All Predictions Wrong Greatest Hits!
This project has its second birthday
The All Predictions Wrong project – revival of Tuesday Morning Quarterback plus a weekly essay on an eclectic range of subjects – began two years ago today.
I have kept faith with the reading public: All predictions have been wrong!
Click here for a discount that allows you to become paid – access to everything – at 20 percent off.
Along the way I’ve written Substacks about United States politics and public policy, about environmental regulation, about Christian theology, about American football, about sports economics, about globalization and military spending – topics on which I have published books.
I’ve thrown in some quirky obsessions: cars, model trains, rockets, cosmology, movie plot holes and my hometown of Buffalo, New York.
All Predictions Wrong has gone much better than expected, taking just six months to reach the orange Substack bestseller badge, just a year and a half to be named a Substack Featured Publication.
Substack badges: white means at least 100 paid subscribers, orange means at least 1,000, purple means at least 10,000.
Only a few Stacks, mainly publications with a staff, hit purple. I am very happy to have gone orange, with so many paid subscribers, all by my lonesome. In two years on Substack I’ve earned more than my last two book advances combined.
That tells you something about the market for serious books, but also tells you Substack has invented a successful new model both for writers and for readers. (The Substack model is in the process of expanding to video, visual art, podcasts and music: All Predictions Wrong will stay written-word-only.) While serious books are struggling, serious writing is thriving on Substack.
To all my paid subscribers – thank you for making this possible!
Fun fact: as of February, Substack has more paid subscribers than the New York Times and Washington Post combined. None of us creating Substack really know what we’re doing. But whatever we’re doing, it’s working.
To celebrate the second birthday of All Predictions Wrong, I’ve assembled some Greatest Hits – quotations from memorable essays, plus links to the originals.
I’ve left Tuesday Morning Quarterback out of Greatest Hits because TMQs are sports columns built around the week’s games. The rest of All Predictions Wrong is stand-alone.
Today’s birthday feature is not paywalled, as I hope to win new readers.
And here’s the discount offer again just in case you missed the link above.
I know about the missing letter “T” but couldn’t figure out how to edit an offer. Two years on, Substack tech sometimes frustrates the staff, that is to say, me.
And surely there is someone in your life who spends too much time with TikTok or Instagram. Give that person the gift of reading by giving All Predictions Wrong (or any Substack, but really, mine is best).
Anyone who becomes a paid subscriber in 2025 keeps the current rate regardless of future price increases. That’s a nice feature I look for when I subscribe to violinists and pianists on Patreon.
And rest assured, Tuesday Morning Quarterback will return when the autumn leaves begin to fall, continuing weekly through that Super Bowl thing you might have heard about. This coming season, in addition to the NFL, TMQ will examine the evolving landscape of college football economics.
And now – All Predictions Wrong Greatest Hits!
From the annual A Cosmic Thought review of science, 2024 edition:
“Let me propose a way to understand recent findings regarding the cosmos and the history of humankind:
The supernatural has in fact been confirmed, it’s just way different than expected.
We have not found a glowing figure seated on a throne of glistening gold. What has been found in the current generation seems to meet one definition of supernatural – far more magnificent than people can comprehend.
Albert Einstein, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Henrietta Leavitt and other great minds of the near past died believing there are a small number of galaxies holding perhaps a few million stars. Current estimates have the universe at 100 billion galaxies holding at least a septillion stars.”
“For at least 150 years, assumptions about economics and public policy have been driven by growth of practically everything – more babies, more resource use, more environmental harm, more vehicles and housing, more social stress, more and larger cities.
A fundamental shift may be approaching, one in which problems caused by resource consumption and population growth stop increasing and begin a long cycle of diminishing.
Major peaks are in view – the population peak, the oil demand peak, the greenhouse gas peak, the cars peak, the human fertility peak.”
Why do the wealthy and powerful promote fear?
“About 75 years ago Hannah Arendt, one of the great thinkers of the 20th century, warned that newly developed mass communication would give elites a means to keep the public in an unending state of fear.
People who are fearful can be manipulated – especially, into assenting to the privileges of the wealthy and powerful.
Fear may rationalize more money and power for those who already have both. After all if there are existential threats, maybe only the rich can save us.
A telling indicator is that during the COVID emergency restrictions, the world’s 10 richest people roughly doubled their net worth.
Don’t think the very richest failed to notice how fear made them richer. Maybe Elon Musk intuits that spreading fear will help him get whatever he wants.”
[Note: published months before Musk became head of DOGE.]
