying the locations of wall paintings and features at the Temple of Seti I at Abydos, even when she stood in complete darkness.
38. During the 2010 FIFA World Cup, Paul the Octopus became famous for his uncanny predictions, correctly choosing the winner of Germany’s matches and the final by picking food from boxes marked with team flags. His precise streak angered some German fans when his choices went against their team’s interests. The backlash grew so intense that he reportedly received death threats from outraged supporters. As his prediction record turned him into a minor celebrity, officials even talked about providing him with special protection to keep the oracle octopus safe.
39. In 1909, Mark Twain made a bold prediction about his own death, saying, “I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it.” Twain had been born in 1835, the same year the comet passed close to Earth, and he linked his life story to its return. Halley’s Comet appeared again in 1910, just as he had anticipated. Twain died on April 21, 1910, one day after the comet’s closest approach.
40. Canadian statistician Mohan Srivastava noticed that the printed patterns on the outside of a particular scratch-off lottery game were not truly random, and he turned that into a powerful prediction tool. By analyzing the visible numbers and their layout, he found a way to predict which tickets were likely winners before scratching them. His method reportedly let him identify a winning ticket about 90 percent of the time, far above pure chance. Once he demonstrated how his prediction system worked, lottery officials pulled the game, since its design made it vulnerable to anyone who could see the same pattern.
41 Akira’s Tokyo 2020 Olympic Prediction
The 1988 anime film Akira, set in a futuristic 2019 Neo-Tokyo, made a striking prediction by depicting Tokyo preparing to host the 2020 Olympic Games. Throughout the film, background signage and announcements treat the upcoming 2020 Olympics as a major national event. In one scene, a billboard promoting the Games is defaced with a call to cancel them, turning that prediction into a subtle commentary on public unease. Decades later, Tokyo did in fact win the bid for the 2020 Olympics, and real-world debates over whether the Games should be canceled during the COVID-19 pandemic made Akira’s Olympic prediction feel uncannily prescient.
42. In 1862, after examining a Madagascan orchid with an extraordinarily deep nectar spur, Charles Darwin made a bold prediction that a moth with an equally long tongue must exist to reach its nectar. He argued that natural selection would produce such an insect, even though no one had ever seen it. Decades later, scientists identified the hawk moth Xanthopan morganii in Madagascar and eventually documented it feeding from that very orchid, confirming Darwin’s prediction of a long-tongued moth.
43. Rick Rescorla, Morgan Stanley’s head of security at the World Trade Center, repeatedly warned that the towers were prime targets, and his prediction of an attack came true with the 1993 bombing. Convinced another, even worse strike would follow, he drilled Morgan Stanley’s 2,687 employees in rapid evacuations, despite complaints and official reassurances. On September 11, 2001, when authorities told tenants to stay put, Rescorla ignored them and immediately ordered a full evacuation, using his bullhorn and practiced routines to move people out. His prediction of catastrophe tragically proved right, but his actions saved all but seven of his employees, and he died in the towers while making sure others got out.
44. In 1995, Newsweek published a column by Clifford Stoll that mocked early enthusiasm for the World Wide Web and dismissed bold visions of its future as “baloney.” The article flatly predicted that “no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher, and no computer network will change the way government works.” In the decades since, his prediction has become one of the most cited examples of how badly early critics underestimated the internet’s impact.
45. In 1917, Alexander Graham Bell made a striking prediction when he warned that the unchecked burning of fossil fuels would create a “sort of greenhouse effect” on the planet. He argued that continually releasing carbon from coal and oil into the atmosphere would trap heat and alter the climate. Bell urged scientists and policymakers to look beyond fossil fuels and championed alternative energy sources, including solar power.
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
46 Adam Smith’s American Empire Prediction
In the 1770s, Scottish economist Adam Smith made a bold prediction that Britain’s 13 American colonies would one day break away and defeat the British Empire. Writing in “The Wealth of Nations” in 1776, he argued that their rapid population growth, resources, and commercial energy would eventually outstrip Britain’s power to control them. Smith further predicted that the former colonies would go on to form a great empire in their own right. History played out along those lines as the United States won independence from Britain and grew into a major global power.
47. In his short story “The Great Automatic Grammatizator,” Roald Dahl made a grim prediction about machines that could write fiction for humans. The story imagines a device so powerful and efficient that most authors sign contracts allowing it to generate stories under their names, while only a small group stubbornly continues to write on their own. As writers trade creative control for financial security, the machine spreads and squeezes out human competition. Dahl ends with the line, “Give us strength, Oh Lord, to let our children starve.”
48. In the mid-19th century, Britain’s Philological Society made an optimistic prediction that its new Oxford English Dictionary would take about 10 years to complete. The work quickly proved far more complex, as editors tried to capture every word, meaning, and historical usage in the English language. Twenty-seven years into the project, they had only managed to reach the word “ant.” Overall, it took more than 70 years to finish the first edition.
49. In 1499, German mathematician and astrologer Johannes Stöffler predicted that a universal flood would engulf the world on 20 February 1524. A nobleman, Count von Iggleheim, took the prophecy seriously and had a three-story ark built on the banks of the Rhine in Germany, drawing massive crowds on the appointed day. When only a light rain began to fall, the onlookers panicked and tried to storm the ark and nearby boats, triggering a stampede in which hundreds were trampled to death. The flood prediction itself never came true, and the year 1524 later became known for drought, while von Iggleheim was reportedly dragged from his ark and stoned by the frightened mob.
50. In 1939, the New York Times made a confident prediction that television would fail as a mass technology because the average American family would not have enough time to sit around watching it.
RE: Fact #29 (Eisenhower’s Holocaust Denial Prediction Safeguard) – Maybe back then Turks were already denying the Armenian genocide and he just didn’t want that to happen too.
