Why is the future absurd?

[nancylebov]

A comment I posted at Overcoming Bias.

Part of why the future looks absurd is that people want novelty--not absolute novelty and not all the time, but a lot of smart and weird people are working on making changes, some of which will catch on. A futurist isn't going to be smart and weird enough to predict all the possible changes being offered or which ones will have a long term effect.

It's not just that technological change builds on itself, so does social change. I don't think it was completely obvious that the civil rights movement would contribute to gay marriage becoming a serious political issue.

No matter how hard you try, you are of your time. You can expand the range of your imagination, but the future outnumbers you.

I'm still working on the question of why the future isn't just unpredictable, it's absurd. Maybe there's something about human cultures which requires limiting both what people do and what people can imagine *anyone* doing to a small part of the range of possibilities.