John (unfilmed February 2020 script): coronavirus may prove catastrophic within two months (2020)
prediction · status: proved wrong · last event: proved wrong (2021-10-08) · owner: John
In a script he wrote on 3 February 2020 and never filmed, John allowed that within two months coronavirus might be remembered as catastrophic. Sharing the script in October 2021, he asked how he had imagined a worst case only 60 days long.
Origin known from later mentions
2020 in the title is when this began; it first appears in the videos read here in 2021, so the earlier part is known only from what is said later.
About: COVID-19 pandemic, infectious disease
| date | event | what | video |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-10-08 (happened 2020-02-03) | predicted | The script's worst case: in two months we might remember coronavirus as having been catastrophic. (hedged) | On February 3rd, 2020, I Wrote a Video I Didn't Make. Here It Is. 00:02:35 |
| 2021-10-08 | proved wrong | Current John asks how his past self, who studies and is obsessed with infectious diseases, imagined a worst case only 60 days long. (playful) | On February 3rd, 2020, I Wrote a Video I Didn't Make. Here It Is. 00:02:46 |
What is said about it
4 statements, by date (the events above are the turns of the thread; these are the details).
- 2021-10-08 · On February 3rd, 2020, I Wrote a Video I Didn't Make. Here It Is. — John says we can use the past to understand the present and imagine the future, but it can never give certainty about the future or the present; one benefit of studying the past is reminding us of that. — 00:02:52
- 2021-10-08 · On February 3rd, 2020, I Wrote a Video I Didn't Make. Here It Is. — John says we can discuss the 17 causes of World War I, but nobody on January 1, 1914 had any idea what 1918 would look like. — 00:03:15
- 2021-10-08 · On February 3rd, 2020, I Wrote a Video I Didn't Make. Here It Is. — John says living amid history demands a measure of humility, because we don't know. — 00:03:29
- 2021-10-08 · On February 3rd, 2020, I Wrote a Video I Didn't Make. Here It Is. — John has no idea what the world will look like 20 months from now, and rather than saying he can't wait, says he can wait. (unsure) — 00:03:33