RE: Fact #40 (Mohan Srivastava’s Scratch-Off Lottery Hack) – I get that winning scratch tickets isn’t really worth much, but it’s just a funny thought that winning the lottery wouldn’t take up his time.
He said he’d make about 600 a day. That adds up to around 150k, so his job must pay way better. His job is basically where a mining company would set up a multi-million dollar operation. He’s in a very specific actuarial science, so I’m guessing it’s double or triple that maybe.
His first thought when he saw the flaw was “I’m gonna be rich!” If he makes 300k a year and doesn’t see himself as rich or think he’ll become rich, then maybe he’s not that good with numbers.
RE: Fact #34 (Nostradamus Myths And Death Prediction) – It’s almost like astrology is bullshit.
Yeah, exactly. Everyone knows tarot cards and ouija boards are the only real ways to talk to the supernatural.
Yeah, that’s just common sense.
I’m a Scorpio and honestly, most people who are born under that sign don’t really believe in astrology.
RE: Fact #29 (Eisenhower’s Holocaust Denial Prediction Safeguard) – And yet, with all the photographic evidence we have, people still deny it. It’s insane.
The only thing I need to know is that the Germans don’t deny it. Same goes for the moon landing — if the Russians say it happened, it fu*king happened.
Add to that, Holocaust denial is a criminal offense in Germany and can get you up to five years in jail. Edit: Just a few quick clarifications. I knew if this comment got any upvotes, it’d spark the usual debates. Especially for Americans, this feels like censorship. And I’d be wrong to deny that. Yeah, it’s censorship. And yeah, there’s a real danger of a slippery slope. But the law’s been around for over 30 years now, and I haven’t heard anything negative about how it’s actually enforced. Free speech is mostly a cultural thing in my view. Some countries care way more about it than others. The US is especially obsessed with protecting it. Most countries have some kind of law against hate speech or other harmful content. If you grow up in one of those places, you don’t even think about it. I can’t imagine any good reason why allowing Holocaust denial would ever make sense. My opinion is a bit clouded because I’m almost as old as the law we’re talking about. So that’s it. I fully agree that a slippery slope is a real risk when passing new laws. But I still think it’s a small price to pay. Stuff like WBC just wouldn’t fly here, and I’m not sorry for that. If anyone thinks there’s a free speech problem in Germany, I can at least say we still have a vocal Nazi party. Parliament couldn’t declare them unconstitutional back in 2003. There’s been a new motion since 2013, and they seem pretty confident they’ll win this time because losing a trial would probably give the Nazis more legitimacy than the other parties want.
The Russians had all the tech they needed to pick up our radio signals, could easily figure out where they were coming from, the timing, everything. They knew for sure it was real, and would’ve thrown out hard scientific proof if it weren’t. Fact is, we had the tech to get to the moon and back, but not the tech to fake it.
If someone denies the holocaust, they should be required to read every paragraph and watch every video in the D.C. Holocaust museum. That stuff is heavy.
RE: Fact #19 (Camille Jenatzy’s Mercedes Death Prediction) – “Man, I really got you guys good with that prank.”
Seriously, who hides in a bush making animal sounds just to get shot? That sounds less like a prophecy and more like asking for it, if you ask me.
But really, hunters aren’t supposed to just fire at noises. You’re meant to actually see your target and feel confident about making the shot before pulling the trigger. Loads of people use turkey or deer calls while hunting, and most don’t end up getting shot.
RE: Fact #38 (Paul The Octopus’ Cup Predictions) – I thought it was Dutch fans because they lost the final. Dutch TV was all cooking shows, like cooking an octopus.
RE: Fact #37 (Dorothy Eady’s Abydos Temple Predictions) – I’m not saying I don’t believe reincarnation could be real, but if it is, I don’t think our past memories are stored somewhere in the brain or locked inside our bodies so we can just get hit on the head and suddenly remember them. But maybe I just haven’t hit my head hard enough, I guess.
RE: Fact #19 (Camille Jenatzy’s Mercedes Death Prediction) – Just goes to show, sometimes you don’t need to be quick on your feet to go down fast.
RE: Fact #8 (Lisa The Greek’s Super Bowl) – I can’t believe I have to tell people this SMH.
There were two recordings of audio for that episode since the Simpsons were on Sunday night after the Super Bowl they would play the recording that had the winning team , it wasn’t magic or a mystical prediction it was a guy or girl at the studio that played the correct tape
RE: Fact #16 (Gottman’s Bird Test Divorce Prediction) – My wife really liked this research, but I just found it kinda dumb.
Seems pretty obvious to me. If someone keeps trying to get your attention and you constantly shut them down, they’re gonna feel unappreciated, like you don’t care. That’s just not good for a romantic partnership.
Yeah, that’s definitely a huge part of it, and what most folks in this discussion are really zeroing in on. But the other half is how much you’re truly into whatever makes your partner happy and excited. It’s not really about having stuff in common; it’s more like a team effort. Seeing someone you care about light up with happiness, curiosity, hope, or just feeling satisfied, that’s a win for both of you, right? Sometimes I read these conversations and I’m genuinely surprised that more people don’t get that feeling of shared joy when someone else has a good moment, especially for someone they truly love or care about. If you have that kind of outlook, and your partner does too, then you’ll definitely take that extra second to appreciate those rare moments of pure freedom in life. Those times when you’re not bogged down by all the overwhelming worries of modern living, which usually feel so crushing, draining, and endless. We all get worn down, chipped away to nearly nothing by the grind of everyday existence: boring jobs, unkind people in power, rude strangers, critical bosses, bitter exes, difficult family, unfair regulations, a corrupt system, health problems, mental struggles – honestly, the world can be fu*king HARSH. So yeah, it makes total sense that relationships where these moments aren’t just tolerated, but actually encouraged and shared, are the ones that stick around. Because those are the connections that truly make life feel… worth living.
