The True Believers (idiots/morons) who see the end of the world as imminent occasionally point to the Web Bot Project as proof that they aren’t idiots and morons, but rather spot-on smart people. Well, heck, everyone deserves a rich fantasy life, even idiots and morons.
Created by Clif High (really, with a surname like ‘High’ his parents named him Clif and couldn’t even add the second ‘f’?) and George Ure, the Web Bot Project was developed in the 1990s to forecast stock market activity. The concept is fairly simple. The Web Bot software roams the Internet, visiting Web pages seeking keywords or phrases. This collected information then becomes a means to peer into the group-think on specific topics.
Now on the surface, while it might appear as a cool concept, it’s really rather creepy. Of course, the Internet if filled with snooping busybodies and voyeuristic creeps. Ure began claiming that the Web Bot could predict the future. For instance, he said that it predicted a “world-changing event” after June 2001. Well, then came 9/11 and, Presto!, he had his world changing event.
As I have said before, making those kinds of predictions is relatively simple. Something happens almost every year that changes the world in one way or another. Look at 2011 with the Arab Spring and the Tsunami in Japan among other events.
However, since 9/11, claims have been made that the Web Bot Project foretold Hurricane Katrina, our current economic crisis and – you’ll love this – the hunting accident in which Vice President Dick Cheney shot his friend. Okay, I might believe that the Web Bot could prognosticate the rise of a stock in the market or some economic trend, but Hurricane Katrina and Cheney’s unfortunate misadventure with his shotgun? Truly, to believe either of those events were predicted by the Web Bot you’d have to be an idiot or a moron. How on earth could Internet technology tell you that a hurricane would not simply slam into New Orleans, but almost destroy the city? And a hunting accident?
Oh, please!
And that’s not all! Apparently, the Web Bot predicts a catastrophic event on December 21, 2012!
Worry not! Many of the Web Bots predictions have proven utterly wrong. And, as one critic wrote: “the predictions made by the technology are usually so vague that people can conveniently fit them onto events after they occur. Also, the fact that so many people are probably writing about a 2012 apocalypse most likely skews the system.”
Ah ha! I am one of the multitude skewing the Web Bot…Wait! That just sounds wrong, doesn’t it?
No comments:
Post a Comment