![CMIP5-73-models-vs-obs-20N-20S-MT-5-yr-means1[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/cmip5-73-models-vs-obs-20n-20s-mt-5-yr-means11.png?quality=75)
But. like predicting the future, it seems that the true provenence is murky.
That said, whether you are making climate predictions, or predictions about what kind of car and highway you’ll be driving in 20 years, predictions about the future are indeed difficult. I stumbled on this film from 1956 today by accident, and I just had to laugh at how far off the mark it was. It made me think of climate science and it’s failed predictions we see in the graph in the upper right.
On the plus side, some predictions in the film have come true. We have GPS Navigation, we have automobile status displays, and we have OnStar vehicle to dispatch communications. What we don’t have is dual jet turbine powered consumer level cars, autopilot (though Google is getting close) or uniformed controllers at freeway intersections that sing.
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Self-driving car is too vague a term. If, for example, we wind up with “Google Only” lanes in which only Google buses and self driving cars are allowed, then it would be safe to say “we aren’t far away”. If we’re talking about a car which will work on even 50% of America’s roads, safely, I think we’re nowhere close.
The problem is machine vision. We have maps and GPS – but the maps are not very detailed (look at Google street map vs. satellite sometime, and compare the street edges vs. what the satellite actually shows. Now consider Captcha: a brilliant idea where text which the automatic book scanners + OCR could not recognize is used to screen out bots. If machine vision in the form of scanners + OCR is unable to function 100% in an area as limited as reading text out of a book – how exactly should machine vision in a dramatically more varied driving environment be trusted? One which not only has all sorts of objects to consider (humans in all shapes and sizes, debris on the road, wildlife, other vehicles including bicycles, skateboarders, scooters, motorcycles, etc – but also has things like rain, dust, snow, sleet?
I have yet to see anything which I would consider anywhere near robust enough to handle the above environments.
Then there’s cost. A cutting edge GPS which can be trusted for “auto driving” will cost $1000 or more. The CPU + multiple sensors like lidar etc – also well up into the $10K or more range.
I foresee a nice toy good for driving facebook billionaires from their Palo Alto mansions to their Palo Alto office or Google-ionaires from their Los Altos mansions to their Mountain View campus, but worthless for anything else.
bushbunny says:
July 27, 2014 at 11:31 pm
> No I meant the rhyme ‘Huff and I bluff and blow your house down’ The one who built his house of bricks sustained the attack. Forgive me folks.
Oh, you mean the Three Little Pigs See the post-modern version at http://www.amazon.com/True-Story-Three-Little-Pigs/dp/0140544518
The future just ain’t what it used to be. And we still don’t wear shiny, one piece, skin tight garments.
About the title. In Sweden it is well known that the originator was Axel Wallengren, a humorist writing as “Falstaff Fakir”. He was born in 1865 and died in 1896, he thus preceded both the eminent Danish scientist Niels Bohr and the frenchman Pierre Dac.
In Swedish:
(short version) “Det är svårt att sia, särskilt om framtiden”.
Direct translation: “It is difficult to predict, especially about the future”
(long version) “Det har alltid varit svårt att sia, det kommer alltid att vara svårt att sia och särskilt svårt är det att sia om framtiden”
Direct translation: “It has always been difficult to predict, it will always be difficult to predict and especially hard is to predict about the future”.
It is intresting to note the choce of the word “sia”, it does translate as “predict” but carries a meaning of “making a prophecy” or “divining” rather than “prognosticate” or “foretell”.
But on the other hand, that is what we are talking about here – isn’t it?
Reminds me a bit of a scene from Dr Zhivago (the Omar Shariff movie). At the end, we see that the story is being related by a Soviet Kommisar to Zhivago’s grandaughter. Obviously the screenplay invention of pro Soviet enthusiasts. they are depicted standing atop a modern hydroelectric dam, wearing those futuristic minimalist uniforms that are meant to denote prosperous utopian futures. This is obviously a world where Soviet ideology has triumphed in solving the problems of production and distribution of wealth.
Why does it remind me of this Soviet dream? Apart from the obvious “isn’t this vision just a perfect utopia”, we are invited to imagine an American car journey – the epitome of individual freedom – under the control of an official. I just cannot imagine the mindset of a 1950s American advert producer coming up with this.
It also seems that predicting the past is very difficult.
Boulder Skeptic says: July 27, 2014 at 3:19 pm
Ralph, we are done when so many people (like you apparently) believe that government should take money and invest it.
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Depends what the money is spent on.
If the government spends it on a home-grown Apollo program, but the people would have spent it instead on Chinese electronics, then the government is doing more good than the people.
The problem we have at present, is that the government spends it on welfare, and the people spend it on Chinese electronics. So we get the worst of both worlds.