Nah, I don’t agree… that’s an immediate divorce. If I kinda agree… still a divorce. And if you ignore my comment? Oh, that’s a whole new level of divorce.
RE: Fact #33 (Winston Churchill’s Lab-Grown Meat Vision) – My thought on this is… when does having an imagination and high hopes actually become prediction? Like, Star Trek kind of predicted smartphones, but it also really inspired them. Same thing with any sci-fi show or movie—no matter how tech-forward they are, they all kind of say, “one day robots will be everywhere.” Honestly, though, that idea about one day just growing our food without killing animals? Feels like something a drunk person would say while trying to get a snack. And Churchill was a drunk, and from what I saw, he loved snacks.
RE: Fact #31 (Sam Houston’s Anti-Confederate War Prediction) – So why is there a Houston in Texas?
Yeah, it was named after him.
Fun fact Houston Texas is basically one step away from hell humid and packed af source native texan
RE: Fact #15 (Iben Browning’s New Madrid Panic) – That same year, he actually snagged the first ‘Chicken Little Award’ from the National Anxiety Center. They gave it to him for absolutely terrifying people throughout seven states in the Midwest, calling it a really doubtful news item for the year. It really showed how a Ph.D. can let anyone just whip up a bunch of public fear. This guy’s whole story is wild; it truly illustrates how powerful mass hysteria can become.
RE: Fact #21 (Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Serial Apocalypse Predictions) – It’s easy to zero in on all their failures. But you gotta wonder, how many times did they actually nail it?
RE: Fact #6 (Varro’s Invisible Germs Swamp Warning) – It’s wild how entire millennia of history can just disappear. It’s as if we’re living it all again. We understand what these ancient people already found out, but we’re still going through it all over. Two thousand years from now, we’ll be advanced, and somewhere, people will be having this exact chat.
RE: Fact #1 (Baba Vanga’s Secondhand Prophecies Debate) – Wait, she died? I didn’t even realize she was ill.
Yeah, she supposedly predicted 9/11, but in her version it was meant to happen way up in Northern Canada.
What the fu*k were those planes supposed to hit there? A couple of big trees?
RE: Fact #50 (NY Times’ Failed TV Prediction) – Lol, just read this and realized newspapers have always had this thing where they can’t figure out how valuable or threatening their business model really is. Most recently, the internet and online reporting.
RE: Fact #22 (Times’ Million-Year Flight Misfire) – Seriously, they gave a timeframe from just one year all the way up to ten million. That’s an enormous window, and yet they still managed to mess it up.
RE: Fact #45 (Bell’s Early Greenhouse Effect Prediction) – Dont really surprise me. The first paper on human-driven climate change came out in 1896, talked about how industrial carbon dioxide affects temperature. The author figured it’d be a positive thing since he didn’t think we’d hit his 1000-year estimate before 2010.
RE: Fact #49 (Johannes Stöffler’s 1524 Flood Prediction) – I’m not seeing much about this Count von Iggleheim—actually, I can’t find any Counts of Iggleheim anywhere else besides this fact and the references to it. I’m a bit skeptical. Genealogy was a big deal back then, and public records for noble families are usually pretty solid. The name doesn’t really sound German either. There’s a village called Iggelheim, and as far as I know, it wasn’t named after nobles who used to live there. There’s a real noble house called von Ingelheim, but I don’t see any mention of them being involved in this story. The mathematician, on the other hand, is real and well-known, but I can’t find any link between him and this claim. Also, the part about “a nobleman having him build a three-story ark” is completely made up—it’s just in this fact in here and isn’t supported by the article. And according to the article, if that nobleman existed, he built the ark himself.
RE: Fact #43 (Rick Rescorla’s Towers Attack Prediction) – That guy was a real hero. I worked at Morgan Stanley in 2001, but not in NY. I knew a lot of people who work in those buildings today because he had his own plan in place instead of going with what others suggested. Nothing special about him, just figured out what to do if something like that ever happened and trained his team to handle it. When the day came, he and his team knew exactly what to do and they pulled it off. And I’d say he anticipated it instead of just predicting it. That sounds like he knew it was coming. He just knew it was coming, not exactly when.
RE: Fact #33 (Winston Churchill’s Lab-Grown Meat Vision) – Second only to “I may be drunk, miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you’ll still be ugly.”
RE: Fact #8 (Lisa The Greek’s Super Bowl) – Pretty much everyone’s convinced Matt Groening can travel through time, right?
So Futurama is basically a documentary about the future, then? Totally confirmed.
Hmm, or maybe he’s just part of some secret society running the whole planet. Hard to say which idea seems more plausible!
RE: Fact #10 (Roger Boisjoly’s Ignored Challenger Warning) – I once saw this guy give a talk when I was in college. He laid out all the proof for how bureaucracy kept them from stopping the launch. As soon as it started, his boss yanked him aside and literally said, “See, nothing’s wrong”… then it blew up. He actually broke down and cried while telling that part, it was clearly so hard for him. Just heartbreaking.
My old boss, who actually worked on the space shuttle program, backed this up. He mentioned that the boosters were initially going to be built really close to the launch pad, since they’re massive and needed to be moved by barge. But Congress stepped in, claiming too many local businesses were getting NASA deals, so they made them give the contract to a company way across the country. That meant they had to make the boosters in sections for shipping. If they’d stuck with the original one-piece plan, those O-rings wouldn’t even have existed to fail.
Nah, the O-ring design would still have been necessary. Back then, and even with today’s technology, there just wasn’t a solid, single-piece booster available. The O-ring actually failed because of the outside temperature. They got advice to wait for it to warm up, but they didn’t, and so the rubber couldn’t form a proper seal as it was supposed to.
