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If you depend on current trends for you thinking, you'll never predict the future.

> If you depend on current trends for you thinking, you'll never predict the future.

Yes you will, and quite well. You'll miss the fundamental shifts though, but there is no way to predict them anyway.

Sorry to be a smartass, but isn't this post self-refuting?

I don't think so. For example, newspaper profits were near their all time high in 2008[1]. Following trends of newspaper profitability would not have lead an observer to predict the massive collapse of that industry in the subsequent years.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_newspapers

What I'm saying is that

> If you depend on current trends for you thinking, you'll never predict the future.

is itself an observation about current trends in the efficacy of predicting the future, and therefore, if it's true, must be false.

The statement is unconditional and timeless. It says something about the concept of "current trends", but it does not reference current trends to bolster its argument. E.g., examining current trends now isn't held to be less useful than examining them fifty years ago would have been.

The statement could still be wrong, but not for the reason you cite.

But the only way to justify such a statement would be to point to... current trends. As the OP did.

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