1. A point of detail on the prediction here attributed to Thomas Watson: Wikiquote has this to say: 2. One point that jumps out at me as important is the phenomenon Crichton calls "crisisization". All kinds of groups have their own interests in portraying present states of affairs as crises (most obviously businesses, including the media, and politicians). With all this trumped-up panic in the air it's very easy to be distracted from the reality of one's own life and into a world of make-believe anxiety and doom. I know it was years before i realized this was happening to me, and I'm still vulnerable to it, and it's not good for my mental health. I can't be the only one - what's the effect of this cheap crisis-talk on the well being of us all? Not good I suspect. That said, the answer isn't to just ignore all news, but to be critical about what you hear. Is someone making an overblown claim or is there good reason to think something is a crisis? I can't agree with him about climate change not being a crisis, since here the results of our most careful, widespread, expert investigation suggests that it has all kinds of negative ramifications, and the predictions of earlier models are already being confirmed. The question to ask is whether someone is claiming x is a crisis because of rigorously examined sound evidence or because of intellectual laziness and/or self-interest. More often than not, it's one of the latter. But some things really are crises and then, while no-one knows what's going to happen, not all guesses are created equal. In general, "don't believe you know what's going to happen" is good advice though. We more often err in the direction of overconfidence than underconfidence.* * With the possible exception of kleinbl00. :)Expertise is no shield against failure to see ahead. That’s why it was Thomas Watson, head of IBM, who predicted the world only needed 4 or 5 computers. That is about as wrong a prediction as it is possible to make, by a man who had every reason to be informed about what he was talking about. Not only did he fail to anticipate a trend, or a technology, he failed to understand the myriad uses to which a general purpose machine might be put.
Often dated to 1943. Thorough research of Watson's writings and statements have produced no example of him saying this. It appears to be a corruption of a remark by Howard Aiken that four or five computers could meet all of the United Kingdom's computing needs. See Ralph Keyes (2006), The Quote Verifier.