The low-cost greenhouse gas improvement that’s hiding in plain sight
“There’s a practical way the United States could make large cuts in greenhouse emissions without spending trillions of dollars building electric vehicle infrastructure.”
Why time begins to pass more quickly as you age
“In youth the school day is eternal, summer camp lasts a lifetime, the seasons drag on, anticipated events are distant. Around middle age, time begins to speed up. Didn’t we just go home for Thanksgiving a couple months ago? Once the senior years begin, snap your fingers and summer is over.
There exists an underlying math to these perceptions. Let me demonstrate this math to you.”
Naming a deeply felt condition: Collapse Anxiety
“In the main the economic picture is favorable. [Published September 2024.] Unemployment is low. Goods are in ample supply. Living standards keep rising for most people.
Five years ago the United States had 24 percent of the global GDP. Now it’s 26 percent. We’re absolutely steamrollering China, with 17 percent of global GDP.
So why aren’t people happy about the economy?
It’s more than housing and grocery store prices.
Subconsciously many think, ‘Sure most things are fine now. But it’s all going to collapse. There won’t be food on supermarket shelves. The electricity will fail. There won’t be anywhere to run. We are living on borrowed time.’”
This is Collapse Anxiety, which has been palpable in American society since well before the physical collapse of the World Trade Center.
No one’s ever really dead in action movies
Some fun with pop culture:
“Pop characters who died then came back to life include Superman, Harry Potter, Jean Gray, Sue Storm, Seven of Nine, Dr. Strange, Dr. Octopus, Dr. Smith (in the reboot of the remake of Lost in Space, unless it was the remake of the relaunch).
“Others who came back to life include Captain America, Groot, Neo, Sandman, Nick Fury, Ghost Rider, Sarah Connor, the Wolverine, Mr. Spock, Mr. Data (Mr. Data coming back to life caused his evil twin Lore to come back to life), Optimus Prime, Miles Quaritch (the Big Bad of Avatar), Green Arrow, Sherlock Holmes, Jack Bauer, Hugh Culber & Philippa Georgiou (Star Trek Discovery), Maria Hill, Electro, Black Panther, Gamora, Spiderman, Olivia Dunham (Fringe), Caitlin Snow (The Flash TV series), Caitlin Todd (NCIS), Jason Todd (second Robin, after Dick Grayson), Gisele Yashar (the Gal Gadot character) and Han Lue in the Fast franchise, and Starbuck on the reboot of Battlestar Galactica (unless it was a “reimagining”).
“Still more who came back to life: Ming the Merciless, Kang the Conqueror, Darth Maul, Green Goblin, Soldier Boy, the wizard Shazam, Sister Lilith & Mother Superion (Warrior Nun), John Wick (who is shot multiple times at close range then falls off a skyscraper and comes back to life without medical care), James Bond (who is shot multiple times at close range then falls off a high bridge and comes back to life without medical care), Deadpool, Worf, Hank Pym, Dr. Brenner (Stranger Things), King Kong (twice in the same movie), Lex Luthor (multiple times), Ernst Stavro Blofeld (multiple times), Godzilla (multiple times including twice in the same movie), Wednesday Addams, Love (Thor’s daughter), Red Skull, Bucky Barnes, Reva Sevander, Gavin (protagonist of NBC’s goofy La Brea), Captain Picard, Zeus, Zoom, Emperor Palpatine, Gandalf, Ash in Pokemon, the Iron Giant, Viserion the dragon, Bugs Bunny, the Bud Knight, Eagly the Eagle, Mr. Peanut and Yukon Cornelius.”
The monument the world doesn’t know
The Vimy Ridge shrine in France is among the most emotionally powerful objects ever built by humanity
“I’ve lived a fortunate life, seen many amazing sights -- but never anything like the memorial to the 1917 battle of Vimy Ridge, where 8,000 Canadian, British and German soldiers and nurses died over who would control an escarpment.
Designed by the sculptor of monuments Walter Seymour Allward, the site took 11 years to build. Allward spent a full year selecting materials, notably limestone from an ancient Roman quarry in Croatia, stone that weathers exceptionally slowly. It was worth the effort – a century later, etchings on the memorial are distinct and easily read.
The monument covers 250 acres with pedestal and spires at the center of the escarpment, dominating the view in every direction. Trenches, tunnels and battlements were left in place, today overgrown but clearly visible.
Because the two pylons are asymmetrical, at the time the memorial design was denounced as modernist. Today, it strikes the viewer as traditionalist.
The memorial is not a tourist attraction because the location is off the beaten path. The 90-foot spires and numerous statues depicting gods slain and goddesses weeping will leave you dumbstruck.
