The Atlantic

New Year's Resolutions Are Predictions About the Future

And humans are very bad at predicting the future.
Source: Brendan McDermid / Reuters

2017 was a wild ride, and 2018 doesn’t seem inclined to put on the brakes. Who could have guessed last year that Matt Lauer would go from to yesterday—felled, along with Harvey Weinstein, Al Franken, Bill O’Reilly, and so many others, by the open discussion of their creepy “open secrets”? That FBI Director James Comey would be fired? That Facebook would find Russian influence operations had reached more than 126 million Americans? That would lose Raqqa and attack Barcelona? That a Nobel peace prize-winner in Burma would allow ethnic cleansing within her borders? That a Congress with a approval rating would pass a tax bill with approval under a president with just approval? That a Democrat would be elected senator from Alabama? Or that a Republican accused of

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