<...>they've consulted literally hundreds of leading futurologists, technologists, and management experts.<...>

They didn't consult any "Fungineers"? What about entrails? they are just as relevant to the future as they always have been.

£200 a copy , Jesus - clear the bong smoke boys I'm in the wrong job.

not so much for illumination, as support.

Really! what a load of old tripe. Reports like this are generally produced to reinforce and add credibility to an existing point of view, rather than to change people's position and expectation of the future. You'll probably find there are other reports that take opposing positions - and a whole spectrum of reports that offer conclusions between the "everything will be GREAT" and the "we're DOOMED" extremes.

Just like with standards: there are so many to choose from, you can just pick the one you like the look of best.

No doubt some consultancy will make a lot of monkey from this. No doubt other will make just as much from their considered opinions. The good thing is they'll all be right in some ways, and completely wrong in others. However once we get to 2018 (when this one is set) no-one will particularly care what was said by a bunch of navel-gazers ten years previously.

Read, snigger, discard, move-on.

Jimmy Wales has a Facebook "friends" list of 1,809 people - do you honestly think he knows all of us?

a) Jimmy Wales has that many friends and

b) you admit to being one of them!!!

"they've consulted literally hundreds of leading futurologists, technologists, and management experts"

I'm going to sue your asses off 'cause I can't stop laughing.

well, nobody asked me what I thought... I'm more than qualified to comment on possible future outcomes. So is tiddles, my talking cat.

I think its clear when they were meant to be writing the report they went to the pub for some refreshments... had a few too many beers... probably grabbed a kebab on the way home... stuck on Die Hard 4 and then wrote it while completely trashed.

We’ve all been there :-)

Why do they never tell you about these jobs at school?

Symbiotic Ephemeralization beckons.

It's soo beautifuuul.....

Quote: "Terrorists may attack the internet and the Windows environment, bringing work to a halt globally."

Ensure all your critical business systems are not running Windows.

"they've consulted literally hundreds of leading futurologists, technologists, and management experts"

hey! what about the telephone hygienists and hairstyle consultants!

"Other versions of tomorrow initiated by unforeseen events are also possible."

I think the 'initiated by unforeseen events' is a bit superfluous, but I guess they're being paid by the word...

I'm still waiting for my personal heliocopter. I've sat through a few excruciating talks by futurists. They are generally journalists or english majors, who somehow have become "technology pundits". Paul Saffo, Steven Levy, John Perry Barlow, etc, etc. Their comments are rarely accurate and tend to reflect whacky personal political beliefs more than anything else.

an Ig Nobel prize in literature

"...Terrorists may attack .... the Windows environment..."

so in the future the terrorists will be the good guys?

"You can get your copy for 200 quid"

laughing so much, can't breathe................................................................................

It makes me feel so silly, getting all worked up over nothing. Thank God for Futurologists, long live IngSoc and hurrah for our brave lads on the Malabar Front.

BB! BB! BB! BB! BB!...

didnt any of these techno guru's see the Arni flick ?

(the only person it seems who did, is that meglomaniac currently sitting in the big white house in DC, he and his chums probably all hold massive amounts in hi-tech armmaments and star-wars technology stocks and shares)

not to mention they probably already all own secret estates and huge bunkers out in the middle of nowhere... aka equador(with thier own private catte ranches with on site oil and gas wells to keep them in power for the next thousand years).

mines the invisible one on that empty looking hook....

Must be a nice job to have. Spout some technological-sounding mumbo-jumbo, and if it hasn't happened in ten years you're just that much more visionary and able to see farther ahead than others.

I was amused to see this quote displayed prominently on the pdf.

“ Every intelligent thing has already been thought.

You just have to try to think it again at the right time.“

(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

(Goethe lived 200 years ago. I'm glad not everybody latches onto this particular quote.)

<-- the IT? icon because the '?' means "when?" not "where?"

"management experts"

Isn't that an oxymoron?

Mine's the one with the 200 quid in the pocket for my copy... (not, I couldn't afford a tenth of it if I tried, being a humble student!)

...and I'm giving it to you pro bono, no £200 fee here.

I predict that in ten years time people will still be making stupid predicitons about the future in order to make money.

And that I'll still be a sad, cynical old git. Unless SkyNet gets me.

"I predict that in ten years time people will still be making stupid predicitons about the future in order to make money." ..... By Dr Patrick J R Harkin Posted Tuesday 18th March 2008 08:51 GMT

Doc, I'll raise that virtual bet with "I predict that in ten years time people will still be making stupid predicitons about the future in order to spend money." Making money is easy, you just print it, spending it without killing yourself is the weakness in the System and in Man.

They are not very Bright/Switched On, are they?

Every so often someone comments 'I've gone mad, amanfromMars makes sense' or something similar, and I've always thought - 'you're having me on'.

But no. He is as lucid as I today.

Which is why I think I've gone mad.

stark raving mad.

Or perhaps he is just lucid compared to the bunkumologists.

Given the quality of the 'every intelligent thing has already been thought' proposition - which is even more interesting given that it seems not only fairly opposed to Goethe's general philosophical approach throughout his life, but in addition the only place that google can find that quote is in the actual report itself - it would seem that the report is self serving, based on lies and really really deserves quite a lot of opprobrium.

Perhaps we ought to all email them, pointing out the possible fallacy of the quote?

Anyone able to confirm the quote as real or fake?

Another thing (sorry this one has me really going); what the heck is a 'future' report doing consulting a bunch of CEO's, senior managers, and generally technically illiterate 'industry leaders', without crediting any actual technologists of any stripe?

I know the answer will be 'they're the ones who will decide what technologies to adopt' - but that's clearly crap - you only have to look at Gates' public pronouncements on the usefulness of the internet a few years ago to see how far off base a very very clever, technically literate, ceo can get in only a few years, to realise how useless anyone's predictions will be, let alone a bunch of technical illiterates.

Long term predictions are pointless, and actively dangerous;

except mine of course.

13th May, 2018, 16:30 at Sandown. Sprucey boy will romp home at 14:1.

Right - last rant - a few more appropriate Goethe quotes:

The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything.

We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.

There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity.

and my favourite in context:

When ideas fail, words come in very handy.

Gggrrrrrr.

Oh, and Gates icon: Hate his practices, but compared to this lot he is the 'devil we know'. And love. Comparatively. Just comparatively.