When we think about the hideous losses of war, we tend to focus on the soldiers, nurses and bystanders who die as the direct result of combat. We should think, as well, of those who are never born, because those who would have become their fathers or mothers instead were shot down.”
(This is my favorite of my own Substacks, and the one I receive most responses to.)
“Maybe there is a preexistent creator God, maybe there is nothing beyond our fallen selves. I don’t pretend to know.
Maybe Christ was a supernatural child, maybe he was a regular guy born with talent. I don’t pretend to know.
I do know Jesus was a wise, gentle man who taught us to love one another. That’s why I am a Christian agnostic.
The geography of spirituality is not limited to believers and atheists. Agnosticism gets overlooked.
It is common for agnostics to attend church, synagogue, mosque or other houses of worship in Western, Eastern and indigenous traditions.
I don’t mean this in the literalist sense that some people attend worship services despite not really believing what they hear. I mean this in the larger sense that to be an agnostic who belongs to a religion is not a contradiction in terms, is a real thing.
There are millions of Christian agnostics, Jewish agnostics, Islamic agnostics and agnostics active in other traditions: persons who follow the moral teachings of a religion, and participate in the faith community, but doubt the mythology.
Indeed, agnostics who embrace a religion may be the largest spiritual group in our world.”
The U.S. has adapted 9 of 10 planks of the Communist Manifesto
“Pointing across the presidential debate stage, Donald Trump said of Kamala Harris, ‘Everybody knows she’s a Marxist.’
Trump was right – the vice president Harris is indeed a Marxist. He ought to know, since Trump is a Marxist too.
Most leading contemporary figures in American politics, business and academia are Marxists. They just don’t use the term.
A reason capitalism did not collapse is that America adapted nine of the 10 planks of the Communist Manifesto.”
This essay goes on to review the 1848 Communist Manifesto and show how amazingly similar it is to current United States law and government policy.
[Published September 2024] “Twenty years ago U.S. public debt, the serious kind -- owed to third parties who can demand repayment, not funny-money intergovernmental ledgers -- was $12 trillion (converted to current dollars). Today public debt is $35 trillion.
That’s almost twice as much borrowed in last 20 years as in the previous 214 years, a reckless debt increase even when factoring in rising population and GDP, and backed by both major parties.
A prominent American saw this future: the populist William Jennings Bryan, Democratic candidate for president in 1896, 1900 and 1908.
Bryan’s campaigns were based around a cry for Free Silver – the lingo of his time for what is now Federal Reserve money printing. Bryan wanted big increases in the money supply, easy credit, debt and inflation. Today’s methods are different from what Bryan called for, but ends are the same: borrow, borrow, borrow without restraint. Free Silver won!”
“In decades to come will aging Gen Zs feel nostalgia for getting a PlayStation? It’s the moment of childlike happiness that matters more than the gift. As that Jesus guy noted, to be childish is bad, to be childlike is good.
I’m glad there were no video games when I was young. I would never have read the classics -- or built train sets.”
Traditionally it’s July 4, 1776. There is a case for June 21, 1788, the day the United States Constitution was ratified.
July Fourth was the Declaration of Independence. However powerful, the Declaration of Independence is not law. The Declaration did not create a nation. The Constitution played those roles.
Ratified on June 21, 1788, the United States Constitution became, and remains today, the most important document of human history.
For all its defects – this essay will lay them out – the United States Constitution formed the framework of our world’s most successful society.”
My annual avowal that Christmas Eve is the best day of the year. Includes,
“The most splendid Christmas gift, the most marveled and magic, is the gift that has not yet been opened. Opaque behind wrapping or winking foil, it is a box full of possibilities. An unopened present might be anything -- gems, crystal, oranges, a promise of devotion…
…wise scholars and shabby shepherds alike went to Bethlehem because they hoped what was happening there would elevate humankind -- to make us deserving of each other.
So far, it has not worked out that way. But that does not mean the ideal was wrong or the goal unattainable. What might be is elusive: not impossible.
Peace on earth and mercy mild still are possible. On Christmas Eve, all things are possible.”
Robert Oppenheimer and the Great Filter
“Ever since 1960, when a large radio telescope in Green Bank, West Virginia, began the first systematic SETI – Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence – and heard nothing, scientists and philosophers have speculated about why the galaxy seems uninhabited except for us.
Is this because other worlds invented the atomic bomb too?”
Free speech is the worst policy, except for all other policies
To have freedom of thought, we must accept that sometimes people will say awful things
Essay looks at the attempts by elite colleges and universities, and by publishing houses, to prevent freedom of speech, in the name of ideology. Asks whether Charles Darwin could get Descent of Man into print today, since it’s a book-length argument that all mammals are (for evolutionary reasons) either male or female.
