I'm puzzled by this take: surely the recent history - the cryptocurrency bubble - the hot air and lack of substance, the extractive scams, is useful lens for current events? But it's not everything, we can't be entirely "based on it" deterministically - as we do indeed "suck at predicting".
That’s easy, if you have a framework of knowledge around things like physics or chemistry or biology(add any domain here), one could predict outcomes of hypothetical use cases with considerable accuracy. Unless you lump all domain knowledge into “history” because it has to have happened in the past…
Do you think chemistry or biology knowedge was given to humans by the gods or the ancient aliens and not based on a history of practical knowedge, experiments and research?
Thats why I added the last sentence. But for the purpose of debate, it is reasonable to distinguish domains like physics from history. It is one thing to study how something was discovered, and another to understand the parameters around an event so that you can predict what might happen.
My point was, that saying “historical event X is somehow similar to ongoing event Y, thus we can reason and predict outcomes of Y based on X” is a false methodology, appealing, but false.
Predicting isn’t some black and white skill. The neocortex doing calculations in the background to predict how heavy a cup of coffee might be or how hot the stove is…is very different from consciously predicting geopolitical events which are based on countless other variables. In a world of 8 billion people of course you will see some get things right, and then conveniently point it out…but most people’s predictions are wrong, and no one pays attention to those results.
