Word: predictabilities
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Maybe. Because so many factors lead individuals to commit crime, it is extremely difficult to predict trends. For instance, the crime rate usually slides during good economic times. But that isn't always true, and in any event, no one knows when or even if the Wall Street party will...
...predict three possible scenarios, starting with the Big Divorce. Somewhere around 2025, people will pick a gender equivalent of the Mason-Dixon Line and sort themselves out accordingly. In Guy Land the men will be free to spend their evenings staging belching contests and watching old Howard Stern tapes. In Gal Land the women will all be fat and happy, and no one will bother to shave her legs. Aside from a few initial border clashes, the separation will for the most part be amicable. At least the "battle of the sexes," insofar as anyone can remember it, will...
...pictures. Egyptian temples were a billboard of hieroglyphics. Byzantine churches were spread over with huge gilded mosaics, the Jumbotrons of the 10th century. "Times Square is the place of now and the place of the future," says Venturi. "An environment that is sparkling, decorative and information-giving." They predict that such public buildings as schools and courthouses will increasingly borrow the features of commercial buildings, like neon signage and shop-window fronts...
Asking a die-hard sports spectator to predict how we will spectate in the future can cause terrible cognitive dissonance. The sports fan is not oriented toward the future; he is the retrospective creature par excellence. He travels forward with his eyes glued to the rearview mirror. His preferred modes of spectating are historical--the highlight reel; the classic NFL film with its sonorous, Homeric narration; and, most perfectly, the instant replay, which, of course, instantly historicizes the present...
Trying to predict what will be funny in 25 years is as hard as trying to figure out what will be funny five minutes from now. In fact, I would be hard pressed to identify what it is we all laugh at today...