False Prophets

True prophets are rare birds. False prophets are much more common. They often extrapolate from small initial breakthroughs (and wishful thinking) into grandiose forecasts. (I know because I am often quite guilty of same.) There is a element of grandstanding to these avians as their wild-eyed pronouncements often make national headlines. But when they crash and burn, these false prophets are nowhere to be found. Here are a few of the current crop of what seem to be mostly false memes:

Autonomous Cars -- I just heard the CEO of Ford Motor say on TV that by 2021 we will have cars with no pedals or steering wheels driving around "designated areas." By this date I may no longer be allowed to drive ... and, even if I were, I would not entrust my life to some Silicon Valley software engineer's sense of the reality of the road.

Robot Takeover -- If Malthus taught us nothing, it was that simple extrapolations of technologies seldom approximate the truth. And certainly what I know about simulated knowledge suggests to me that artificial intelligence will never be fully sapient. This is all the stuff of science fiction writers ... fictional.

Global Warming -- False prophets predict things that don't come true ... just like the predictions of global warming (aka climate change) have not materialized. But then, altering the raw data to make it appear like these predictions are accurate is demagogic. Besides anyone who thinks we can accurately take the temperature of our entire planet is a tad nutso.

Anthropomorphic Animals -- Long before PETA, there was the feeling that all animals were human-like creatures in a different form ... and this belief is metastasizing into the desire for Constitutional guarantees for animals. Certainly the movie "Bambi" went a long way in creating this meme ... when Bambi's father was shot by the evil hunters. Bambi's mother then consoling Bambi made total sense to us kids ... and millions of young minds were forever prejudiced into this notion that animals were effectively "human.". But humans have incisors for a reason ... and it is not to tear into lentils.

Green Energy -- All green energy projects (except hydroelectric and atomic) are basically uneconomic when compared the carbon-based production ... and may be so forever. Thank God we had hundreds of millions of years of laying down of hydrocarbons on Earth. Solar and wind powered energy production survive only because of government subsidies. When we eventually run out of hydrocarbons ... hundreds of years hence ... we should have suitable replacements. Man is a very resourceful type.

World Government --This was Woodrow Wilson's wet dream which has been evolving now for a hundred years, but is about to come acropper with the growing realization that it is an expensive, self-absorbed, undemocratic, prejudiced, and ineffective bureaucratic nightmare. If world government ever does come about, I believe it will not grow out of our current United Nations.

Regenerated Organs -- Using your own stem cells to regenerate one or more of your organs is a technology that I do believe will eventually come about ... however when this might occur is maddeningly unpredictable. Perhaps in ten more years?