Bet 123

Duration 200 years (02003-02203)

“Downtown American cities in two hundred years will look pretty much as they do now.” Detailed Terms »

PREDICTOR
Kevin Kelly

CHALLENGER
TBA

Kelly's Argument

Same ingredients -- buildings no taller than now, a few new and different; similar mix of uses, residential, office, mini-manufacturing; streets full of vehicles, no flyways. Populations at the same order of magnitude. The industrial revolution was about re-arranging the matter in our lives; it made the city. The information revolution is not going to mess much with the atoms in our city; it will re-arrange our work, our relationships, and our identities, and animate the inanimate in the city. But standing downtown, you'll see what you see now.

Kelly was challenged to a bet!

Kevin Kelly is negotiating the terms of a bet about this prediction. It will soon be added to Bets on the Record.


Detailed Terms

We'll pass around 24 random pictures of the skyline of contemporary cities from the year 2203 and the year 2003 to school children and ask them if they can tell which ones where taken when.