Delves into the weird attempt by The Atlantic – the best general interest publication in the world and I should know since I was on the masthead for 38 years! – to demand Substack be denied freedom of speech.
The Atlantic was trying to damage a rising competitor, not make any serious argument about free expression. But the example shows how readily this issue is corrupted.
Pop culture fun: Novels and movies of the past – what did they think would have happened by now?
“In Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, released 1968, by the year 2001 there is a city on the Moon, reached by regularly scheduled Pan Am service. A nuclear-propelled spacecraft weighing 5,400 tons (110 times the mass of an Apollo mission) is on its way to Jupiter. A sentient AI runs the ship, with passengers in suspended animation.
What actually happened? No one has stepped on the moon since 1971, the heaviest manmade object sent to Jupiter, an automated probe, weighed three tons, and Pan Am went out of business in 1991.”
“Ray Bradbury’s 1954 short story When the World Ends has Judgment Day arrive on October 19, 1969. God causes everyone to experience a dream that makes people feel calm at the last. Bradbury’s 1953 short story The Veldt depicts an early 21st century society in which highly realistic electronic simulations are destroying the minds of the young. Hmmm…”
Minority Report, a 1956 novel by Philip K. Dick, says that by the year 2000, American government will have the ability see the future. Actual situation: American government cannot predict next week.”
Many other examples in this edition.
“Often we fail to notice what is not happening. Why isn’t there a United States energy crisis?
As recently as 1978, Congress banned many uses of natural gas, in order to conserve the tiny bit believed to remain. As recently 2001, Vice President Dick Cheney spoke about impending oil and electricity shortages in apocalyptic terms.
Instead, according to the Energy Information Administration, in 1980 there was 2,500 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in the global reserve. Since 1980, the world has consumed 3,700 trillion feet, and today there are about 7,400 trillion feet in the reserve.
Society has used more natural gas than was known to exist in 1980, yet today we have three times as much in reserve.
Meanwhile U.S. domestic crude oil production has more than doubled since Cheney predicted a coming shortage.
Government has played some role in the bounty of primary energy – but mostly it’s been the private sector finding innovating ways to prospect for oil and gas, while improving energy-efficiency so each therm goes farther.”
I found something a beloved, departed editor told me to look for.
A literary detective story.
Right now is the golden age of reading
“Selection and availability of publications has never been better. Any reader can consult newspapers from all over the world, often at no charge. This takes only seconds – instead of a trip to the library, and pawing through physical stacks.
Having lived in Pakistan, I often check Pakistan Today. Having grown up in Buffalo, New York, I often check the Buffalo News. Headline a few days ago: BUFFALO RANKS AMONG THE BEST CANNABIS CITIES.
Many publications can be searched online, and more are adding this tool all the time. That’s a huge improvement for readers over going to a library and turning the crank on a microfiche viewer.
Social media may seem like an echo chamber – but that happens if you always opt for the same opinions. If you want different opinions, they are easily found.
High-quality specialized publications such as New Atlantis and Quanta are offered to readers for small fees, or free. Reference tools are all around you, often without charge, easily accessed. Scientific and medical studies, government reports – documents once shielded from view -- now can be opened on your phone.
Plus Substack has developed an entirely new way to read, to select content and to support real writing.”
About All Predictions Wrong
In addition to TMQ on Tuesday through the NFL season, there will be an All Predictions Wrong, on an eclectic range of topics, on most Fridays, plus bonus editions depending on news events.
A subscription to All Predictions Wrong includes Tuesday Morning Quarterback, so it’s two-for-one.
"Substack has invented a successful new model both for writers and for readers."
In Legacy Media, particularly Print, if I wanted to read the latest from Gregg Easterbrook, I had to subscribe or buy a whole newspaper or magazine. Substack lets me curate my feed to my liking.
"All Predictions Wrong will stay written-word-only.)"
But if all your predictions are wrong, then you will not stay written-word-only. I'm calling this the Easterbrook Paradox and now excuse me while I file a trademark.
Congratulations!! I wanted to also say thanks for giving me many hours of pleasure over the past number of years (I've been a reader since the early days of TMQ). More than ever we need voices like yours to put things in perspective, confound, tease and make us laugh. As a Canadian, I like to have a rational window open into your world. As the old adage goes: An elephant and a mouse are in the same room. The elephant doesn't care where the mouse is or what the mouse does, but the mouse ALWAYS has to know where the elephant is and what it does. Keep on moving' on.