RE: Fact #15 (Iben Browning’s New Madrid Panic) – Wow, his Wikipedia entry is quite something. This Iben Browning fellow, an author, business advisor, and someone who apparently called himself a climatologist. He’s mainly known for making a bunch of disaster predictions about weather, volcanoes, ground tremors, and government failures that never actually came to pass.
He was probably just going by the idea that ‘Eventually, I’ll get one right!’
Oh, so basically the same school of thought as Lyndon LaRouche’s economic predictions.
It’s wild that so many people actually took him seriously. Honestly, the fault line is super overdue for a big quake, so that probably helped stoke some of their belief. When it last hit, people felt it clear across to New York, and the Mississippi River even started flowing the wrong way! It also created several new lakes, one of them being Reelfoot in Tennessee, which is now a lovely natural area and home to a bunch of bald eagles.
This kind of thing should really be treated like yelling ‘fire’ in a packed place when there isn’t actually one.
Seriously, folks actually paid attention to a lunatic’s rants? I think it’s more their problem for falling for it from the start.
RE: Fact #37 (Dorothy Eady’s Abydos Temple Predictions) – Or… there’s a solid explanation for this — some rogue archaeologists sneaked in and accidentally stumbled upon something. So how do they make this believable, get out of trouble, and not end up in jail? Let’s just say we tell the Egyptians we found a reincarnation of one of the ancient priestesses and she can reveal secrets hidden for centuries. It might not be perfect, but I’m pretty sure it’s not too far off.
RE: Fact #24 (Blacksmith Predicts President Herbert Hoover) – Herbert Hoover was a solid humanitarian, and that’s partly because he was such a strong businessman. He made his early money as a mining engineer, fixing up mines that were barely profitable. During World War 1, he fed millions in Belgium when the rest of Europe was falling apart and the U.S. government wasn’t ready to step in. The Depression stuff? Yeah, people blamed him a bit unfairly. FDR ran a pretty hard campaign to make it seem like the whole mess was his fault. Hoover actually respected what the Constitution gave him power over, and didn’t think he had the authority to do all the things FDR ended up doing. It wasn’t laziness or indifference like people always say.
He might not have been the worst guy around — but honestly, in the middle of a national crisis, maybe we shouldn’t be stressing about the letter of the law. There’s something to be said about Thurgood Marshall’s mindset — “do what you think is right, and let the law catch up.” Hoover wasn’t a great president, though, to be fair, I can definitely think of worse ones.
Grant for one of them. Yeah, making this fact kinda funny.
Hoover’s administration also sent the police and army to violently break up the Bonus Army protesters. Fun fact, Douglas MacArthur led the charge and had six tanks. For those who don’t know, after WWI, the US promised veterans a payout that was supposed to come in the 1940s. But the Great Depression left many veterans in real trouble, so they asked for the money early. They even marched on Washington. Cue Hoover, who sent troops to crush them. Hoover actually believed he had the authority the Constitution gave him, and didn’t think he had the power to do what FDR ended up doing. This idea that he was completely out of touch with people’s suffering? That’s just wrong. He stuck to 19th century thinking about boom and bust capitalism, never considering that he had fiscal and monetary tools at his disposal. He didn’t think about how weak banking oversight led directly to the 1929 crash. Or how a deposit insurance scheme could’ve helped. Or that he could’ve asked Congress for broad executive powers, like FDR did during the Depression. Hoover’s getting popularity again among fiscal conservatives today, especially after the pandemic. It’s because all that stimulus money going to individuals is just cash that could be used to help corporate interests instead, increasing the deficit. The US is borrowing trillions to pay for it, but that’s fine. The interest rate is super low — just 0.05 percent — and it’s paid back over 30 years. Watch how conservatives push for austerity now, pointing to pandemic spending and blaming it all on the poor and progressives, while credit markets keep happily lending the US trillions at near zero interest. Because really, the only people who should benefit from America’s great credit rating are at the top of the economic ladder, goddammit. Investors keep lending because they believe the US government is safe. Right-of-center folks think this kind of government borrowing steals investment from the private sector and makes things less efficient. Personally, I think the capital markets could pay your rent during a pandemic. They’ll just pull the money back when you go back to being part of the system. Finally, think about clinging to a constitution written in 1989 for a slaveholding, agrarian society. Hoover didn’t think it gave him tools to face the challenges of his time. Twenty-seven amendments later, does it really help us deal with the next century’s problems? Do you want to wait for another do-nothing Hoover to find out? We’ve already had one pandemic that shut down the country for almost a year. What happens when the oceans rise? Or when five Category Five storms hit Louisiana again? Or another pandemic hits? Will the private sector save us? Remember the PPE shortages earlier this year? The Constitution isn’t a suicide pact. Hoover and people like him thought it was. That kind of thinking will kill us all.
RE: Fact #1 (Baba Vanga’s Secondhand Prophecies Debate) – Just so we’re clear, none of her ‘prophecies’ actually panned out. She was around in Soviet Bulgaria, and they totally hyped her up for their own propaganda. Wanna know what her ‘predictions’ were like? Just picture a really old, conservative woman from a Balkan village back in the Soviet days. She’d say stuff like, the US will get a Black President who’ll mess everything up, and then no one else will be president after that. Or World War III will start when Muslims take over Europe. Asia will get covered in toxic stuff, wiping out lots of people, but Russia will be fine. And parts of Western Europe will just destroy themselves and become unlivable. Basically, more of the same. All those ‘prophecies that came true’ are just plain false. People twist them to match what actually happens, especially those who share her conservative views and want her to be proven right about certain groups bringing down the world. I’m Bulgarian, so for me, there’s absolutely nothing mystical or special about Baba Vanga. Anyone in the comments saying ‘she was right’ is really showing their true colors, lol.
