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If we canβt see or even visualize a trend as it is emerging, we subjugate it to the distant future and assume that we can have no bearing on it today. This is why you see so many predictions, where experts in various subject areas guesstimate when a particular tech innovation will arrive. We assign a timeline that sounds far-off (twenty-five years from now, fifty years from now), and then we essentially allow ourselves to stop tracking it. This is especially true of trends that are still emerging from the fringe, such as a Brainet connecting a cardiologist, a vascular expert, and a roboticist with cardiac and thoracic surgeons for a complex operation. In order to calculate where a trend is on its trajectory, we have to resolve our own belief biases and fight against our desire to confirm the existence of a future scenario before we believe in its plausibility.
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Amy Webb (The Signals Are Talking: Why Today's Fringe Is Tomorrow's Mainstream)