The particularly informed of humanity are very commonly wrong in their assessments, persistent underestimation, of the speed of change and what actually changes. It's because very few people know how to think effectively.
Failures of extrapolation are most often the cause; not understanding how to think properly, tripping into 2D thinking (extrapolating via some magic forward line, thinking that's how things actually work in reality) and bumping into ignorant logic failures over and over again (associating progress on one thing into broad assumptions that everything of course will progress just like that too, when the things and their potential for progress aren't so tightly bound).
Because X thing progressed rapidly, of course we'll have flying cars in 30 or 50 years. One of the classic failures of ignorant flat thinking of the 20th century. People should ask more questions.
Nobody has proven that they can predict the future reliably, and I doubt anyone can. They'd be golfing with Warren Buffett if they could. For one, predicting the future requires intimate knowledge of multiple disciplines. A space expert isn't going to understand computer chips well enough, for example.
Failures of extrapolation are most often the cause; not understanding how to think properly, tripping into 2D thinking (extrapolating via some magic forward line, thinking that's how things actually work in reality) and bumping into ignorant logic failures over and over again (associating progress on one thing into broad assumptions that everything of course will progress just like that too, when the things and their potential for progress aren't so tightly bound).
Because X thing progressed rapidly, of course we'll have flying cars in 30 or 50 years. One of the classic failures of ignorant flat thinking of the 20th century. People should ask more questions.