The Future As Predicted By Google Search Results

Richard and I have had this conversation a few different times. I’d be interested to know what your opinion is. Would it be better to know for certain what the future holds so you can be prepared for what’s coming or to live each day not knowing what is going to happen next? We both agreed that it is better not to know. It makes for a much more fulfilling and fun life to roll with the punches as they come, and to live each moment not knowing what the next moment will bring.

With that being said, I’ll admit it’s still fun to pay a dollar at the local fair for a fortune teller to read my palm or to check out the horoscopes. It’s all in good fun of course. There is something about someone predicting the future that is intriguing to many of us. Of course, it’s not because we think what he or she says will really happen, but more because we are entertained by it all. For a geek, I can’t think of a more entertaining fortune teller than Google itself. Randall Munroe, the very funny guy behind xkcd, created this cute timeline based on the first page of Google search results for certain phrases.

According to Worldometers (real time world statistics), at this exact moment, there are 6,919,411,559 people on the planet, and my guess is that we will reach 7 billion before 2012. However, it’s kinda cool to learn when the national debt in the States will be paid off, when Jesus is planning to return, and when nanotechnology will make humans immortal. Thanks for that Randall! :)

Via: [Neatorama] Header Image Credit: [Fer Gregory / Shutterstock]