31 December 2009

Happier New Predictions from wordup!


We're all brimming with predictions about 2010 at this time of year. We know that a year is a long time in politics, yet for some reason there is a collective over confidence, peaking in the New Year, that we have a handle on the most important events that will take place in the next 12 months.

I'd like to lead a retreat from over extended predictions and it seems I am in good company. With Japan.

Japan's official weather agency has ceased making its traditional prediction about the start of the cherry-blossom season. "The agency has given out such information in early March every year but we will no longer do so from next year," said agency official Yoshitoshi Sakai. I also salute their courtesy for providing almost 3 months notice of the policy change.

This is a serious issue for me. Not the start of the blossom season, although a precise prediction is great for making advance travel arrangements to see Japan in bloom.

Good models help us peer through the fog of observation and reveal the best interpretation of what is going on. We like to know what the future will bring, but dislike the fact that some of it is fundamentally unknowable to us.

Consider that a good visionary may not be someone claiming to see furthest, but rather someone that sees the 'here and now' differently. Arguably, it is from this that we might learn the most.

Happy New Year!