RE: Fact #25 (Spielberg’s Pulp Fiction Oscar Prediction) – Awards like that are really about people in the industry voting for them. A big piece of it is also studios hiring strategists to campaign for specific awards. If you know a lot about what’s going on behind the scenes, you could actually make a pretty solid guess about who’s gonna win what.
It wasn’t hard to predict either award that year. Both were huge front runners with massive hits. Most Oscar blogs have 80% of the contenders scouted a year in advance.
RE: Fact #11 (Oscar The Death-Predicting Nursing-Home Cat) – Well just found out Oscar is no more alive.
RE: Fact #17 (Netflix’s Napoleon Dynamite Algorithm Headache) – Napoleon Dynamite is just such a hilarious film. I can’t even explain why it’s so funny. I guess everything felt really genuine, like you could totally know those characters in real life. It almost seemed like the movie wasn’t even trying to be humorous. Add in that ‘amazing’ improv keyboard soundtrack, and it’s a true comedy gem.
RE: Fact #5 (Isaac Newton’s 2060 Apocalypse Timeline) – Only need to hang on for four more decades, then.
RE: Fact #42 (Darwin’s Long-Tongued Madagascar Moth Prediction) – For Darwin’s moth, it took a bunch of studies over a long time to confirm one of the big predictions in ecology and evolution. Darwin was guessing the existence of a whole new insect species just based on the size of the flower and what he knew about orchids and insects evolving. The moth has a wingspan of about 16cm, but its proboscis is massive—over 20cm long—and curls up like a big coil in front of its head when not in use.
RE: Fact #18 (Aglaonice’s Eclipse-Summoning Moon Predictions) – Hey, just so you know, this whole idea about them actually being astronomers who just made people think they were witches by calling out eclipses? That’s not some brand-new thought. Plutarch, an old writer, actually brought that up himself.
Oh, that really helps put things in perspective. Thanks so much for sharing!
So a woman does something smart or scientific, and immediately, all the old religious dudes are like, ‘Nope, totally a witch!’
RE: Fact #23 (Alexander Fleming’s Antibiotic Resistance Warning) – I’m watching QI right now and it just mentioned penicillin about five minutes ago. Said it was someone else who found it first and that Fleming basically rediscovered it after the original discovery got ignored.
I really love QI. Was it Fry or Toksvig? Both are solid, fair enough. Not surprised about Fleming. That’s just how things are. The Infinite Monkey Cage never covered this!
Back then, it was pretty well known that fungi could kill bacteria—just not exactly which ones or how they did it. Fleming was the one who figured out which fungus did it and isolated the chemical that killed the bacteria. Kinda ironic, actually, because he eventually stopped working on penicillin since it was hard to make in large amounts. It wasn’t until 20 years later that Florey and Chain figured out how to scale it up and turn it into a real medicine.
RE: Fact #10 (Roger Boisjoly’s Ignored Challenger Warning) – Later on, with the Columbia disaster, a bunch of engineers and flight directors were super worried about the foam hitting the wing right after takeoff. But Linda Ham and some other high-ranking NASA folks basically brushed off big holes in the wing as “no big deal.” Sadly, they couldn’t have been more wrong. It really highlights how NASA has always struggled with management problems.
The truly heartbreaking part about Columbia is there was zero chance to fix anything once it was up in space. Those astronauts were gone the moment the orbiter got into orbit. Just imagine if everyone had known that before it even tried to come back down.
They definitely knew about that foam hitting the shuttle; there was even video of it available the day after launch. NASA was aware of foam strikes from earlier missions too, and pretty much just chose to overlook the issue. Later, that same video showed lab tests proving foam could really punch a giant hole in the unreinforced section of the wing. NASA could’ve done more without needing another shuttle involved. They could’ve sent someone on a spacewalk to check for damage, even if they couldn’t fix it. At least then they might have tried a rescue mission.
RE: Fact #27 (Edward Bellamy’s Proto Credit Card) – Man, this book is solid. It’s basically a sharp critique of capitalist society and has one of those wild, vivid passages that just stick with you. Like, this one: “By way of attempting to give the reader some general impression of the way people lived together in those days, and especially of the relations of the rich and poor to one another, perhaps I cannot do better than to compare society as it then was to a prodigious coach which the masses of humanity were harnessed to and dragged toilsomely along a very hilly and sandy road. The driver was hunger, and permitted no lagging, though the pace was necessarily very slow. Despite the difficulty of drawing the coach at all along so hard a road, the top was covered with passengers who never got down, even at the steepest ascents. These seats on top were very breezy and comfortable. Well up out of the dust, their occupants could enjoy the scenery at their leisure, or critically discuss the merits of the straining team. Naturally such places were in great demand and the competition for them was keen, every one seeking as the first end in life to secure a seat on the coach for himself and to leave it to his child after him. By the rule of the coach a man could leave his seat to whom he wished, but on the other hand there were many accidents by which it might at any time be wholly lost. For all that they were so easy, the seats were very insecure, and at every sudden jolt of the coach persons were slipping out of them and falling to next to the ground, where they were instantly compelled to take hold of the rope and help to drag the coach on which they had before ridden so pleasantly. It was naturally regarded as a terrible misfortune to lose one’s seat, and the apprehension that this might happen to them or their friends was a constant cloud upon the happiness of those who rode.”
RE: Fact #46 (Adam Smith’s American Empire Prediction) – I’m sleep deprived and about to pass out, but I read that as “Adam Sandler” and was totally confused for a minute.
