Failed predictions merely trigger appeals to yet another new future.

Evidence

Whenever the future failed, as it often did during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, appeal was made to yet another new future patching up the miscarriage of previous predictions. Most important, preachers and politicians appealed to Americans to retain faith in the future as such; they appealed to the future as a solvent and asked the public to believe that the latest technology or social project would fully justify past sacrifices and the endurance of present turmoil. — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 682

Categorization

• XREF: This mechanism — the future as a self-renewing ‘solvent’ — is a pattern that recurs in critiques of modern tech hype and prediction markets. — connects to: The more present antagonisms intensify, the more the future is invoked as false unity. — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 688; Past predictions have foreclosed genuinely open futures — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 751; Imagining a future gain can destroy present wealth — , A Year of World Stories, 5595 (+3 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 682

Broader Connections

• Past predictions have foreclosed genuinely open futures #expands (0.75) — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 751
• Imagining alternative futures can help bring them into being #complicates (0.75) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 365