Has The Times lost all credibility?

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BrumJim

Forum Stalwart (won't take the hint and leave...)
Front page can be found here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-34461192
Or buy nicking a copy from your Newsagent, although that doesn't help, as he would have to pay for it anyway, therefore not depriving the Murdochs of any pennies.

Right hand article. First paragraph, if I can read it correctly, starts:
"To those looking forward to their retirement or enjoying it already, it may sound like the stuff on nightmares. Yet working to the age of 100 and doing 40 different jobs may well become reality for today's children, according to an expert." (my itallics)

Second paragraph starts:
Bobit Halfwit (may have got that wrong), a futurologist .....

So, The Times, a once credible newspaper, is now defining a "Futurologist" (i.e. made-up job spec with no qualifications, no industry body, no quality control, modern version of a Snake Oil Salesman) as an expert?

:banghead:
 

Booyaa

Veteran
To be fair, the definition is..

noun
1. a person who has special skill or knowledge in some particular field; specialist; authority:
 
OP
OP
BrumJim

BrumJim

Forum Stalwart (won't take the hint and leave...)
To be fair, the definition is..

noun
1. a person who has special skill or knowledge in some particular field; specialist; authority:

Exactly. Does he/she have a special skill or knowledge of the future, or an ability to write tempting press releases? Expert in Press-release-ology, yes. The future? :thumbsdown:
 

vernon

Harder than Ronnie Pickering
Location
Meanwood, Leeds
Second paragraph starts:
Bobit Halfwit (may have got that wrong), a futurologist .....

So, The Times, a once credible newspaper, is now defining a "Futurologist" (i.e. made-up job spec with no qualifications, no industry body, no quality control, modern version of a Snake Oil Salesman) as an expert?

:banghead:

My futoristic forecast is that your opinion and objections to the word futorologist will not make any difference to the future unlike the work of the futorologists.
 

IDMark2

Dodgy Aerial
Location
On the Roof
I find bookies to be better futurologists than I am.
 

vernon

Harder than Ronnie Pickering
Location
Meanwood, Leeds
Eighteen years ago during a literature search for my long abandoned PhD in educational computing, I came across a futurist article written by Dr Vannevar Bush in 1945 and published in the Atlantic Monthly, now called The Atlantic. It dealt with a device called the Memmex and how it might be used. The technology to bring the device to fruition did not exist at the time and the article is worth reading. See how many modern computing, networking, and information management references you can spot in it.

As We May Think.

Other futuristic forecasts dealing with computers have been wide of the mark.

I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."-- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers of the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh one and a half tons."-- Popular Mechanics, March 1949

There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home."-- Ken Olsen, founder, Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

Within five years, I predict [the tablet] will be the most popular form of PC sold in America."-- Bill Gates, Microsoft co-founder, 2002

There is practically no chance communications space satellites will be used to provide better telephone, telegraph, television, or radio service inside the United States." -- T. Craven, FCC commissioner, 1961


Our imagination is the only limit to what we can hope to have in the future - Charles Kettering
 

Flying_Monkey

Recyclist
Location
Odawa
The Times is The Guardian for wealthy socialists who won't admit it. Hasn't had any credibility since Queen Victoria's reign.

You seem to live in an alternate reality... I can only quote 'Yes, Minister':

Jim Hacker: The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country; The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country; The Times is read by people who actually do run the country; The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country; The Financial Times is read by people who own the country; The Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country; and The Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is.

Sir Humphrey: Prime Minister, what about the people who read The Sun?

Bernard Woolley: Sun readers don't care who runs the country, as long as she's got big tits
 

vernon

Harder than Ronnie Pickering
Location
Meanwood, Leeds
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