People demand to know the future. That’s impossible, but anyone can make a guess as to what’s going to happen. It’s easy to be right about the superficial things. But it takes a special talent to see the deeper future that lies in wait. 22 years ago, Eugene Christiansen had a good read on where Las Vegas was heading:
But there’s a huge incentive for those running businesses to get a peek into the future. If they can get a little ahead of the curve, they can invest more wisely, make more money and presumably be happier. Journalists, too, like to see things before they happen: Getting the big scoop leads to professional recognition and personal validation.
The problem, though, is that the future we see is hardly ever the one we get. Even when forecasts are accurate, the big picture can change so much that they are meaningless; sometimes so many of the small details are fudged that we don’t realize the future is actually here.
Read more: Casino Future Was Not So Hard to Predict 22 Years Ago
At first blush, Christiansen’s assertion about which casino was “the future” seems laughable, but when you look at it, he was absolutely right. I