Funny predictions from an engineer

An engineer on a mail list recently posted the following predictions.

It is unlikely that the USA will survive the present financial crisis unscathed. It _certainly_ will be long gone within 100 years.

Here is what I believe will happen shortly (within 25 years):

1. Mexico will become part of a North American Union, together with the USA and (probably) Canada and /or Honduras..

2. Gold will again circulate as the article of exchange, as paper money systems will be replaced.

3. At least 4 major US cities will be destroyed by nuclear explosions, killing millions of people.

4. Except for a few electric vehicles, automobiles will be powered by coal gas (carbon monoxide), as coal will emerge as the energy source of choice. Oil will completely go away as a source of fuel (but will be used as lubricants).

5. Despite its obvious advantages, nuclear generation of electricity will NOT return to common usage because the power plants cannot be protected from terrorists.

These predictions seem very familiar to me, I think I’ve heard many of them over and over again from many different pundits over the past four decades. I don’t think I’ll count on any of them coming true now.

To give a little feeling for the crazy ideas from this guy here’s a few wild statements I believe I’ve read from this guy before. He is re-incarnated. All of the problems in the US are the fault of the Democrats, even when they are not in control of any of the branches of government (e.g. Iraq war, 9/11, budget deficit, you name it, it’s the Dems fault). He can make more money playing poker at casinos than by doing engineering yet he doesn’t do it. He has problems with chips and PC’s that he’s absolutely certain exist yet no-one else, including the manufacturers, has the same problems.

With such great thinking skills I’m glad I’ll never have him working on any projects with me.

Update March 4 2008

A couple more odd statements from this engineer:

In reference to a quote by Lewis L. Strauss from a Speech to the National Association of Science Writers, New  York City September 16th, 1954.

Yes. This quote was made in a 3-page advertisement in Scientific American in 1955. I carried it with me for years. Alas I finally lost it. and I have been very suspicious of Scientific American ever since…

I wonder is he suspecting that Scientific American stole the advertisement from his pocket or is he suspicious of SciAm because they have advertising. Neither makes any sense to me. He followed this up with this gem:

The truth is that nuclear power is the MOST costly of all power generation methods. The US government has never admitted the true costs, because it would probably cause a taxpayer revolt.

Hmm, as a republican nut bag you’d think this guy would be aware that the government doesn’t generate power or control it’s costs (free market) .

Comments closed 7/18/08 to slow the spam