August 22, 2004
Creep-Out Of The Day
John Titor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJohn Titor was a supposed time traveler from the year 2036 who came back to the year 2000/2001 and left several internet bulletin board postings about who he was, how time travel was possible, and several vague bits of news about what would happen over the next few years. Among his predictions:
- John gave technical details about his time machine that involved the use of mini-black holes. He stated that CERN would make an announcement pertaining to this within a year after he discussed it. In the fall of 2001, after John left, CERN issued a press release indicating the possibility of creating mini-black holes was realistic.
- John stated the IBM 5100 computer had special abilities that were unpublished by IBM. Numerous IBM engineers have come forward to confirm this claim.
- John made numerous comments about Constitutional and civil rights changing in the United States.
- John stated that Mad Cow disease would arrive and be downplayed in the United States.
- John stated that WMDs would not be found in Iraq years before a second war was even a possibility.
- John stated that the Olympics would be canceled after 2004.
Whoa!
I can’t help but be skeptical about the whole John Titor thing. It reminds me a lot of some points Isaac Asimov made in a lecture for NPR many moons ago. He pointed out that science fiction anticipate future events through common sense and extrapolation. To me, the John Titor prediction aren’t more than that. Granted, 20/20 hindsight and all that, but all the trends in that list alone have been anticipated for at least the last decade. It’s interesting in a Nostradamus-makes-life-more-dramatic kinda way, but I’d need some harder data. And this is from someone who’d love time travel.
Posted by: Joe Medina at August 22, 2004 09:08 PMI haven't read up on the guy too much but my immediate theory was that someone created the wikipedia page in like the last six months and just made the whole thing up. :-) That would be a good prank.
The rest of his predictions were along the lines of a civil war between rural and urban forces in the united states, which is pretty silly.
Posted by: tunesmith at August 23, 2004 12:07 AM