My friend and associate Peter de Blanc has an interesting post up recently, on how the point-estimate nature of popular futurist prediction signifies a fundamentally non-probabilistic way of thinking about the future and possible future technologies. We tend to think in terms of black-and-white, yes-or-no, rather than probabilities, because it’s easier for us to handle. For instance, most people don’t represent the likelihood of catastrophic climate change as a probability — they tend to think in terms of “it will happen” or “it won’t”. I find myself falling into this way of thinking constantly, and have to exert deliberate effort to preserve a probabilistic frame of mind.