RE: Fact #2 (Agassi Cracks Boris Becker’s Tell) – Wow, that’s some next level tennis thinking! Agassi once talked about playing Becker, saying the real challenge wasn’t hitting his serves back, but hiding the fact he knew where they were going. He basically held back from reading Becker’s serves most of the time, just waiting for the perfect moment to use that intel for a game-changing shot. After losing to Becker three times in a row, Agassi ended up beating him eight straight times, including some big wins like the U.S. Open in 1990.
RE: Fact #20 (OSS Psychoanalysis Predicts Hitler’s Collapse) – This report made some really accurate guesses about what Hitler would do later on. For instance, as the war started to go against him, they predicted his emotions would ramp up and he’d have more frequent outbursts. His public appearances would become much less common since he couldn’t deal with people disagreeing with him. They also thought there might be an attempt on his life by German nobility, military officers, or high command, because he had this incredible belief in his own battle instincts. There wouldn’t be any giving up, surrendering, or peace talks either. He’d definitely pursue a path of ideological immortality, aiming for the ultimate revenge on a world he despised. Given what they understood about his mind, the most likely outcome if he faced defeat was suicide. Even though he probably had a massive fear of dying, they figured being a psychopath, he’d just weigh his options and do it anyway.
RE: Fact #28 (Fred Foldvary’s 2008 Housing Prediction) – The other 20 guys who picked different years? Yeah, they’re not as memorable.
Survivorship bias at its peak.
Yeah, and how many wrong calls has this person made before finally getting it right? Like, if I predicted a stock market crash every single day, eventually I’d get corrected — but after how many wrong ones?
RE: Fact #33 (Winston Churchill’s Lab-Grown Meat Vision) – That’s so vague but also totally hilarious if you imagine it as a drunken rant. “I’m not drunk, you’re drunk! In the future they’re gonna grow fields of chicken wings and and and they’re gonna have pizza where the crust is full of cheese too! Mmmhrumph…hmph…hot pockets…zzzzzzzzzz”
RE: Fact #29 (Eisenhower’s Holocaust Denial Prediction Safeguard) – Eisenhower seems really far-sighted. Plus, with his farewell speech, it’s clear he had a solid sense of how people act and which way the winds were blowing.
RE: Fact #38 (Paul The Octopus’ Cup Predictions) – People sent death threats to an octopus? I can’t wrap my head around that. Who is actually dumb enough to threaten an octopus? Haven’t they heard of the vengeful wrath of our Lord and Saviour Cthulu?
They weren’t actually sending death threats. If you check the reference, it was just people saying stuff on Twitter, forums, and comment sections. It was about as serious as someone joking about it at the pub.
RE: Fact #30 (Michael Burry’s Metal-Fueled Crash Prediction) – Wasn’t this the guy Christian Bale played in The Big Short?
RE: Fact #47 (Roald Dahl’s Story-Writing Machine Prediction) – And in George Orwell’s 1984, the Ministry of Truth has a whole suite of fiction writing machines that churn out bad books, songs, and porn for the lower classes. “What are these books like?” Winston asked curiously. “Oh, absolute garbage. Boring as hell. They only have six plots, but they mix them up a bit. Of course I was only on the kaleidoscopes. I never made it to the Rewrite Squad. I’m not even close to literary — not even enough for that.”
Wow, six plots! They’d have been so lucky. That’s way more than we get from Hollywood these days.
Former cop, Marine, Navy SEAL gets dragged out of retirement for one last mission. A bunch of superheroes or anti-heroes, each with their own weird quirks, have to team up and save the world. An underdog athlete or team faces off against stronger foes and proves themselves through grit and hard work. A shy young guy meets this charming, flashy woman and finally starts opening up. All that Hollywood-style fluff and film culture stuff. Either a cynical take on a tired IP or a love letter to a classic novel. Star Wars.
RE: Fact #2 (Agassi Cracks Boris Becker’s Tell) – Oh, I remember an interview with Andre talking about that Nike ad where he played Sampras on a city street. The director had this video camera on a dolly right at the baseline and told Andre to serve, aiming as close to the lens as he could. Andre, being super precise, asked if they wanted it over, under, left, or right of the lens. The director just brushed it off, like, ‘Just get it really close!’ Andre got a bit annoyed. His very first serve? Smashed the expensive camera lens.
Tiger Woods is just like that too.
Tiger, probably: ‘Hope insurance takes care of that!’ The Director, likely: ‘I really should’ve known better than to tell him to hit the lens.’ Insurance Adjuster: ‘You literally instructed him to destroy the camera. That’s intentional damage, so the claim is denied.’
Hitting cans is actually a basic part of learning to serve, so they’re trained for consistent accuracy right from the beginning. My high school coach used to joke about making us aim for coins, which makes me wonder just how incredibly precise the pros must be.
Oh yeah, we used to practice hitting a stack of three balls on the bottom with one on top.
It’s the same idea in volleyball. My wife coached 7th-grade girls’ volleyball for a few years, and she really drilled in the basics. One of her go-to practices involved placing candy bars on the floor across the net, then having the girls serve to try and hit them. If they connected, they got the treat! And she made sure all her girls used an overhand serve, no exceptions.
I recall seeing an outtake video from a Federer commercial once. In it, someone from the crew put a tennis ball can on their head, and Federer served to knock it right off. So accurate! I haven’t been able to track down that video lately, though.
RE: Fact #21 (Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Serial Apocalypse Predictions) – Go figure, it’s practically like religion isn’t really about facts.
RE: Fact #4 (Lyndon Johnson’s Eerily Accurate Longevity) – If you think about how stressful that job is, he probably wouldn’t have stuck around anywhere near that long anyway.
RE: Fact #6 (Varro’s Invisible Germs Swamp Warning) – He said this as a warning about swamps, for context. His thinking was that while other illnesses stem from different origins, swamps specifically contained these tiny things that could get inside you and cause illness. Maybe he meant bugs, but we really can’t know for sure.