Ralph
I am trying to find where I disagree with you. Maybe you made an assumption about my position.
Jimbo:
There is no apparent disagreement between us.
ralfellis says:
July 28, 2014 at 4:01 pm
Depends what the money is spent on.
If the government spends it on a home-grown Apollo program, but the people would have spent it instead on Chinese electronics, then the government is doing more good than the people.
The problem we have at present, is that the government spends it on welfare, and the people spend it on Chinese electronics. So we get the worst of both worlds.
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Sorry, I have to respectfully disagree in whole with this response. No, I don’t believe it depends at all on how YOU redirect MY money. Your way will always be less efficient and result in less innovation than if you leave it in my pocket. I believe you’re halfway to having the mindset of the CAGW believers when you infer that you know better than I how to spend my money. You don’t–whether or not I want to buy Chinese electronics you don’t seem to like.
Individuals will always make better decisions and drive production and innovation more than government can. Period. Competition by individuals or companies using their own money on a level playing field (the provision of which is actually a valid role of government) will drive innovation far beyond what government can. Period.
I design and build satellites that carry some of science instruments producing the very data we are using to show warming is not even close to what modelers predict (or project). Yes, I’m a rocket scientist (or more precisely a space scientist). You want government to drive space investment and innovation. Well, I’ve got news for you from my personal experience. The ability of the US Government to waste money, add inefficiency and thwart innovation in space still amazes me to this day (30 years in the business). I could write a book on it. The US Government has innovated us right into having to pay for rides to space on Russian rockets. Not a real success story is it?
How is your idea of taking my money and spending it on going to the moon really any different than a bunch of scientists and politicians taking BILLIONS every year to model climate? Why do you think you know how best to spend my money any better than they? That seems quite arrogant to me. Where is an Apollo program, or welfare, or climate modeling for that matter, in the Constitution (hint: Article I, Section 8 is the right place to look)? If we want to have the discussion on amending that document to allow it (we’re averaging about one amendment per decade so far), then that’s a different discussion.
I’ll again suggest “Economics in One Lesson” by H. Hazlitt. He destroys this kind of
thinking. You are not thinking of the opportunities lost by excessive taxation (defined by me as taxation beyond what is needed to exercise powers specifically enumerated in the US Constitution), which will always hinder production and innovation regardless of how it’s directed.
And speaking of welfare, we send billions every year to climate scientists trying in vain to prove we are destroying the planet–because a group of people think it’s right to take it from me and direct it a certain way. I just don’t see how you and these scientists/politicians are so much smarter than me about spending my money—regardless of whether I agree that your chosen use is better than other stupider uses like climate science or welfare (I believe very strongly in private charities) or something else. Another great read (or view the 1970’s PBS series) that might help change your mind is “The Power to Choose” by Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman.
I believe if everyone had resisted the thinking that “if we just took a little more and directed all those taxes”, and instead had the mindset of “let’s stick to only the appropriate enumerated roles of the US Government”, we wouldn’t be fighting this bogus climate catastrophe battle in the first place. More money in DC has been a huge enabler for the CAGW side.
You can have the last word.
Bruce
Hi Johan, Could you please precise this is in which chapter? As I have noticed somewhere else (financial groups on LinkedIn), this is a false quote. As I know a little bit about Lao Tzu/LaoZi (after have studied Tao Te Ching in Chinese since childhood for more than 40 years now), I can not find “Those who have knowledge, don’t predict. Those who predict, don’t have knowledge” in Tao Te Ching. About knowledge, Lao Tsu only says “Those who know are not broad of knowledge. Those who are broad of knowledge do not know”. That means in Chinese “Those who REALLY know are not broad of knowledge BUT WITH PROFOUND KNOWLEDGE IN A SPECIFIC FIELD, Those who are broad of knowledge / WITHOUT PROFOUND KNOWLEDGE IN A SPECIFIC FIELD do not REALLY know” in chapter 81. Thank you, Jean-Pierre Xiao-Min Wang
For a fun film showing hi-speed travel, a prolific videographer Tesla owner in Norway posted the entirety of a 5-hr drive out of Oslo at 5X-speed via time-lapse. Very enjoyable watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LHFwdW3wNI
Apparent speed would be about 300 mph, I guess.
Jean-Pierre;
Logical extrapolation of that would be that all generalization is impossible. Which is itself an inadmissible generalization.
Interesting neurological observation is that our sensed present is actually the most recent brain-prediction to compensate for “lag”. Sometimes it anticipates wrongly, and a “double-take” is necessary!
“Prediction may be very difficult, but it would be considerably easier if the criteria for success could be decided after the fact.”
“the five-year plan has been exceeded” was the USSR moto, because they only had to lower the production target after the fact.