In 2010, the journal Nature asked experts to predict their fields a decade in the future. Google’s director of research ventured that, by 2020, most search queries would be spoken, not typed. A Harvard geneticist said nano-memory devices would harness bacteria’s ability to navigate the Earth’s magnetic field.
Then Peter Turchin came forward. Originally an ecologist, he made perhaps the boldest prediction: the next decade was “likely to be a period of growing instability in the United States and western Europe”. His models showed instability could spike “around 2020”.
This was February 2010, before Occupy Wall Street or the Arab Spring; the Tea party was a novelty, Donald Trump was just a TV star. Yet in 2020, riots and demonstrations did rise sharply. Unlike other experts, Turchin seemed to have been vindicated.