If I’m remembering wrong, tell me, but didn’t they connect swamp problems to a harmful ‘miasma,’ which we pretty much agree was malaria now?
I’ve heard the same thing, that ‘malaria’ literally means ‘bad air.’ They truly believed just breathing the foul swamp air made you unwell.
Roman academics often made some really far-fetched predictions. So it doesn’t surprise me that a handful of those ended up being somewhat correct.
I’d bet this kind of thing was super common, but Romans were just better at documenting their crazy, out-there predictions.
Even if you’re mostly wrong, you can still stumble onto the truth by chance.
RE: Fact #39 (Mark Twain’s Halley’s Comet Prediction) – I always thought he took his own life. His life was pretty sad.
RE: Fact #11 (Oscar The Death-Predicting Nursing-Home Cat) – I guess they can actually sniff out cortisol. That’d make sense for how they figure out when their person is unwell or feeling down. It’s just extra frustrating when the stress you’re feeling is actually *from* your cat dander allergy!
Totally makes sense, actually. I deal with some cortisol problems, and whenever mine goes up, cats are just all over me.
Had to look it up, but apparently cortisol goes up a lot during pregnancy, like two to four times more. And my cat? She was completely fixated on me when I was pregnant. Pretty wild!
Oh, I totally believe you! But could you point me to an article or two to read? This stuff is super interesting. I’ve got two cats myself, and when I caught covid a few years back, one of them totally turned into my nurse. If I tried to do anything besides grab meds, feed them, or use the restroom, she’d immediately start biting and scratching my feet until I was back in bed. And lying on my side? No way! She’d just slap my face until I rolled onto my back, then she’d plop onto my chest, right in my face, until I passed out. That’s the only time she’s ever been aggressive with me. Even though I had all my vaccine shots and was taking all the over-the-counter stuff for symptoms, I’ll always give her way more credit for probably saving me from the hospital. No question she knew what was going on.
When I had covid, it wasn’t just my cats but my aunt’s dogs too, all teamed up to keep me confined to bed. My cats and her dogs usually can’t stand each other, but they actually called a temporary truce and worked together to make sure I stayed put. The moment I was feeling better and moving around again, they went right back to ignoring and hating each other.
RE: Fact #7 (Jules Verne’s Shelved Techno-Future Manuscript) – So, this book is about Michel Dufrénoy, a 16-year-old who finishes his literature and classics studies, but then discovers that in the future, nobody cares about those things anymore. It’s all about business and tech. Turns out, the author was pretty spot on with that observation.
Man, sounds like he really got stuck in the wrong era.
Hmm, or maybe it was the perfect one, since all this messed-up stuff hadn’t even happened then.
That kind of thing was actually a super common idea way back in the 1800s and early 1900s too. Just imagine the Industrial Revolution, folks heading to cities for factory work, and then Romanticism totally reacting against it all.
Oh, and don’t forget, the Industrial Revolution also really brought about statistics and measuring how valuable work was strictly by numbers.
RE: Fact #7 (Jules Verne’s Shelved Techno-Future Manuscript) – Jules Verne seriously had a knack for seeing the future, like he was a time traveler or something.
He actually foresaw CDs, totally. In The Time Machine, the main character finds out people in the 25th century kept their info on these silver discs you had to spin around to check out!
RE: Fact #12 (Gonzalo Garcia-Pelayo’s Biased Roulette Windfall) – Damn, can’t win big without getting sued. 600k is decent, but figured you’d get a bit more before they take you to court. what a load of sh*t
there are ways to beat the casino, like card counting or getting them to give you more freeplay than you lose. all legal. but when they notice you’re winning too much, they’ll stop you. sometimes they’ll even ban you and send a letter saying you’re not welcome back. happened to me, banned from a few casinos for taking too much cash
card counting is getting rare on main floors due to autodecks. private rooms might still have manual, but even those are getting phased out. saw a high roller who might’ve been counting, but they didn’t kick him out since he was losing big on other tables
banning someone for winning too much is way more chill than suing them to get the cash back
he won 600k in a day, but a million total, so he got a bit more before the lawyers got involved
yeah that’s more like it. 600k in a day is pretty cool. surprised they didn’t just kick him out after that. probably thought they could win it back from him
RE: Fact #15 (Iben Browning’s New Madrid Panic) – Even now, thirty years later, we’re still giving way too much attention and belief to total crackpots who don’t actually know what they’re talking about.
RE: Fact #46 (Adam Smith’s American Empire Prediction) – The British people succeed despite their government, not because of it.
RE: Fact #18 (Aglaonice’s Eclipse-Summoning Moon Predictions) – Picture this: you can actually tell the future, and you totally use that to get ahead in society and politics. You’d really need to be a pro at figuring out what people are thinking, shaping their views, and reacting to any shifts. So, Aglaonice says, ‘Lunar eclipse coming up May 26th, 2021. What’s our angle?’ Then Witch Two jumps in, ‘How about we get everyone in town to stop planting beets? I really can’t stand them.’ Witch Three chimes, ‘Yeah, me neither! We should make them switch to growing carrots.’ Aglaonice agrees, ‘Alright, that’s a plan. We’ll crash the beet market come next spring.’ But then Witch Two says, ‘Oops, turns out there was some kind of plant disease last year, so no one’s planting beets this year anyway. We need a different use for that eclipse.’ Aglaonice thinks, ‘Our jerky supply is running low. What if we make everyone sacrifice a goat and bring it to us? We’ll set the deadline for May 25th, and warn them that if they’re late, *they’re* the reason the moon goes dark. If the moon vanishes, no one will know when to harvest! Anyone who doesn’t cough up will be totally freaked when it glows red on the 26th.’ Witch Three loves it: ‘Sounds good to me!’
Yeah, that whole situation is pretty much exactly what I pictured after checking out the Wikipedia article. Though, Plutarch’s take on it makes it sound more like Aglaonice was the only astronomer, and she just used what she knew to make other women believe she was a sorceress. That’s still a way to get power, I guess, socially and politically. But honestly, I’d rather think she shared all that brainpower with her buddies and got them in on the whole plan.
RE: Fact #46 (Adam Smith’s American Empire Prediction) – The 13 colonies could’ve crushed the British Empire with a lot of help from our old friends, the French, of course.
Spain helped out in exchange for getting Florida back.
Hey everyone, it’s time to give a big shoutout to America’s go-to fighting Frenchman: Lafayette.
General Charles O’Hara was a British Army officer who served in the Seven Years’ War, the American War of Independence, and the French Revolutionary War. Later, he became governor of Gibraltar. Throughout his career, he personally surrendered to both George Washington and Napoleon Bonaparte.
Fair enough, everyone was giving in to Napoleon back in 1802.
That’s some solid stuff on that resume.
RE: Fact #36 (Abraham De Moivre’s Sleep Prediction) – I’m also pretty sure I’m gonna die while sleeping and not wake up.
RE: Fact #4 (Lyndon Johnson’s Eerily Accurate Longevity) – His first heart attack hit when he was 47.
Actually, he was 46, just a couple of months shy of his 47th birthday.
Okay, so 48 isn’t really important for this chat, but I saw everyone else throwing out ages in the facts above, so I figured 48 deserved its moment.
RE: Fact #38 (Paul The Octopus’ Cup Predictions) – I think it was more because his predictions were accurate than precise.
RE: Fact #2 (Agassi Cracks Boris Becker’s Tell) – Alright, here’s a little story. When I was a senior in high school, our tennis coach told me we’d have a really strong player named Agassi joining us the following year. Well, he never actually showed up for high school. He ended up going to the Bollettieri tennis camp and turned pro instead. Honestly, as I’m writing this, I’m realizing it’s not a very exciting tale.
Hey, at least you didn’t say it was going to be an amazing story!
Come on, you almost got to be teammates with Agassi! That’s actually pretty cool, haha.
Yeah, it’s not nothing, but it’s also not really anything either, lol.
RE: Fact #24 (Blacksmith Predicts President Herbert Hoover) – Hoover’s still seen as a terrible president, kind of like Grant.
Oh no way, you’re not saying bad things about my guy Grant. He beat the South while drunk off his ass, crushed the first KKK, and risked a lot of political capital to push Black rights during Reconstruction — that doesn’t deserve this kind of trash treatment. Unless you’re talking about how he treated Native Americans, which was pretty bad.
So, Hoover’s standing’s actually starting to get better among historians. People are realizing he was totally out of his depth back then—the country had never faced anything like that, and Congress was just as unprepared. You can’t even get to the First New Deal without the mess of 1929 to 1932. But he still has to take responsibility for how badly he handled the Bonus Army.
RE: Fact #21 (Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Serial Apocalypse Predictions) – Growing up, my folks’ pastor totally fell for that whole ’88 reasons the rapture would happen in 1988′ thing. Like, half the church actually showed up right when it was supposed to happen, dressed up in their Sunday clothes, waiting to ascend.
RE: Fact #40 (Mohan Srivastava’s Scratch-Off Lottery Hack) – Man, it’s a shame you can’t choose your ticket. You just get the next one that comes along.
Yeah but you can get a full refund for unscratched tickets at most places.
RE: Fact #23 (Alexander Fleming’s Antibiotic Resistance Warning) – Recently, phage therapy has been getting more attention because of the rise in antibiotic resistance. This kind of therapy existed way before the golden age of antibiotics — it uses viruses that specifically target and kill certain bacteria. But once antibiotics came along, research on phage therapy kind of fell off because antibiotics were seen as a “magic bullet,” something that could quickly treat any bacterial infection without needing to identify which bacteria was causing it.
RE: Fact #41 (Akira’s Tokyo 2020 Olympic Prediction) – Don’t forget, it also predicted that giant blob monster. Who could forget the great blob monster attack of 2019? That was such a weird year.
RE: Fact #11 (Oscar The Death-Predicting Nursing-Home Cat) – Right now, I’m totally giving my cat the side-eye because he’s suddenly decided to start curling up next to me a lot.
RE: Fact #20 (OSS Psychoanalysis Predicts Hitler’s Collapse) – And his drug use shot way up too.
That probably added to all the behaviors mentioned in the original fact. His drug intake definitely fueled a lot of that stuff.
Can you even imagine hiring some shady doctor and keeping him closer than your actual friends, just because you needed those amphetamines to stay focused on your whole hateful mission?
RE: Fact #19 (Camille Jenatzy’s Mercedes Death Prediction) – Now, are we really sure this wasn’t murder, and Madoux just made up the story afterward?
He died during a hunting trip when his friend Alfred Madoux shot him in the thigh. There are actually two versions of the story from different sources. One, from Hemmings, says Jenatzy thought it would be hilarious to hide in some bushes and grunt like a wild boar. He was so good at it that he tricked Madoux into shooting. But another source, Drive, suggests it might not have been an accident, considering Madoux was married to Jenatzy’s mistress, so the boar prank could have just been a convenient cover for murder.
My first thought was, ‘Just how many folks were hunting with him?’ Two people aren’t exactly tough to keep quiet, or they could have already been in on it.
Okay, now I’m really not so sure about it.
And wait, as a hunter, you just shot without even knowing what you were aiming at? That’s super suspicious.
RE: Fact #17 (Netflix’s Napoleon Dynamite Algorithm Headache) – So, the guy who acted as Pedro actually became a DJ. Every now and then, he’d drop in those ‘vote for Pedro’ lines from the film.